CASSIE Carli said she was happy and excited for her future just days before she was found buried in a shallow grave, her sister says, as it’s revealed her “abusive” ex threw away her phone and refused a DNA test.
Cassie, 37, was found dead inside a barn in Springville, Alabama on April 2, around 300 miles away from where she was last seen alive in Navarre Beach, Florida, on March 27.
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On the evening of her disappearance, Cassie had left her home to meet her ex-boyfriend Marcus Spanevelo – the father of her four-year-old daughter Saylor – for a child custody exchange in the parking lot of a nearby restaurant but never returned home.
Spanevelo, 34, was arrested on the morning of April 2 in Lebanon, Tennessee, and charged with evidence tampering, destruction of evidence, and supplying false information about a missing person in relation to Cassie’s disappearance. Cassie’s body was found hours later.
An autopsy was conducted on Cassie’s remains on April 4, but the findings have not yet been released publicly pending the completion of a toxicology report, which can take several months.
Cassie’s younger sister, Raeanne Carli, said her sibling was in “such a good place” before her death, voicing excitement for her future in a phone call they shared in the hours preceding her vanishing.
Raeanne said she called Cassie on March 26 to ask her how her first day at her new job waitressing at the local army base had gone.
“She had such a great first day,” Raeanne remembered, “and she was telling me all about her trip to the thrift store, showing me all of her outfits and telling me about something she’d found for my son.
“Cassie was just in a really good place and seemed so happy,” she added. “She was beaming.”
‘FRIGHTENED OF EX’
Raeanne said while Cassie was having problems with Spanevelo, whom she was allegedly “frightened” of, she said he sister was trying her best to move on from him.
The pair were for years locked in a bitter custody dispute over their daughter. In August, Raeanne launched a GoFundMe page to help Cassie with her mounting legal fees.
A post on the fundraiser, written by Cassie, referred to Spanevelo as a “master manipulator”, an abuser, and a narcissist.
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Elaborating on her slain sister’s claims, Raeanne alleged that Spanevelo was both verbally and emotionally abusive to Cassie throughout her pregnancy and after Saylor’s birth.
“The verbal abuse was particularly bad,” Raeanne said. “He would body shame her when she was pregnant, and just everything she did wasn’t right or good enough for him.
“He called her stupid, said she didn’t know anything, that she was going to be the worst mother ever – just anything to put her down and make her feel inferior to him.
“The emotional abuse was just extreme. So extreme,” she further alleged.
OBSESSION?
Raeanne believes Spanevelo may have been “infatuated” with her sister and her death may have been the result of “one of those, ‘if I can’t have you, then nobody can’ type of things”, she alleged.
She claims Spanevelo attempted to win back Cassie several times after their break-up but her sibling was not interested in revisiting a romantic relationship with him.
“My sister was finally in the best place before her passing and she got that job, which she really enjoyed,” Raeanne said, before speculating: “And it could be that he thought, ‘Wow, she’s never ever going to want me or let me have my way so I’ve got to do something about it.'”
Her fears of Spanevelo reportedly grew so bad in the weeks before her death that she issued a now-chilling warning, telling them: “If something should happen to me, it was him.”
CHILLING NEW DETAILS
Court documents released on Wednesday revealed that Spanevelo admitted to having Cassie’s phone on March 28, the day after she vanished, but he threw it out the window of his truck.
When asked why he did not keep it to return it to her later, he said he did not care about her property so he chose to throw it out, according to the affidavit.
Spanevelo also told deputies he had let her out of his truck and that was the last time he saw her but “information about her being dropped off was not corroborated,” the affidavit states.
In text messages sent to Cassie’s family, Spanevelo claimed that she asked him to drop her off “in the middle of nowhere in Destin” but again police said the account couldn’t be corroborated, WEAR-TV reports.
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Spanevelo was arrested in Tennessee and later extradited back to Florida to face charges of evidence tampering, providing false information to law enforcement and obstructing justice.
While he was being booked into jail, investigators said he refused to give a DNA swab which is required by law. Subsequently, he was also charged with refusing to provide a DNA sample.
In the affidavit released Wednesday, investigators also describe how Spanevelo provided false information to law enforcement “by not disclosing pertinent information about where he stopped along his route of returning home to Panama City Beach with [redacted] later that evening.”
The documents state that police received multiple tips about Spanevelo throwing Cassie’s phone out of his car window.
One tipster on March 30 told them: “Marcus had spoken to a person and told them he had located [the phone] in his truck and threw it out of the window.”
Another person told investigators on March 31 that Spanevelo said he threw the item out because “he had to get rid of it,” the affidavit states.
‘WHAT’S GOING ON?’
Earlier this month, Raeanne told The US Sun that Cassie always tried to meet up with Spanevelo in public places, usually in the parking lot of a local Walmart, but he had recently been changing the locations at the last minute.
On the night she vanished, her father text her in a state of panic, writing in one message: “Cassie, I’m trying to call you. What’s going on?”
“I’m freaking out case call me as soon as you get this message,” read a second.
A short while later, a response came from Cassie’s phone that her family doesn’t believe she authored.
“I’m sorry, car was acting up, and I broke my phone,” it read. “Marcus is working on it. I will stay at his place tonight. He is paying me some money to do some stuff around his house.”
Explaining her family’s skepticism, Raeanne said: “If she was having troubles she would never seek help from him, that’s just crazy,”
“She would walk next door to the restaurant before she asked him for anything.”
CLAIMS CONTRADICTED
According to the affidavit, investigators first interviewed Spanevelo on March 29. He told officers there had been an “altercation” between him and Cassie, though refused to elaborate.
He claimed she had become “hyper” but he agreed to drive them to an unspecified location because it was en route to where he was heading.
Spanevelo claimed Cassie “jumped out” and “he drove away and left” her, before returning to his home in Panama City Beach, Florida.
However, investigators say they were able to recover surveillance footage that contradicts his claims.
More charges are expected to be filed against Spanevelo in the coming weeks.
He has not yet been charged with murder, though police have alluded the charge is pending and will likely be filed after Cassie’s autopsy is returned.
Spanevelo is expected to return to court on May 5.
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