Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
When The Suspect Outsmarts The The Detective (The Real Story)
28 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What does comfort mean to the host?
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We had psychics coming. You got to check this body of water. I'm telling you, this is where she's at. I've seen it in a vision. She spoke to me from the grave. I got my first homicide report. August 15th of 2017. It was the most interesting case I've ever worked. A guy, he had three young sons, and he was in a custody battle with his ex-wife.
The guy's like a carpenter, lays carpet, and then does some other stuff. So he gets called by this weird person. It's all through text. Hey, meet me at this address, kind of out here in the middle of nowhere. He goes out there, and it looks like an abandoned house. And when he's there, he can tell something's up. So...
The back story is the victim who gets called out to give the estimate, his name is Bobby Caldwell. The new boyfriend of his ex-wife, his name is Sterling Roberts. So Sterling and Bobby used to have issues. They used to have issues going back to early childhood. So now Sterling is with Bobby's ex-wife. And he's kind of playing stepdad to their three children.
So Bobby gets out there, sees that this seems to be like a, you know, abandoned house. He feels like this is some sort of setup or something like that. And he gets in his truck to leave. And as he's leaving, a car comes speeding up to him and just opens, you know, actually doesn't open fire on him, but pulls a gun out and is, you know, you got two moving cars and, and,
Bobby Caldwell knows, like, he recognizes the person.
He knows what's about to happen.
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Chapter 2: What case does Travis Abney discuss?
That day he gets away. This is about, I would say, the last week of July that this happens. So he gets away, files the police report with the Greene County Sheriff's Office, and said, this guy lured me out to this abandoned house under false pretenses that I was going to estimate a job for him, and he tried to kill me. So they take the report.
I don't want to say anything negative about their agency or anything like that, but, you know, the ball was dropped.
Yeah.
So the Sterling was on.
This seems pretty serious. That seems serious to me.
Very serious, yeah. So Sterling has, like, he's on probation, and I believe he had warrants out for other things. He had gone into a church with a gun and tried to commit And he was already a convicted felon. So when the police got there and took him in, this is prior to all this stuff happening.
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Chapter 3: What were the circumstances surrounding Bobby Caldwell's death?
When the police get there to try to and they take him into custody, they find out, OK, he's got a loaded gun and he's a felon in possession of a firearm. So he catches a new felony. And he's on probation, so obviously... He should be in jail already.
Yeah, that's no bond, no... Correct. And they know that, and they find out this new situation? Correct. That's like, just go pick him up.
Yeah, so I don't want to... Like I said, I don't want to Monday morning quarterback their agency or what they did, but for whatever reason... A report gets taken, and Bobby Caldwell files for a protection order is what they call it, their restraining order, what have you. So that's granted, and there's some back and forth.
Sterling is calling him and talking crap to him basically and taunting him. What the? And he's admitting, you know, calling him a pussy for not getting out and fighting him or whatever.
Fight him, you had a gun.
That wasn't a fist fight. Yeah, he's like, you know, you had a gun, basically. So this is all building to August 15th. So August 15th rolls around, and... Bobby takes his three sons to a counselor's office to do some family counseling because basically what had happened was the mom had kind of brainwashed these kids. Her name is Tawny, Tawny Caldwell.
She pretty much brainwashed these kids to think, you know, dad, Bobby is the bad guy here. which he's not at all. So they're going through counseling and trying to work out their family differences because of all this, because, again, they're in as nasty of a custody battle as I've ever seen.
So late afternoon hours, around 4-ish, I would say, not exact on the time, about 4 o'clock, him and his sons walk out of the counselor's office. And as soon as they walk out, somebody walks up to them and just start shooting them in point blank range. And with his kids right there. With his kids right there. And it's a guy with a hat and glasses on and just opens fire.
It hits him, I believe, nine to 12 times. And, you know, unfortunately he didn't survive. He was, you know, dead on the spot essentially. So the kids, you know, take off running. So I'm the on-call detective at the time, and I'm at home running on my treadmill, and I get the phone call that there's an active shooter because that's how it actually got called into dispatch.
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Chapter 4: How did the investigation into Bobby Caldwell's murder unfold?
I reach out to the prosecutor's office in Montgomery County, which is a county that Riverside's in, says, hey, there's like a cellular phone data guru guy. His name's Kevin Horan. He works for the FBI. Here's his phone number. Call him and see what he can do to help you in this case. And it's one of the best phone calls I've ever made before because this guy's a genius.
He's like one of only like seven experts in the FBI that's certified to do. He's what they call a CAST agent. And don't ask me what the acronym for CAST is because I already forgot what it is. But basically he analyzes cellular data, you know, cell tower data and things like that. And can do triangulation and put people at certain points and stuff.
He was actually a very, the Boston bombing, the Marathon bombing back in 2013, he was very much wrapped up in that whole, you know, federal investigation. And I think he did a lot of good work that led to the, you know, figuring out who was responsible for that bombing. But anyways, Kevin Horan,
gets working with me ideally search warrants for phones and things like that he's already starting to do whatever crazy tech stuff that's over my head is our he's already doing all that stuff uh... to assist with riverside's investigation the meantime i go down to spartanburg south carolina an interview this crazy messed-up guy and uh... basically during the interview he'd you know talks a lot of shit to me and you know
I'm a very young detective, and this guy's been arrested, convicted felon X amount of times over, and I'm nervous. It's my first murder case ever.
Can you tell him that and ask him to go easy on you and just admit to it? I'm nervous. I'm new.
I tried to play it off like I was confident and everything, but he could see that I was new to this, and it took a weird turn in the interrogation where he's almost like,
almost interrogating me right and he stops at one point he's like he's like dude you're new to this aren't you i can tell you're new to this he's like i'm better at this than you are and i'm like well you know i've been a detective for you know i'm lying to him i've been a detective for a long time he's like no you haven't he's like i guarantee you just got this job he was like i i could do your job so much better than you because i've been the one in the seat getting interrogated like
You know, you suck at this. You're about to go to prison, so you're not going to be doing my job. Yeah. So anyways, I guess I was decent enough at my job at the time because I throw these pictures down that shows the guy in the hat and the glasses and this back and forth, you know, verbal going, you know, him and I for a couple hours.
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Chapter 5: What happens when the suspect refuses to leave the police station?
So she's in the office. And she's basically like, I'm not going anywhere. You will check this. And I'm like, it's time for you to go. And it got to a point where I'm like, now you're trespassing. And I don't want to be this guy. But if you don't get up and leave now. I'm going to arrest you for trespassing. You've been told to leave the police department. And you won't be leaving.
And so you've got a choice. And she ends up getting up and leaving, but she's still, you know, running her mouth the whole time, you know, out the door and stuff. And we, you know, it was like, you know, you got to go. And take your crystals with you.
Chapter 6: How does the prosecutor's office respond to the case?
Yeah. But there was so much of that. Right. And it was so frustrating. But so... Basically, we go to the prosecutor's office and we meet with them so many times. I can't even put a number on it, but like sit down and officially present our case probably seven to ten times.
this is before she's found and we we keep being told the same thing you got a good circumstantial case you really do um but here's the problem you don't have a body you know how hard it is to prosecute any person without a body it happens very rarely you know if we get a body that changes everything so it's like okay we gotta we gotta figure out where she's at
And this company, I don't know if I should say who they are, but they come in and their whole specialty is they search. They do like, you know, all these volunteers come in and they do these big, huge, elaborate searches. Yeah, I think I know who you're talking about.
I don't know the name of the company, but I've heard of this where they have like there's like members all over the place and they'll come in just to do searches and they have the the radar. Sometimes they, they have like different equipment and they, they, but they do it all over the place.
Chapter 7: What challenges arise after the discovery of a body?
Yeah. There's a, yeah.
So, um, the, the guy that is in charge of this particular chapter of their, uh, you know, their search team or whatever inserts himself into this investigation. And I'd rather not say his name, but he comes in and he becomes the family spokes. You know, he, it's, it's almost like if you want to talk to Cheryl's family and
know i'm now their point of contact and this person did so much more damage than good and they're they're he i should say is is organizing his team to do you know what we're gonna this this particular weekend we're gonna check here and i don't know what is what is like his end goal was for this because nowhere close all the play, like the psychic nowhere where this guy is.
Well, some people want to inject them. You know, there's some people just want to inject themselves into an investigation to be just for the, uh, the hot, I don't know what it is to be a center of attention. Like they're,
yeah so i do dateline um this episode never aired i sure it's probably because there's still no closure and i want to be clear there's no charges have been filed against anybody in this case or anything at this point um you know obviously there's still person of interest persons of whatever how i classify it but um I'm assuming that's why Dateline, Dateline was great. They were awesome.
I'd spent like a whole day with them and they did such a good job and I was excited for the story to air. But that being said, this particular person who runs this search team had inserted himself so much in this case with no, there's no, nothing that this guy's done to benefit us at all. Right.
And it's like every time him and his team went out, they were like, you know, bringing, you know, calling us out for animal bones. And, you know, one time like they found a pair of pink underwear somewhere nearby that he was convinced this was her underwear. And it's just like, dude, you're... He's grandstanding. Stop, man, please.
And then they held vigils for her, like, you know, X amount of anniversaries, you know, and he just stood with the family. It's just like great big muscular guy. And like you had to go through him. I'm the lead detective and I've gotten to. I've got – and this family is great. Cheryl's family has been great this whole time.
But now it's – Do you feel like they were duped by this guy or is he kind of inserting himself into – and they're not interested or they're – I don't think they were duped by him. I just think that he had convinced them that like we're going to find her and he played the –
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Chapter 8: What insights does the detective share about public perception and social media?
Oh. I was incarcerated, so. Oh, okay. Well, that's –
They weren't kind to me at all. That's a little bit different. So they didn't. What about your story now? Can't they come back?
That's not their MO.
They're not doing a comeback. But you're a success story now, and you're a good guy. I think they're going to do one.
They should. What is that guy called? Oh, gosh, his name was Curtis something. I don't know, Curtis or something. Who interviewed you? Was it the guy with the white hair? No.
No, he was probably gone by then. It was a female, and to be honest, I don't remember her name. She was great. They were so – treated us with so much hospitality and everything. It's just – Again, it never aired because we don't have the closure that obviously we needed.
It's funny that they would even do that. You know what I'm saying? Like you would think, I guess they really felt there was going to be. Right. And had you found the body at this point?
I don't believe we had at this point. I think it was before that even. Okay. So actually we as a police or any agency never found her. My wife and I moved. We had to literally move. This case got so much attention and
I drew so much criticism, and I'll criticize myself before anybody, but I don't have any type of... I don't feel bad about this case because, in my opinion, I did a really good job on this case. It's just a lot of things never worked out in our favor. You know, the video timing, the two different videos timing out, things like that, and, you know, people that we were...
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