In May 2019, fifteen-year-old Riley Crossman vanished from her home in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Eight days later, her remains were discovered in a remote wooded area. The investigation would reveal a horrifying truth about the man living under the same roof.
A Small Town Girl
Riley Crossman was born on December 22, 2003, in Martinsburg, West Virginia, to parents Chantel and Lance. As she entered her teenage years, Riley developed into a vibrant young woman with multiple interests. She danced, sang, and created art.
Her family described her as everything a parent could hope for in a daughter. At school, she maintained friendships and had been dating a classmate named Haydn for approximately eight months.
Their relationship was serious by teenage standards, and Riley’s family approved of the young man.
Riley was the oldest of four children. She had one younger sister and two younger brothers. Her parents, Lance Crossman and Chantel Oakley, had divorced but maintained an amicable relationship for the sake of their children.
Riley split her time between their households, though she primarily lived with her mother.
Life With Mother
Chantel worked two jobs to support her family. Her daily routine was demanding and exhausting. She would work one job in the morning, return home briefly to rest, then head out again for her evening shift.
The family had expanded when Chantel began dating Andy McCauley, who moved into the home she shared with Riley and her two younger brothers.
The living arrangement at 15 Greenway Drive placed Riley in regular contact with her mother’s boyfriend. Andy worked in construction and kept irregular hours. He had his own troubled past, though the full extent of his criminal history was not initially apparent to Chantel or her family.
Riley had established a routine with her mother. Each morning around seven o’clock, she would enter Chantel’s bedroom to wake her and wish her a good day before heading to school.
It was a small ritual that both mother and daughter cherished. When Riley came home from school around 3:30 in the afternoon, she would typically wake her mother from her afternoon rest so Chantel could prepare for her evening job.
On May 7, 2019, that routine played out as usual, though Chantel was feeling ill that day. Despite being under the weather, she got up after Riley woke her and left for her evening shift.
“And when she got home, she woke me up. She said, ‘It’s 3:30, time to wake up,’ and I said ‘Thanks, babe,’” Chantel told Dateline. “Riley said, ‘No problem.’ She was acting normal. She went toward her room and I got ready for work.”
The Last Night
That Tuesday evening appeared unremarkable at first. Riley’s grandmother visited the house and left around seven o’clock. According to Andy McCauley, Riley went to her bedroom sometime between 9:00 and 9:30 PM.
Chantel arrived home from work around 10:00 PM and saw Andy sitting on the couch. She went upstairs and noticed Riley’s bedroom door was closed. Assuming her daughter had gone to bed early, Chantel did not disturb her and went to sleep herself.
“I got home from work around 10:00 p.m. Her door was shut, so by all accounts she was in her room, but I didn’t actually see her,” Chantel told Dateline.
What Chantel did not know was that Riley was texting her boyfriend Haydn during those late evening hours. The messages grew increasingly disturbing as the night wore on.
Shortly after eleven o’clock, Riley told Haydn that Andy was in her room. “Andy’s in my room…Sh. Don’t say anything about it. He can hear everything.”
Thirteen minutes later, at 11:13 PM, she sent another message stating, ‘I’m scared. Babe.’ Then the messages stopped, the Metro News reports.
At 5:40 the following morning, Riley attempted to FaceTime call Haydn. He was asleep and did not answer. The timing was unusual because Riley would not normally need to be awake for school for another two hours.
The missed call would later be seen as potentially significant, possibly indicating an emergency situation.
That morning, Andy McCauley woke at his usual time of four o’clock and left for work. He typically caught a ride with coworkers. Chantel also prepared for her morning shift. She noticed Riley’s bedroom door remained closed but thought nothing of it at first.
Missing
The morning of May 8 began with a small deviation from routine. Riley did not come into her mother’s room at seven o’clock to say good morning. Chantel found this odd but not immediately alarming.
She checked Riley’s room and found it empty. The bed appeared to have been slept in, but Riley was not there.
Chantel assumed her daughter had woken early and gone to school ahead of schedule to meet friends. This was not unprecedented behavior for Riley. Chantel went to work at her morning job.
However, as the day progressed, she became unable to reach Riley by phone. Her calls went straight to voicemail.
Concerned, Chantel contacted Lance, Riley’s father. He also tried to reach their daughter without success. The situation became genuinely alarming when Chantel received a call from the school after three o’clock that afternoon.
Riley had not attended any of her classes that day. She had not been seen at school at all.
“I went upstairs and walked in her room and she wasn’t there. I was mad and scared because, at that point, no one had heard from her. Then I got the call from the school saying she had been marked absent.”
Chantel began calling Riley’s friends. None of them knew where she was. None had heard from her. Riley’s phone continued going directly to voicemail, suggesting it was either turned off or dead.
At approximately six o’clock that evening, Chantel contacted the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office to report her daughter missing.
The initial response was measured. Teenagers run away frequently, and many missing juvenile reports resolve themselves within hours. However, certain details began to concern investigators immediately.
Before even visiting the Crossman residence, authorities attempted to ping Riley’s cell phone to determine its location. The phone was completely dead, yielding no location data whatsoever.
Investigation Begins
Officers arrived at the Greenway Drive residence the following morning on May 9. Lance Crossman had already been to the house and entered Riley’s bedroom. He reported to police that something seemed wrong.
The room showed possible signs of a struggle, and Riley’s television had fallen over.
When investigators examined the bedroom, they found it messy in the typical way of a teenager’s room. However, several important items remained behind. Riley’s school bag was there.
Her glasses, which she wore constantly and needed to see, were in the room. Her purse had not been taken. In fact, the only item missing was her cell phone.
If Riley had run away voluntarily, investigators reasoned, she would have taken far more of her belongings. The glasses especially were telling. Riley could not function normally without them.
Then investigators noticed something more sinister. There were spots of blood on Riley’s bedding. Blood appeared on the comforter, on the blanket, and on her pillow. The amount was not massive, but it was clearly present.
Chantel told investigators something else peculiar. When she had first checked Riley’s room on the morning of May 8, things had been arranged differently.
Someone had been in the room and moved items around between that first check and when police arrived. The bedroom had been altered after Riley’s disappearance was discovered.
Investigators began interviewing everyone who had been in or near the house on May 7. They spoke extensively with Chantel, whose timeline was corroborated by her employers at both jobs.
They spoke with Riley’s grandmother, who confirmed she had left the residence around seven o’clock that evening.
They spoke with Haydn, Riley’s boyfriend. He had been on a school field trip all day on May 7 and into May 8. His alibi was solid, confirmed by teachers and other students.
But Haydn provided crucial information about the text messages Riley had sent him the night she disappeared.
Andy McCauley
Andy McCauley told investigators he had last seen Riley when she went to bed between 9:00 and 9:30 p.m. on May 7. He claimed he woke at four o’clock the following morning and left for his construction job. He said he saw nothing unusual and had no contact with Riley after she went to her room.
McCauley’s coworkers confirmed he had arrived at work that morning. However, they also revealed something McCauley had not mentioned.
He had borrowed a work truck during the day on May 8 and had been absent from the job site for approximately four to five hours. No one knew where he had gone or what he had been doing.
When confronted with this discrepancy, McCauley initially lied. Then, when pressed further, he claimed he had been buying drugs. He said he had not mentioned this to police because he did not want to get in trouble for cocaine use. He insisted his drug activity had nothing to do with Riley’s disappearance.
Investigators noted that McCauley did not have his cell phone with him during this time period, making his movements impossible to track through phone records. They began seeking surveillance camera footage from businesses and traffic cameras to trace the route of the work truck.
A massive search operation launched throughout Berkeley Springs and the surrounding area. Over three hundred volunteers participated. Helicopters scoured the countryside.
The school community turned out en masse. Everyone who knew Riley hoped desperately she would be found alive.
Investigators brought in a cadaver dog to examine the work truck McCauley had borrowed. The dog alerted to the presence of human remains in the truck bed. There had been a body in that truck.
Discovery
Following the trail of surveillance footage, investigators tracked the work truck’s movements on May 8. The vehicle had traveled into increasingly remote areas of the West Virginia countryside. On May 16, eight days after Riley was reported missing, searchers found her remains.
According to Herald Mail Media, Riley’s body had been thrown over an embankment in a wooded area near Martinsburg. The location was isolated and difficult to access.
Her remains were severely decomposed due to the warm weather and exposure to elements. She was partially clothed. She had no bra on, and her underwear was torn.
Dental records confirmed the remains were Riley Crossman. However, the condition of the body made determining a cause of death extremely difficult.
The medical examiner noted that Riley appeared to have suffered bleeding from her nose and mouth based on the blood patterns found on her pillow at home.
The blood on the pillow had been mixed with saliva and confirmed through DNA testing to be Riley’s. The pattern suggested her face had been pressed forcefully against the pillow, consistent with suffocation.
However, many of the physical findings that typically confirm suffocation in an autopsy could not be evaluated because of the decomposition.
Investigators developed a theory of what had happened. On the night of May 7, Andy McCauley had entered Riley’s room.
This was not the first time, based on statements Riley had reportedly made to friends, though these accounts were never fully confirmed. Riley had texted Haydn that Andy was in her room and that she was scared.
At some point, likely in the early morning hours of May 8, McCauley attacked Riley. She apparently woke and tried to FaceTime Haydn at 5:40 AM, possibly hoping he would hear what was happening and call for help. But Haydn was asleep and missed the call.
McCauley likely suffocated Riley, probably using the pillow to muffle her screams. He then hid her body somewhere in the house until after Chantel left for work that morning.
He caught his regular ride to the construction site, then borrowed the work truck and returned to the house. He retrieved Riley’s body, drove it to the remote location near Martinsburg, and disposed of it over the embankment.
Trial and Conviction
Andy McCauley was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, concealment of a body, and death of a child by a custodian. He pleaded not guilty. His trial took place in autumn 2021.
The prosecution presented the timeline of events, the text messages Riley sent to Haydn, the blood evidence from her bedroom, the cadaver dog’s alert to the work truck, and the surveillance footage tracking the truck’s movements.
They presented evidence of McCauley’s lies to investigators and his unaccounted-for time on May 8.
The prosecution acknowledged the challenges posed by the condition of Riley’s remains. They could not definitively prove cause of death through autopsy findings. They had no murder weapon.
They could not specify the exact time or location where Riley died. But they argued the circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly pointed to McCauley’s guilt.
The defense argued that the evidence was insufficient. They emphasized the lack of a confirmed cause of death, the absence of a weapon, and the lack of direct witnesses.
They pointed out that two other adults had been in the house that night, along with Riley’s younger brothers. They suggested the investigation had focused too narrowly on McCauley while ignoring other possibilities.
The defense attorney also challenged the cadaver dog evidence, noting that “human remains” in forensic terms can refer to any biological material from a human being, including something as innocuous as used tissues.
They argued this did not necessarily prove a body had been in the truck.
The jury deliberated and returned guilty verdicts on all counts. McCauley was convicted of first-degree murder, concealment of a body, and death of a child by a custodian. The judge sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
“Justice was served as far as we possibly can do it in our legal system. I wish we had the death penalty. This person deserves to die for the heinous acts that he did.” Sheriff K.C. Bohrer
Andy McCauley had a criminal history predating Riley’s murder. In 2011, he was charged with burglary and destruction of property. In 2013, he faced charges for cocaine delivery and conspiracy to deliver cocaine, receiving a fine.
In 2017, he was charged with vehicle theft. This pattern of escalating criminal behavior culminated in the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl who had been living in the same house, unable to escape his predation.
Riley Crossman had been excited about getting braces. She had plans and dreams and a future ahead of her. Instead, she became the victim of a violent crime perpetrated by someone her family had trusted enough to allow into their home.
