13-year-old Kacie Woody was a sweet, bubbly & social girl who was always eager to make new friends. Sadly, these lovely qualities would later allow a predator to gain her trust, leading to a devastating conclusion.
Kacie was born on October 17, 1989 in Little Rock, Arkansas to parents Rick & Kristie Woody. She had two older brothers, Tim & Austin & the family of five were extremely close. Kacie was loved unconditionally by her parents & as she moved on to her teenage years, she was somewhat sheltered to the harsh realities that can exist in the world.
In 1997 when Kacie was only 7-years-old, the family faced a catastrophic loss when Kristie was killed in a car accident. It was June 19, 1997 & Rick, Kristie, Tim & Kacie were on their way home from Tim’s baseball game when two horses ran out in front of their car. Rick hit one of the horses which crashed through the passenger window where Kristie sat. Rick suffered broken ribs & thankfully, Tim & Kacie were physically unharmed.
After the tragedy of losing Kristie, the Woody family relocated 45 miles away to the Little Rock suburb of Holland to make a fresh start. The area was isolated & remote & in 2002 Holland had a population of 559. Kacie’s Aunt Teresa lived right up the street from the family & they were thankful to have a familiar face nearby for support.
Friends described Kacie as very goofy, bubbly, bright & full of joy. In 2002, Kacie was a 7th grade student at Greenbrier Middle School where she was a great student & model child. She loved music & poetry & adored riding with her dad on the back of his motorcycle.
Kacie was always a very social girl at school with many friends, but she was always looking to expand her circle. Because of this, she took to an online Christian chat room for teens in hopes of meeting new people her age. Some of her friends from school had also joined which gave Kacie a sense that the platform was safe & secure. Soon, she began attracting the attention of boys, one in particular, who quickly charmed her.
It was around Kacie’s thirteenth birthday when she began chatting with a 17-year-old boy from California named Dave Fagen. Kacie went by the username modelbehavior63; the name was inspired by one of her favorite Disney movies, Model Behavior & #63 came from her older brother Austin’s football jersey. The two hit it off immediately & eventually Kacie began to open up & share the hardships she had lived through in losing her mom suddenly at such a young age.
She told Dave that the death of her mom left her with a hole in her heart that could never be filled. They chatted for hours each day & quickly found that they had a lot in common. Dave had also been suffering after his aunt had coincidentally also been involved in a car accident & wasn’t expected to pull through. He indicated that his aunt also just so happened to live in Arkansas, not far from where Kacie & her family lived.
When Dave shared a picture of himself, Kacie saw the face of a classic handsome boy who looked like a surfer. Kacie thought Dave was cute, but her friends weren’t fond of his long hair. Several of Kacie’s classmates had also chatted with & gotten to know Dave, who had become a constant presence in the chat rooms & was always available when someone wanted to talk. Kacie introduced Dave to her real life friends, set up three-way phone calls & sent him photos of her classmates.
The two shared a similar taste in music, they both adored Elvis & Dave played guitar while Kacie loved to sing & play her saxophone.
Kacie’s friend Samantha soon recognized that Kacie was getting serious about this boy that she didn’t truly know & Samantha warned her to be careful in trusting people that she met online. Samantha also noticed some of the terminology that Dave used while chatting such as, “groovy”, “righteous” or “wicked” & speculated that he was older than he was claiming to be. Samantha cringed at the words & likened it to her dad trying to sound cool, but actually sounding ridiculous. However, Kacie seemed to be enjoying her time spent chatting with Dave & didn’t pay much attention to the warnings of her friend, believing that maybe people from California just spoke differently.
Rick, Kacie’s father, was working as a police officer & spent more time away from home than he preferred, but he felt reassured by the fact that Tim was mostly home while he worked the night shift or Kacie would spend time at her grandma’s house on weekends that he worked. Rick wasn’t overly concerned by the fact that his teenage daughter was chatting with boys online. He saw no harm in it since there was little chance they would ever meet face-to-face & allowed the interactions to continue.
This all changed one day when Kacie off-handedly mentioned Dave to her father. He could clearly see just how much she liked him & then she mentioned that he had recently celebrated his eighteenth birthday. Rick was shocked to hear that the boy her 13-year-old had been talking with was a legal adult & ordered Kacie to immediately cut ties with Dave. She reluctantly agreed, but was truly not ready to end the relationship.
Kacie suspected that her dad would check her online activity & see that she was still in contact with Dave, so the pair began secretly speaking on the phone so that no trace of their communication would be left behind. However, by the fall, the relationship began to cool off since Kacie had begun talking to a different boy online in May 2002.
Scott was a 14-year-old middle school football player who lived in Georgia & since they were much closer in age, they quickly clicked. Kacie felt a strong connection to Scott, who went by the chat name Tazz2999 & the connection made her want to distance herself from Dave even further. Kacie & Scott officially became boyfriend & girlfriend on October 3, 2002. When Kacie got online & broke the news to Dave, he took it far better than she had imagined. He did request that they remain friends which meant they would continue their daily phone calls.
A few days after their so-called breakup, Kacie was having a sleepover with her friend Jessica & while they were alone in the house that evening, they were speaking on the phone with Dave when they heard noises outside. Soon after, they heard the sound of creaking floorboards & the girls barricaded themselves into the bedroom, sure that someone had broken in. Kacie told Dave about what was happening & he assured her that they were just imagining things.
When Rick came home from work, he found Kacie & Jessica still hiding & they explained what happened. Hearing that there could have possibly been an intruder in the home, Rick began to go through the house room by room, but found no signs of an intruder or a break-in. He shrugged the situation off as an incident of overactive teen imaginations & the situation was basically forgotten.
Not long after the sleepover, the girls were at school when Kacie’s friend Samantha noticed a picture of Scott inside Kacie’s locker; a dark-haired boy in a #79 football uniform. She asked her friend how she’d gotten the photo & was shocked when Kacie told her that he’d mailed it to her after she’d given her address to Scot. Samantha learned that this wasn’t the first time Kacie had given her address to someone she’d met online. Samantha was especially worried about Dave who had told Kacie that he would be traveling to Arkansas to be at his aunt’s bedside when she passed away.
Yet again, Samantha warned her friend about the dangers of trusting people online & sharing personal information. She pointed out that she had no idea who could be on the other side of the monitor; the person could be a rapist for all Kacie knew. Kacie assured her friend that she had spoken with both Scott & Dave on many occasions & she was sure there was nothing to worry about.
Despite this reassurance, Samantha continued to worry about her friend’s safety & took her concerns to the school’s guidance counselor, who then called Kacie down for a talk. The guidance counselor reinforced all of the things that Samantha had warned Kacie about in regards to the dangers of online relationships & told her, “You can’t be in love with someone from the internet.” Kacie defended herself by saying that her father had given his blessings, but at best, this was a half-truth & Samantha knew it.
The following day was Tuesday, December 3, 2002 & Kacie asked three different friends from school if they wanted to have a sleepover at her house, but they all declined since it was a school night & they had to get up early the next day. If Kacie had any reservations about being home alone that night, she never voiced them.
Everyone from the household had plans that night so Kacie was home alone. Rick was out on patrol in nearby Greenbrier; he had considered calling in sick that night because of a sinus infection, but his boss told him to just take it easy during his shift. It was a cold & rainy night & his shift was set to end at 2 am. Rick kept his cell phone nearby in case Kacie needed him, but he didn’t anticipate she would because she was such an independent young girl who did everything that was expected of her without prompting. Kacie’s 19-year-old brother Tim was usually home with Kacie, but he as well as Tim’s friend, 19-year-old Eric Betts, who had been temporarily living with the family, was also out. Tim had headed to the library at the University of Central Arkansas & Eric was at his electrician’s class.
Kacie would typically spend time at her aunt’s house, but her Aunt Teresa was in Conway for her daughter’s basketball game. After showering & changing into cozy sweatpants & a sweatshirt, Kacie headed to the computer which sat in front of one of the two windows that overlooked the yard. She logged into a chatroom & got into a conversation with Scott & they chatted about school & what was going on that week. It just so happened to be their two month anniversary. She also told him about her visit to the guidance counselor & laughed about how the picture Scott had sent her could have been a photo of his grandson for all she knew.
As they were chatting, Dave called; he was upset & said that he would be coming to Arkansas very soon since his aunt was about to die. Scott knew all about Dave since Kacie introduced them online & they chatted about cars, even speaking on the phone twice. The first time Dave called Scott, his mom answered & questioned who was calling from California. The second time, Scott’s dad answered & insisted, “You’re not a kid!” as he instructed Dave never to call again. While Kacie spoke with Dave, she continued to chat with Scott, filling him in on what was going on.
Scott later said that he became very worried when Kacie suddenly stopped responding to his messages at 9:41 pm since during all of their previous interactions, she always let him know when she needed to go. Her last response was an uncharacteristically brief, “yah” which was her response to Scott asking her if she was okay. She had seemingly vanished mid-conversation without saying goodbye so he worried that something was wrong.
Scott was exceptionally worried & continued to send a flurry of messages to Kacie, hoping that she would respond. At 10:15 pm, Scott called the Woody home but there was no answer, he also emailed her friend Jessica, filling her in on the situation; at that point, it was 10:44 pm, Jessica had already gone to bed & wouldn’t see the email until the following morning.
When the Woody’s housemate & family friend, Eric Betts came home at about 10:17 pm, he found the house quiet & assumed that Kacie had gone to bed for the night so he settled in to watch TV & do laundry. At 11:30 pm, as he was making his way to the laundry room, he saw that Kacie’s room was empty & assumed she was out with a family member or friend. Minutes later, Kacie’s brother Tim came home & Eric asked him where Kacie was. Concerned, he called his dad at 11:40 pm & when he asked Rick where Kacie was, he simply said, “at home.” The two had last spoken at 7 pm & Kacie had been practicing her saxophone.
Rick instructed Tim to start calling Kacie’s friends & to check with Aunt Teresa & in the meantime, Rick headed to the Greenbrier Police Department & when he arrived, he called Tim back & was told that no one had heard from Kacie. Rick notified the Faulkner County sheriff’s office & headed home, certain that something terrible had happened to his baby girl.
When Rick arrived, he saw that both of Kacie’s coats were draped over a chair in the kitchen & her tennis shoes & boots were near the computer where she typically kicked them off. It was a frigid 39 degrees outside & heavy rains were moving into the area. At 12:24 am Deputy Dalton Elliot arrived at the Woody’s home & after looking around, he requested that investigator Jim Wooley join him while he contacted area law enforcement agencies about Kacie’s disappearance.
By this point, they noticed a phone call from Georgia on their caller ID that had come through at 10:15 pm. They also saw the chat history on the computer between Kacie & Scott & noted Scott’s concerned messages at the time that Kacie suddenly stopped responding. In the meantime, Scott had been in & out of sleep, terribly worried for his girlfriend. Five hours after he last heard from Kacie, he suddenly got a response, this time from Eric who was utilizing Kacie’s account.
Eric confirmed Scott’s phone number, he asked him for his full name, age & address. He also questioned him about Dave & Scott assured Eric that Dave was no worry since he was a good friend & had he felt concerned about him, he would have said something. As they continued to chat about what could have happened to Kacie, Scott mentioned that she had been speaking on the phone with Dave at the time she disappeared. He didn’t know Dave’s last name, only that he lived in San Diego.
In the meantime, investigators found Kacie’s glasses, broken under a pile of towels on the tan recliner; the frames were bent & one lens had popped out. After assessing the evidence from inside the home, the Woody family as well as investigators were sure that Kacie had not willingly left the house that night. On top of that, Kacie’s beloved Yorkshire Terrier, George, was limping around, clearly traumatized. Tim was the last person to have seen Kacie when he left at 6 pm & she was on the computer, wearing her glasses as she always did when she used the computer. Tim & Rick knew that Kacie would never leave the house without first contacting them & their minds immediately went to a worst-case scenario.
Within hours, the FBI was on scene as were members from the Arkansas State Police & a volunteer search was organized which utilized tracking dogs.
When FBI agents paid a visit to Scott at his parent’s home in Alpharetta, Georgia, an upscale suburb of Atlanta, he ended up being exactly who he said he was, a 14-year-old boy who cared deeply for the girl he’d met online. After speaking with him, he was quickly cleared of any involvement.
By morning, news of Kacie’s disappearance had begun to spread amongst the students at Greenbrier Middle School though many were still unaware. At 9:20 am, Samantha & Jessica were sitting in the guidance counselor’s office answering investigator’s questions; it had only been one day earlier that Sam had sat in that very room, voicing her concerns about Kacie’s online activities. They were positive that Scott was behind Kacie’s disappearance since he was all that their friend could talk about recently. As they continued to speak with the officers, Jessica suddenly mentioned Dave.
Back at the Woody house, investigators found two crumpled pieces of paper in Kacie’s bedroom; one read: Kacie Rene Woody Loves David Leslie Fagen. The other read: Kacie Rene Woody Loves Scott G.
After speaking with Kacie’s friends & clearing Scott of any involvement, police quickly turned their attention to Dave Fagen & became even more interested in him as a suspect when they learned from Kacie’s friends that he was planning a visit to Arkansas very soon. On his Yahoo profile jazzman_df, they saw his photo & that he lived in San Diego. Jessica & Samantha told officers that he said that his aunt from Arkansas was in a coma & that he was planning to come to the area soon, but he never mentioned wanting to meet up with Kacie when he arrived.
Officers began to wonder if he showed up unannounced at Kacie’s house on the night she disappeared.
On a hunch, detectives began searching area hotels & motels in & around Little Rock, in search of cars with California license plates since that’s where Dave claimed to be from. Their hunches proved to be true when they came upon a Motel 6 in Conway, Arkansas, a twenty-minute drive from Kacie’s house. There in the parking lot sat a 1993 Buick Regal with California license plates. When they ran the plates, they found that the car belonged to 47-year-old Navy veteran, David Fuller. Dave Fuller was not 18-year-old Dave Fagen with long hair, instead he was balding & scrawny & his life was crumbling.
Dave Fuller was born in 1955 to a devout Mormon family with four children who were raised in an upper-middle class Salt Lake City neighborhood. His siblings were outgoing & actively involved in school whereas Dave was disinterested & aloof. As he entered young adulthood, he became involved in various rock bands & shunned the Mormon religion. At 19, he had a short-lived marriage & in 1983, he married for a second time & had two children. By their 18th anniversary in 2001, his second wife wanted out, no longer able to deal with Dave’s short-temper & moodiness.
When investigators spoke with the manager of the Motel 6, they learned that Dave had checked in one day earlier on December 2 & he was scheduled to stay for seven days. He requested that the maids not clean his room. The manager clearly remembered Dave because he was angry that he was unable to connect his laptop to the internet from his room & was forced to go to the local library.
When detectives approached room 115, their knocks went unanswered so the manager opened the door with the master key. When the room was searched they found a neatly packed suitcase on the luggage rack, a laptop sat on the table & two floppy disks sat on the floor. The bed was made & had not been slept in. A surveillance team took over the room next door in case Fuller returned.
Despite the fact that his car was in the parking lot, Dave was nowhere in sight & agents speculated that he could be driving a rental car. After checking around to area car rental companies, they found that Dave Fuller had leased a Dodge Caravan shortly after arriving in town from California. The employee who had rented him the car said that he was very fidgety & continued to go outside to smoke as he filled out the paperwork. Listed on the paperwork was Dave Fuller’s cell phone number.
Review of the Woody’s phone bill showed that the number he used to rent the car was a match to one that frequently appeared on the bill in the weeks leading up to Kacie’s disappearance. When investigators reviewed Dave’s credit card statements, they discovered a charge for Guardsmart Storage in Conway after he rented an oversize storage unit in Conway several weeks earlier.
The evening after Kacie disappeared, on Wednesday, December 4, 2002, shortly after 5 pm, investigators pulled up to storage unit 313 armed with a search warrant. As they raised the door to the unit, a Dodge Caravan faced them, its engine idling & before they could even move in on the van, the sound of a gunshot rang out.
Not knowing what they could be walking into, agents were forced to retreat as the SWAT team was called in to take over. Two hours later, at about 8:30 pm, tactical officers stormed the unit.
Dave Fuller was found deceased in the driver’s side of the van from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the Luger 9mm pistol still hanging from his hand. As investigators moved on to the rest of the van, they held out hope that they would possibly find Kacie alive.
Tragically, as they moved toward the back of the van, they found the body of the 13-year-old lying on her back with her arms & legs chained to the four corners of the vehicle. She had been sexually assaulted & then shot in the head hours earlier. A chloroform-soaked rag lay near her body.
When Kacie’s best friends, Samantha & Jessica learned of her murder, they collapsed to the floor in grief. They had come to know Dave online & as with Kacie, they also believed him to be a friend. They were stunned & sickened by what they learned.
When Dave’s apartment in La Mesa, California was searched, it was clear that he had been carefully planning Kacie’s abduction & murder. They had found receipts for purchases of duct tape, zip ties & chloroform. Fuller had erected a virtual shrine of Kacie near his computer. He had collected photos of numerous teenage girls, including several of Kacie’s friends. More concerning, he also had their phone numbers & home addresses.
As investigators began to dig into Fuller’s past, they found that trouble had been building for some time. Starting in 2000, 2 years earlier, he began spending time in chat rooms, trolling for teenage girls. He would pretend to be a teenager himself & created a fake persona, sending them stock photos of a good looking ‘Dave Fagen’ when they asked to see his picture.
Because of his obsession with his computer & time spent in online chat rooms, his wife of nineteen years filed for divorce. In August, California’s Child Protective Services began an investigation into a report that Dave was taking showers with his 7-year-old daughter while he insisted that he was not molesting his child. By September, three months before murdering Kacie, he had moved out & into an apartment & shortly after, he showed up at his old home, causing his wife to contact 911 & he was charged with spousal abuse.
His online obsession continued as did his downward spiral & he was soon fired from his job as a used car salesman after pornographic images, some of which were alleged to feature underage girls, were found on his work computer in September 2002.
It was soon discovered that Kacie had not been the only young girl to fall for his ‘Dave Fagen’ persona & at least three other girls had been targeted, but his schemes to meet them in person had fallen through.
A girl in Michigan later came forward & indicated that Dave had offered to buy her a plane ticket to California, but she had wisely declined the offer. Another girl in Texas became very uneasy when he sent flowers to her home despite the fact that she had never given him her address. Another potential victim in Pennsylvania confirmed that he had tried every method in the book in an attempt to obtain her address. Unlike Kacie, these girls thankfully discovered that Dave Fagen was not who he claimed to be before it was too late.
Investigators also discovered that Dave had been arrested for exposing himself to two young girls. In this case, he skipped his court appearance & quickly paid a fine for his misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure.
Kacie was a trusting young girl who had only just entered her teen years & had never been around lies & deception before. She had no reason not to believe Dave when he told her who he was. After her murder, Kacie’s family learned that Dave Fuller had traveled to the area of their home on a total of three occasions.
The first time was October 11, less than two months before her murder. Investigators believe he used this trip to get a lay of the land in Holland & to scope out the Woody’s home. It’s speculated that he stalked Kacie during this visit & not quite ready to make his move, he traveled back to California to better prepare himself.
On November 2, one month before his murderous attack, he purchased the gun he used to kill both Kacie & himself. Two days later, on November 4, he flew back to Arkansas where he rented the storage unit, likely to ensure he had privacy to inflict the horrors upon his teenage victim.
Based on evidence, investigators suspected that he had intended to abduct & kill Kacie on this visit, but plans had somehow gotten derailed. Looking back on the night that Kacie & Jessica had their sleepover & heard the creak of a floorboard, it’s possible that this may have been Fuller.
Kacie’s murder changed everything for law enforcement in Arkansas since it was the first time police had encountered internet stalking in a minor to this extent. It was the early 2000s & Kacie’s tragic murder was a major eye-opener to everyone that children were no longer safe in their own homes. Kacie’s friends, Samantha & Jessica, now mothers themselves, share their beloved friend’s terrible story as a warning to those that they know that you cannot trust the person on the other side of a computer monitor. Kacie’s family & friends have traveled around the country to share her story & the dangers that can come with talking to strangers online.
The Kacie Woody Foundation was also created & is dedicated to saving children & increasing internet safety & awareness.
Oftentimes, predators target their underage victims in an online chat, on social media or during gameplay. They start contact by initiating conversations through direct messaging or comments on a child’s social media posts, often paying special attention to the child for extended periods of time. During this time, they build trust, lie about their age, making themselves closer in age to the child they’re targeting. As the trust grows, they begin asking personal questions & try to establish a personal barrier between them & their network of trusted adults in order to isolate their victim.
In online gaming, predators can gift children rewards or gift cards to further build trust. Ultimately, the conversations become progressively more sexual in nature & they begin to monopolize a child’s time & pressure them to send sexually explicit photos of themselves.
Because children may no longer be safe while in the protection of their own home, it’s important to discuss online safety & online predators. Children should be frequently reminded not to share personal information of any kind or share personal photos. It’s also important to keep the lines of communication open & encourage children to come to a trusted adult with any concerns.
References:
- Kacie Woody Foundation
- Kacie Woody Homestead
- Medium: Never talk to strangers: The murder of thirteen-year-old Kacie Woody
- THV11: 20 years ago – The murder of the Arkansas teen that shook the state
- Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Evil at the door
- Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Entryway to danger
- Arkansas Democrat Gazette: Running out of time
- RAINN: 5 red flags & 5 tips to protect your child online
