HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - A self-proclaimed witch doctor claims, in an hour-long video posted to social media, that he was with the missing mother from Alabama, whose toddler was found wandering alone in Miramar, the night of her disappearance.
Shannon Ryan, who is also from Alabama, is a teacher of witchcraft, according to his Facebook business page, who claims to have known Leila Cavett for over a year.
“Why is it you have a missing woman, and the last person that’s seen her, which is me, who talked to the police, you ain’t heard nothing about me,” Ryan said. “I want to talk about Leila Cavett.”
Ryan also said he took Cavett and her son into his home at one point when they had no place to go. In the video posted to his Facebook page, Ryan said he was in South Florida visiting one of his students who was ill and was in touch with Cavett during that time.
He then learned she had gotten a truck and wanted to buy it, and he said she decided to work with him as an apprentice in witchcraft. Cavett drove down to South Florida on July 25 and met up with Ryan in a Walmart parking lot.
“I said, ‘Let me buy that truck from you,'” Ryan said. “‘I’m not selling my truck.’ I’m like, ‘Leila, come on, sell me the truck.’ From my understanding, I thought she was the reason she was coming to Florida.”
Ryan said he paid Cavett $3,000 for the truck. After they met up, he said the mother got into his car before they headed to the nearby RaceTrac gas station in Hollywood. Photos released by the FBI confirm Cavett was at that gas station.
“She got in the car with me — boom — and we pulled off, just like I told the police department,” Ryan said.
Then, Ryan said they spent the day eating out and at the beach. He said they returned to the same gas station, and that’s when she was last seen.
“Pulled up to the gas station — boom — when I pulled up to the gas station, it’s some guys in a car that she talking to,” Ryan said. “These guys look familiar because they like some [expletive] she was talking to at the beach, and she got no limits [expletive]. She’s a friend of mine, and she don’t care nothing about your boundaries. She would tear your boundary down and start a conversation with you, and you’re going to talk to her. Leila got her and her son and got in the car with those guys. When she get in the car with these guys, it gotta be on camera.”
He said he tried to discourage Cavett from leaving with the men, but she left anyways. He waited in his car by her truck, but she never returned.
At some point, after leaving and returning to the truck, he said he was surrounded by police officers. He took several photos as officers searched his vehicle.
“Police everywhere, they jumped out, ‘Hey, what are you doing? Freeze!'” Ryan said. “We have a missing woman, and I gave the police everything that I know. Everything.”
Ryan added when he met up with police, he did not know Cavett’s son was found alone and that Cavett had been reported missing.
According to his Facebook page, the FBI now wants to speak with Ryan. In what appears to be a screenshot of a text conversation, he told an agent that he will not be meeting with law enforcement again unless they have a warrant for his arrest.
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