Episode 350

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:14)
Unfortunately, you are right in the middle of all of this.
And to sit here and lie to us to begin with is not helping you at all. This is a friend of yours, or was a friend of yours, and somebody brutally murdered her, they know.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:32)
Hello, and welcome to Season 13, Episode 350 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.
Simpsonville, South Carolina is a small southern town where life moves at an easy pace. Families know their neighbors, church bells still mark the hour, and the peaceful atmosphere feels almost rehearsed. But on the afternoon of October 26th, 2016, the calm was broken. Inside a cramped interview room at the Simpsonville Police Department, investigators spoke to a young man named Ricky Hargrove.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:05)
I will tell you what you've effectively done, Ricky, is you've inserted yourself into a murder investigation. I mean, what do you think?

**Ricky Hargrove** (2:18)
I think who would do something like that? It takes some kind of monster to do something like that to someone.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:26)
This interview with Ricky was one of the first threats in an investigation that would span nearly a decade. It was a horrific homicide case that centered around a 22-year-old woman named Cati Blauvelt. Cati believed she could build a simple life for herself in Simpsonville and was doing what she could do to make that happen.
Cati was an animal lover, and in 2016, she was working full-time at her local pet's mart.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:54)
I just want to confirm with you, she was working here on Monday, and do you remember what her hours were here on Monday?

**SPEAKER_7** (3:00)
It was 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 9 to 2 I don't know exactly what time she left, but I mean, it was no later than 2.15.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:12)
So you were working on Monday, didn't you?

**SPEAKER_7** (3:14)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_2** (3:15)
How was Cati's demeanor that day?

**SPEAKER_7** (3:18)
Perfectly fine. She was talking about picking up her, someone named Cheyenne, I don't know who that is to her, and they were going shopping together.

**SPEAKER_3** (3:29)
On October 23rd, 2016, Cati worked a full-time shift at Petsmart. When she clocked out at around 2:15 p.m., she confirmed plans to meet up with her younger sister, Cheyenne.

**Cheyenne** (3:41)
I said, what are you doing? And she said, I'm driving around.
I asked her, I said, will you take me? Come on, I need to get food. You want to go buy your food? And she said, yeah, I'll be there in an hour. And I said, well, you don't know what you're doing right now. I said, why does it take you an hour to get here? You know? And she said, I don't know. But I kind of just let it go because I was like, you know, maybe she's doing something she don't want to tell me about. She's grown. She can do that, you know?
And so I fell asleep and I caught her back in like an hour and a half and she didn't answer.

**SPEAKER_3** (4:13)
Cati never showed up to meet her sister that day. When phone calls went unanswered, Cheyenne felt the first wave of panic.
She immediately knew that something was very wrong.

**Cheyenne** (4:26)
Her phone was off and then that's when I kind of started to worry. I'm like, Cati never leaves her phone off, you know, Cati never blows me off.
And around like 12.30, one o'clock, I called John and he answered and he sounded like he's just woken up. And I said, I can't find Cati. And I said, I need to know if she's at your house or if you see her. And he answered, just tell me, you know, and he said, no, shut out, I don't talk to her anymore. That's what he said on the phone.

**SPEAKER_3** (4:53)
Desperate to find her sister, Cheyenne did the only thing she could think of. She reached out to Cati's estranged husband, John.

**SPEAKER_9** (5:02)
What's your wife's full name?

**John Blauvelt** (5:03)
Catherine Anne Blauvelt.

**SPEAKER_9** (5:07)
And are you familiar that she's missing?

**SPEAKER_3** (5:13)
28-year-old John Blauvelt was an active-duty soldier in the United States Army. When Cati went missing, he was living and working in Simpsonville as a recruiter.

**SPEAKER_11** (5:23)
So I understand you've been deployed twice?

**John Blauvelt** (5:25)
Yes.

**SPEAKER_11** (5:27)
Iraq or?

**John Blauvelt** (5:28)
Yeah.

**SPEAKER_11** (5:29)
When was the last time you got back?

**John Blauvelt** (5:32)
2010

**SPEAKER_11** (5:34)
How's recruiting? Obviously a lot different than being deployed.