Podcast on Crimes Against Women
The Conference on Crimes Against Women (CCAW) is thrilled the announce the Podcast on Crimes Against Women (PCAW). Continuing with our fourth season, the PCAW releases new episodes every Monday. The PCAW serves as an extension of the information and topics presented at the annual Conference, providing in-depth dialogue, fresh perspectives, and relevant updates by experts in the fields of victim advocacy, criminal justice, medicine, and more. This podcast’s format hopes to create a space for topical conversations aimed to engage and educate community members on the issue of violence against women, how it impacts our daily lives, and how we can work together to create lasting cultural and systemic change.
Podcast on Crimes Against Women
How One Extradition Brought A Rapist To Justice And Sparked A Mission To Protect Survivors
A late-night call, a closed clinic, and a stack of unanswered emails set the stage for one of the most determined quests for justice you’ll hear this year. We walk through Kaitlin Hurley’s drug-facilitated rape in Antigua, the UK police officer who tried to outrun accountability, and the father who refused to let an international border or a slow bureaucracy be the end of the story.
We start with the numbers—why sexual violence remains vastly underreported and how rates in the UK and the Eastern Caribbean highlight a global crisis—then move into the granular realities of response: trauma-informed policing that helped, harmful missteps that nearly derailed the case, and the crucial role of preserved messages and medical evidence. From there, we open the black box of extradition. You’ll hear how errors stalled requests, why a UK judge first denied removal over prison conditions, and how coordinated diplomacy, detailed prison audits, and a high-level sign-off finally brought the perpetrator back to face trial and a 15-year sentence.
Beyond the courtroom, we tackle the cultural work that actually reduces harm. We discuss practical safety for online dating without shifting blame to survivors, and we press into prevention that starts with men—building respect, empathy, and consent as norms. Derrick Hurley shares how this case reshaped his life, from writing Antiguan Justice: A Father’s Fight to delivering trauma-informed training and supporting communities with high rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Subscribe for more conversations that pair survivor-centered storytelling with actionable insight. If this resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear it, and leave a review to help others find the show.
The subject matter of this podcast will address a difficult topic about multiple forms of violence and identity-based discrimination and harassment. We acknowledge that this content may be difficult and have listed specific content warnings in each episode description to help create a positive, safe experience for all listeners.
SPEAKER_01:In this country, 31 million crimes. 31 million crimes are reported every year. That is one every second. Out of that, every 24 minutes, there is a murder. Every five minutes, there is a rape. Every two to five minutes, there is a sexual assault. Out of every nine seconds in this country, a woman is assaulted by someone who told her that he loved her, by someone who told her it was her fault, by someone who tries to tell the rest of us it's none of our business. And I'm proud to stand here today with each of you to call that perpetrator a liar.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women. According to the National Sexual Assault Resource Center, one in five women experienced a completed or attempted rape during their lifetime. To bring that percentage into focus, that is about 25 million women who have undergone forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol drug facilitated completed penetration. Additionally, 81% of women reported experience some form of sexual harassment and or assault in their lifetime. While the statistics for rape by an acquaintance is higher than that by a stranger, 40.8% and 15.1% respectively, rapes by strangers still do happen, just as it did for Caitlin Hurley, an American nursing student studying abroad in Antigua, who was subsequently drugged and raped by a London police officer. The reasons why women don't report rape abroad, but primarily are linked to shame of the assault, fear of not being believed, fear of retribution, distrust of the police and the criminal justice system, and the intense trauma of the assault. While Caitlin may have had many of these same reasons, she still found the courage to seek justice and hold the offender accountable for his actions, leading to his 15-year prison sentence upheld by an Antigua court. Today's conversation will be with Caitlin's father, Derek Hurley, who has tirelessly fought for justice for his daughter and who has redirected his career path into helping sexual assault victims and survivors through his advocacy and training. Derek Hurley grew up in Mount Gilead, North Carolina. He attended NC State University and graduated with honors in 1987 with a degree in business, beginning a successful 37-year career as a systems engineer and executive. In 2022, Derek published a book titled Antiguan Justice, A Father's Fight. It tells the story of his daughter Caitlin's rape while she was a nursing student in Antigua and his dedication to the pursuit of justice. The impact of this journey had a profound effect on him, and at the end of 2023, he walked away from a successful career to get involved in helping victims of sexual assault, be it rape, sex trafficking, or child sexual abuse. He also volunteers for Operation Light Shine based in Nashville, Tennessee, RAIN based in Washington, D.C., and the Impact and Dialogue Foundation based in India. Derek spends most of his time advocating for and supporting victims, providing trauma-informed training, participating in webinars and speaking engagements, and he is working on projects with the Lakota tribe in South Dakota focused on the missing and murdered indigenous women. He has been a guest on several podcasts, including What They Don't Say, Sexual Assault Survivor Stories with his daughter Caitlin and the Dear Katie podcast. Derek, welcome to the show. Well, thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. This is such an important story, and I want to get to every detail that we possibly can today. You are a father, husband, and technology professional whose world was turned upside down when your daughter, Caitlin Hurley, was drugged and raped while out on a date. And that incident happened in 2015, and you have since refocused on trauma-informed work. So tell us how you're doing now as a champion against all forms of sexual assault and sexual violence.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, I decided, I think in 22, you know, I put my book out. This was really pulling at me that I I just felt I wanted to get involved. And so I decided 2023 would be my last year of my career work. And I just kind of jumped in without, I'll be honest, I'm a planner, but I didn't have a big plan here. I just I know some of the nonprofits. I started volunteering in 2023 with one out of Nashville, and I really didn't want to commit too much to one early because I didn't know where I could add the most value in this space because I was really new to the space. And so what I've done the last couple of years is really try to find the areas I can add the most value because I want to help where I can help the most. It's starting to narrow down though. There's certain things I'm really focused on at the moment, but it's been a journey to get to this point. I'm definitely doing the thing that I should be doing.
SPEAKER_02:That's good to hear. And you're, you know, you're really needed in the space. We need all voices and perspectives in supporting gender-based crimes. So I'm glad you're here, and I'm really interested to talk with you today about what happened to Caitlin and the work that you're doing because of that. Now to set it up, the assault on Caitlin occurred in Antigua, a Caribbean island east of the Dominican Republic in Puerto Rico that serves as a destination spot for many travelers. Uh but your daughter was there as a nursing student in the hope of becoming a missionary nurse. Tell us what is the culture like in Antigua and maybe to a further extent in London in the UK where the offender lived. What is that culture like towards victims of rape?
SPEAKER_00:If I can just back up and just say Caitlin was in nursing school in the U.S., but had been on mission trips for a really faithful family. They went to Christian school growing up. And honestly, she decided after some mission trips she wanted to do go and help people in more impoverished areas. I thought it was great, it fit her personality. I was really worried if she could live outside the U.S. And we started thinking, how can we help her? This is what she wants to do. We found this school in Antigua, and what we thought it was a U.S. accredited program, so if it didn't work out, she's just like she went to school in the U.S., which ended up happening. But, you know, that's why she was there, because it gave her an opportunity to live where they have electric problems, water problems, you know, all kinds of issues. It's a different culture. If you can thrive in that, I feel a little more comfortable if you fly to South Africa or anywhere in Africa or South America to do this type of work. And that's kind of why she was there, just to just to if people are curious. It was not, I just want to be clear, this was not some fancy American college in the Caribbean. It was the opposite. It was a local college, very rough.
SPEAKER_02:So very authentic experience of life in the islands, right?
SPEAKER_00:That's right. The culture, I mean, look, it may not seem like it from the outside, but I will tell you, we love Antigua. Caitlin would tell you it's her second home. It just happens that the worst thing in her life happened there, but it wasn't even by somebody that lived there, right? So the people are friendly. It's like most of the you know, Caribbean islands. It is English speaking, but it's poor. So Antigua was colonized by the the UK in 1981, they became an independent country. Like many of the islands in that situation, they have incredible ocean, you know, yeah, resorts and all that. But if you go into the center, it's a poor island. But people are nice and helpful. I love going there, and I have friends down there from all this. But anyway, from a cultural perspective, specifically around rape, you know, our case is so different than their normal case because it was international, not just us, but the perpetrator from the UK.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:I will say this. I don't know if this was because we were foreigners, but you know, they took on something they had never done before, which was an extradition. In fact, we were told, we, my wife and Caitlin were told early on nothing would come of it because they don't extradite. And so now you're thinking, what are you gonna do? Because this was not gonna sit well. I happened to find out that night, I just we w I wasn't really sleeping anyway, and I researched and found out they had an extradition treaty in place. They just never exercised it. So that gave me a little bit of a fire to, okay, I know what I need to do. I need to make sure that they use this treaty and go for an extradition. There's a lot of story behind it, but the police commissioner, Commissioner Robinson at the time, he's no he's a lawyer now, but he was tremendous. He was tremendous in supporting us, but me specifically, because after about two weeks in, I took over as Caitlin's advocate, and I worked with the government, the police, the UK police. It was the second job for a long time, actually. But they were respectful, they were empathetic. The problem was it was, you know, there's this saying in the Caribbean, you're on Caribbean time.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_00:That was fast compared to what we were dealing with, and I I hate to say it. And, you know, it just is what it is, but they they were supportive. They do have issues, and the UK has issues. UK, of course, their culture is much like ours, but let me just tell you two things on the one for each country. So, according to World Population Review, and this is a 2025 report, the date is from 2022. The UK was second after Granada with 109 rates per 100,000 population, second highest of all reporting countries. A few countries don't report, some of the communist countries, stuff like that. Even India, they have such a different culture, they don't they aren't included, but for most of the countries that do it in a similar manner, that was a so UK has a massive problem. Yeah, massive problem. From the Eastern Caribbean, and I say it this way because the National Institute of Health, and this is from 2019, it's the most current I can find. They list the top 20 worst rape rates through their reporting. Four of the top 20 were in the Eastern Caribbean, and that's Granada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. There's a fifth, Jamaica, also on that top 20 list, but they're in the Western Caribbean. So there's issues through the Caribbean, and I've met a lot of people through the Caribbean. I have spoken to the justice groups on a webinar about this case because none of them in the Eastern nobody in the Eastern Caribbean had ever extradited from a basically a westernized country, for sure, not the UK. So they were all interested in the case. I got on and did a couple of hours with them. But that's when I learned some of this of how bad it is in their space. So culturally, look, this is a problem worldwide. Australia has horrible everybody's got a horrible problem, much like ours, and the issues are similar. A lot of people won't report. If the case gets taken forward, it takes forever. It's just it's not that different. I mean, there'll be little nuances, but in the end, if you net it out, their problems aren't that different than ours.
SPEAKER_02:Were they receptive to really investigating and digging into this case in order to get justice for Caitlin?
SPEAKER_00:So I have to just tell you a little bit of the story to kind of make this make sense. When Caitlin called us and told us, we basically said, you need to go to the hospital and get a rape exam, and you need to call the police. And the head of the sexual assault unit met Caitlin at the hospital, took her in a room, listened to her story. Then he told her that she couldn't get a rape exam at that hospital. So, and I'll explain because it needs explanation, right? Antiga is 19 miles north to south, 14 miles east to west. Not that big. Caitlin lived in the south, that's where the school was. The hospital's more in the north in St. John's, which is the capital. It's a 20, 25-minute drive. It's not that bad, right? So she went there. They have community help clinics set up all around the island so that people can just go to the local clinic. And he basically said you have to go to the clinic in Liberta, which was where she lived, to their clinic. I don't know why this has not clicked before because Caitlin wasn't the first victim of this kind of crime. But here's the problem with that date rate drugs don't stay in your system long. The clinics close at 4 p.m. This was 10 30 in the evening. Well, the other thing is Caitlin worked at that clinic as a nursing student, so she was not about to go where she knows everybody there. So for all those reasons, she's like, I can't do that, I'm not gonna do that. And they did agree, this was a Wednesday night, that they would work something out for to do it elsewhere. I will fast forward just to say it was Monday, the following Monday, my wife had flown down there in the meantime, and she was with Caitlin. She had still not heard from the police officer about setting up that from Wednesday night to Monday. So they called, left a voicemail, and I'm gonna just want to go ahead and tell you these two things because this was the second worst day of the whole thing. Okay. So my wife calls the consulate. So the embassy for the Eastern Caribbeans in the Barbados, but they have consulate on the island. So my wife calls and asks, look, here's what's happened. Can you give us some advice? The advice she got was don't call the embassy. So my wife said, Did you say don't call the embassy? I mean, what what are we we don't know anything about this stuff down here? We don't know the laws down here. She said, Look, if you call the embassy, they are going to come in, try to take over, tell the local people what to do. It's gonna upset them, and you're not gonna get the help you want. She said, I've seen it before. And you know what? We did not call the embassy until way later on. And that lady was right. So, of course, then it's on us. So then I hear that and I'm about to lose my mind. The second thing that day that happened, as soon as she got off, the police called back and had them meet at a police station about a mile from Caitlin's apartment. She had to tell the story again. So the first time wasn't the official statement, the same person, head of the unit, not the official statement, as we know, we don't want to have to keep asking these people to tell the story.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Nevertheless, she told the story again. And my wife, if I mention Jill, that's her name. So I might say my wife, I might say Jill. So Jill is a very non-confrontational person, but she was getting very agitated because it was just slow moving and just just it didn't seem like there was any sense of urgency to do anything. And so she says, Look, my daughter's been drugged and raped, and I think we need to start doing something about this. You know, something along those lines. And now I just want you to think about this for a minute. They had not done one bit of investigation at this point. Nothing. And the guy says, Nothing's gonna come of this because Antigua doesn't extradite. That's what they were just told there. So just think, you're already not thinking clear, you're already worried, you've got all kinds of things going on. Caitlin's dealing with so much mentally, and this is what you tell them. I'ma just say, even if you knew that you weren't gonna be able to extradite, maybe you didn't have a treaty. You don't say that at that point in time. Do your investigation. You need to do your investigation. Well, that guy, well, if he flies back into the country, you can get him, right? Before anything, that's what they're told. And just to finish that part of it, my wife calls me a couple times every day while she's down there to update me. That call was rough. So, and this was less than a week from when we found out. So we weren't sleeping really anyway, maybe two hours. So it's about 11 o'clock at night, and I just went to my office, got on my laptop, and just started researching. And before three in the morning, I had found there is a treaty with the UK. It's valid. I read everything about it three times. It covers this crime. I found the Sexual Offenses Act of 1995 from Antigua, read all the things around rape, there's different classifications, and it all fits. So at least at that point, I had hope that look, they can do it. They just haven't done it. This fits. So my job is to convince them they need to do this. That's the way when I got off my computer, that was my thinking. Okay, I know what I need to do next. I will say about two weeks later, they'd finished all the investigative stuff. I called Officer Forbes. So the guy that was the head, after that meeting, we didn't see him again until the trial. Thank goodness. Because he was horrible. And I hate to say it, nice gentleman, but for that job, he was he's the wrong guy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and it sounds as though this law enforcement agency maybe was not properly trained and had very little experience in this type of case.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, they've had a lot of rape cases, they just don't have the right training. But the fortunate for us, Corporal, well, he's Corporal Forbes now, Corporal Forbes took over younger, and I did not know this until last year, so way after. But he's just a good man. He's got a daughter. He was doing all those trauma-informed things that you should do with Caitlin. It made a big difference for Caitlin. He even checked on her from time to time, just call her. He ran into it at the supermarket one time. Hey, how's everything going? Are you feeling better? All that. About two weeks in, I mean, there was only so much evidence to collect, but there was evidence. So I called Officer Forbes and I said, Yeah, where are we? What's next? What where are we in the process? It's pretty much one-way communications with very few exceptions. That means I'm calling down there a lot and I'm emailing a lot. He said, It's all turned over to Commissioner Robinson. Here's his number if you want to call him. Now I've never talked to him, never seen him, but I called him and told him who I was. Of course, right off he knew. Just a fantastic person. So we go from a horrible police experience to someone much better that's the investigator to just a very smart, empathetic man, that's the commissioner. So made it more tolerable. I was thinking about how I want to approach him because I know they have a treaty. So I'm like, what are you thinking? I said, Officer Forbes said all of the evidence is to you now, so what are you thinking? He said, Well, I have everything except for the medical report for the rape exam, and I'm waiting on it. But one of the female officers was in with Caitlin during the exam, and he said, Look, she told me she's 99% sure Caitlin was raped, and she wouldn't say 100% unless she saw it with her own eyes. So it's about as firm as you can get it. I said, Well, let me just tell you before we go any further that I, you know, we were told nothing's gonna come this, blah, blah, blah. But I know there's a treaty, and if you have a treaty and you have a case this serious, if you're not gonna use it now, why have it? And he did not resist one bit. He said, as soon as I get that report, if it backs up what I think, I will recommend it to the attorney general to do extradition. So that was a huge relief because you know, thinking you can't do anything makes you think things you probably don't want to be thinking because it wasn't gonna just stand with nothing, in in my opinion.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So I want to just give listeners a little piece of context here because we did intro the show with a brief explanation of what happened to Caitlin. Uh but for clarity, she was on a date who then drugged and raped her, denied her claim that he raped her, and then I'm assuming he left the country to go home. He was a traveler, not a local from the UK, as well as a police officer in the UK.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. They met on Tinder, which we may talk about a little bit. I will just tell you, Tinder, Caitlin didn't even have Tinder until she was down there. It is what everybody used for social messaging. It's just how it was used. I'm sure it was used for other things it's used for here too, but it is how everybody communicated. You want to go to the beach this afternoon? It's just what they use. So she was she was on it. So anyway, that is how they met. They met in public. This guy knew what he was doing. This was a plan. There's zero question about that it was not a plan. It was for sure a plan. They met, they had very little to drink, a little bit of wine with dinner. Antiga is kind of shuts down early. Once it's dark, it's not a big island, there's not a lot to do. And Caitlin lived close by to the downtown area, which they were at a boat show. It's a big boating island, and it's kind of nice down there. She lives a mile away. They said she has a great balcony. You can see the harbor, it's beautiful. You look down on it, it's very nice. So they were just gonna go back and hang out a while and decide what they might want to do. And they did that. His whole communications, and there's I don't know, young people, I don't know, thousand texts, I'll say. It's a lot of text back and forth. Which always pulled for forensics for the trial. But anyway, you know, they set out until mosquitoes started biting and they were gonna go in. They decided they'd watch a movie. And Caitlin went to change, she actually put sweatpants on and stuff. So anyway, when she left, she left her drink, and it was no doubt it was spiting. In fact, when she took her first sip, she said something doesn't taste right. And he actually said, Oh, he Caitlin had some bog in her freezer, and he said he put some bog in it, saying this is what we do in the UK. She didn't know any better anyway, but she took one more sip and said, No, this does not taste right. It only took two sips. 15 minutes later, she was out, and she had no memory of the night. So she wasn't exactly sure what happened. He's saying nothing happened. He couldn't remember, he was making up all this stuff, you know, and basically, oh, I'm sure we didn't have sex and all this stuff, and it's all in text messages. And so, over the course of a couple of days, he's just stalling. He's buying time, he's got a couple of days left on that island, and he needs to keep her at bay because if we could have gotten him while he's on that island, he'd be in a horrible prison system right now. And so he delayed enough, but she kept pushing him via tag. She didn't see him again, but she started having bruises show up. She started getting some pain in the vaginal region, and so she started really pushing. But at this time, he's about to leave. And so I wish she would have caught us earlier, but I think in her mind she probably was suspicious but hoping this didn't happen because she was a virgin. So this became devastating for her. But right before he gets on the plane to leave, he basically said, Oh, yeah, well, we we had sex. After lying about it over and over, by the way, that's one of the main things that put him in jail. All those texts were preserved, and you can see her saying, We met on Tinder, but don't have any expectations of sex, that's not who I am, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, sure, no problem. And then you can just follow the text just to see he lied until he was about to get off the island. Then he didn't care. He never thought he would be pursued, but he was wrong.
SPEAKER_02:So he just to understand, he actually left the island, went back to the UK, and then was extradited back to Antigua.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:And we know that he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Is he in prison on the island or somewhere else?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So the extradition was the biggest obstacle we had because it's you know, look, most people know what extradition is for. You get involved, you learn. It is it's a little more complicated. It's a very technical process. Part of the problem, it ended up taking us about three years to get them extradited. Part of it's because Antigua had never done this before, and I really don't think they had defined the roles and processes. If we have to do it, they just had the treaty. So a lot of times, I don't think anybody thought it was their piece to do the next thing. There was definitely a lot of that. Actually, the first request was, so this happened in late May in 2015. They sent the first extradition request in December. Not horrible, not bad. Somebody hadn't done it. But there were errors in it, so then it comes back. Then you wait a couple months for them to clean up and then send it again. When they send it the second time and they validated, they sent it. I couldn't find anybody to validate on the other side that they received it. And nobody's looking for it. And I'll just tell you, months and months went by. And I was talking to people in the UK and the police, they were checking, and it's finally we found out that something did come through. They found an error immediately, told them what to do and sent it back to Antigua. And that got on somebody's desk and it got covered up and sat for months. This is the problem. Nobody owned it, obviously. I actually played a part in helping find that, believe it or not, from the U.S. So it took some work because I cared about it. It was my assignment, right? Right. So I couldn't let it just not do so. I was calling all kinds of people, and we found it under a stack of papers. Then it moved quick to get the second extradition request. Something I'll tell you, most people may not know this with extradition. So the country submits it. They're representing Antigua, not Caitlin or our family. So I couldn't talk to the Crown Prosecution Service, even though I did go to one of the hearings, I did meet them. They did sit down because I wanted they explained the process, and I just needed to know that. Several hearings go on. We lost the first extradition case only for one reason. The conditions of the prison were horrible. And the judge, basically, here's the net of it. Judge Abernoff, who was the top magistrate judge in the UK, said, I can't approve this request for one reason. The prison conditions are so bad, and they were, that I can't send a citizen of the UK to that prison because it breaks our hum, you know, human rights code. Yeah, exactly. But so here's what I didn't know, because right off I'm panicked when I get the news. The UK police reach out to me right away just to update me. And they said, Don't first of all, don't panic. They knew me by this time. And they said, You have three, we have three years to reapply. And he said, the judge told the Lee Martin Kramps' name, told him, Don't mistake this for me thinking you're innocent. Think of this as a stay of execution. Because that's she said, Because I've read all the evidence. So eventually Antigua stepped up again. They had two prison options, and I thought they were going along with option A. And this took a long time, another lengthy months and months and months for nothing to happen. To the point where Caitlin was graduating in 2017. And before we left the country, I hadn't met everybody, I had talked to everybody. I mean, the attorney general, the minister of foreign affairs, all these people I've been on the phone with, trying just to get the support and keep it moving. And anyway, I called Commissioner Robison and said, I'm gonna be down for 10 days. I go on Caitlin's graduate and I'm gonna help her move home. I'd like to meet. Can you help me set a meeting up with the Attorney General and the Minister of Foreign Affairs? I got in Saturday, I met with him on Sunday, he called on from his cell phone and set the meetings up. And so we got the times locked in. And I really did it because I wanted Caitlin to hear from their mouth in person that they're gonna make this happen. And they did tell her that. The thing is, when we left there, the to-do was for me to call in two weeks because they thought they were close on the prison. And I'll just tell you this, I didn't have an answer in two weeks. I tried two weeks more, no answer. They were getting perturbed with me, so I figured I better stop. I called Commissioner Robinson and I told him, Do you know what's going on? I can't really I hear they're close, but they won't really tell me any details. Do you know what's going on? Because I just not getting a good feeling. And he said, I could never get him to call me Derek. He calls me Mr. Hurley. He said, Mr. Hurley, I think you've taken this as and pushed this as far as you can. Now's the time to call the embassy. So I call the embassy. They call me back. I tell them the story. They say, Can you write it up and send it to me so I can circulate it? Which I did. The next day, a high-level person in the embassy called me. And I just want to tell you this because this just puts this in perspective. He said, Told me who he was, super nice man. He said, before we talk about it, he said, I have all the information on the case. I've already talked to Antigua. But before we talk about it, you have to tell me how you got the case this far because we don't get cases this far.
SPEAKER_02:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00:I pause because I'm thinking, gosh, what do I say? I need his help. I don't want to antagonize. I said, look, I don't want you to take this the wrong way. I'm just going to be honest about it. I told him about the conversation with the consulate. That's why we didn't call. And you know, that's what I'm telling you. She told us correctly because they hadn't got a case to this level. And so the reality is we pushed it as much as we could. And I said, Look, we can talk about that all you want, but right now I need your help. Can you help? And he says, We're gonna help. And they got a lady from the UK embassy, also in Barbados, Sarah Abraham, involved, and she spent week after week flying back and forth to Antigua measuring the jail. So they have all these little things that have to be. It has to be so big and all the all the she got all of that sorted and went into the parliament meeting and also negotiated with the defense on this so that we would avoid an appeal. She did all that. And then she went into the active parliament meeting in Antigua, stopped the meeting to get the prime minister to sign off on the deal. It was kind of a big thing. But she was incredible. And then they extradition then went quick because they started where we stopped with the prison, and she had already negotiated it all. It happened very quick. A month later he was in Antigua and you know with no bond or anything. And they did put him in, it's a former U.S. naval base, and they have a prison sales in there. So that's where he that's where he's still at. He had the option after the appeal and the second appeal. Once there was nothing else to exhaust, if he were still in prison, he could basically I say petition, because that's the right word, but fill out a form and they will send him to the UK to serve the rest of his thing. But he has not done that. Interesting. Yeah, and he's the only one in that, him and a guard every day.
SPEAKER_02:Very interesting. That's a bit long, but that that's a kind of important pieces to hear from No, I think that really frames out this case and gives the story the depth that it deserves. Now we've talked a lot about the case and about the governments and embassies and extradition, but we haven't talked yet about Caitlin. She's was the victim, she's now a survivor, and she chose not to remain anonymous, which is her right, of course, either way, throughout this whole process. Why do you believe that uh Caitlin chose uh to identify herself and why other victims remain silent?
SPEAKER_00:You know, I've done a lot of these, and nobody's asked me that before, but it is pretty easy for me to answer because when we were at the trial after it was over, the local television wanted to interview her and she did it, but they had her blurred. She had not given up anonymity at that point. On our trip home from the trial, she just was talking to him and said, You know, I think I'm gonna give up my anonymity because I didn't do it, I didn't do anything wrong, and I'm not carrying a shame around like I did something wrong. So she said, you know, these are kind of her words, not exactly. You know, the Me Too movement had a big impact, and we had a lot of conversation about this topic during that, but it's faded a bit, and we need more stories out there, so I want to get mine out there. And I actually said, Well, what do you? Thinking? And she said, Do you think we can get a major news network or something to cover it? And I said, Yeah, I mean, I think we can, because I know some contacts in this space at this point. And I called a good friend of ours who was really critical for our family, Annie Clark, who's in this space. She she started EROC in rape on campus. Anyway, she gave me a lot of guidance throughout, but I said, Do you know anybody? And so she gave us people from a number of networks. Caitlin talked to all of them. I ended up talking to most of them as well. And she decided she was just going to go with CNN. Well, six weeks after the verdict was the sentencing, we were allowed to join via Skype, so we didn't have to travel. And so CNN was at our house during that Skype. So they sat through the sentencing and then did all interviews and all this after. And so she wanted the story out. She just did not want to carry that burden. She didn't feel like she did anything wrong. You can see from the text messages clearly she wasn't interested in this. So, you know, she just didn't think it's fair to be people to blame her or be critical of her. I will say, as you would expect, a lot of trolls from the article, but more good than bad. It was it ended up being very positive. Over a million people read that on their website the first two days it was out. She heard from people all over the country.
SPEAKER_02:She's so brave and so strong. I really applaud her decision, and I think she took a stand, not just for herself, but for survivors everywhere. I've interviewed many survivors of rape and other gender-based crimes who have all spoken about carrying shame and you know, carrying blame for the crimes committed against them. But she clearly understood that that does not have to be the case because it wasn't her fault. It's never your fault.
SPEAKER_00:And I'll tell you the truth, I was a little surprised she went that route. I mean, whatever she wanted to do was fine. But she had a tough time through this. And so maybe winning the trial helped, right? For sure it helped, but it maybe it validated I didn't do anything wrong, he's the bad guy here. I maybe that's a little bit of it, but you know, she has handled herself on in the trial, and she it was brutal. It just as you hear is no joke, they just crucified the victim, the defense, and it was just like that. But she came out and did that, and she was great on the stand, she's done some podcasts, she's really good. I'd love to have had her on this, but she's married, she got a six-year-old daughter, she works full-time, so she just sets sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:She's a busy woman, I get it.
SPEAKER_00:She is, but she is, she's gonna get more and more involved. She wants to. This is a big deal for her, too. But as you ask about other victims, I've learned a lot from this myself, and that's why I'm in this space. I would love for everybody to report. I would love it, but I understand why they don't, and I do not blame them. Once you go through the process of what they have to endure, it sometimes I think it's an easy decision not to do anything. Whether they tell people or not is another decision point. And I get calls, I have had calls from people I do not know, I'm not even sure how they got my contact, that they're victims and have not talked to anybody. The last one was in Middle Tennessee. I live in Knoxville, Tennessee, and she told me what happened. I said, You feel free to tell me as much or as little if you want to tell me what happened. And she told me everything, you know, and I'm I'm very empathetic because I've gone through all this stuff, but she's like, What do I do? And I'll just be honest, I will never tell anybody what to do. I said, Look, I can't tell you what to do, but what I can do is tell you what the process is gonna be like, things you need to consider. Like in Tennessee, you have from when it happened, you have five days to get a rape exam. So whether you want to take it forward now, or even if you think you might in the future, at this point, you've got two days left to get a rape exam. You need to know that. Here's what's gonna happen. As a side note, I have three daughters. Caitlin's the oldest. My middle daughter was a police officer in Nashville, Tennessee, big city. After just under three years, she became a sexual assault detective. She had been through this whole process with her sister. She was, as a patrol officer, great with victims because she had the empathy because she's been through this experience. But also with her being in that role, I learned a lot because, not that I knew who or any of that, but she would tell me case situations and what happens. And the fact is, you know, she would take ten cases like this to the prosecutor, people that move forward with it. Most of the time we're lucky if eight of them get taken. So you can go through all these things, interviews, you know, then they're going to talk to the perpetrator if they know the perpetrator. In this case they did, you know, and then they will come back and validate things. And you go and you've done a rape exam, you're putting yourself through a lot. And the sad part for me is most of the time the cases aren't taken for because they just say he said, she said, and they don't feel they can win. If they don't feel they can win, they won't take it. And so you do that and you don't even get your day in court. And I've had victims tell me, even if I lose, I just want to confront them and I just want to get it out there. You know, but that you don't even get that. So we've got a lot of problems with how we do these things, and we're one of about every country that has these problems, but we could do better.
SPEAKER_02:A thousand percent we can do better. I want to talk about the trial for a minute because I'm curious about how it's different in Antigua versus the United States and so on. So, from what I understand, during the trial, there were certain themes towards victimization that were on display. What were some of those themes? How was Caitlin treated? Was she victim blamed, and so on?
SPEAKER_00:Hundred percent. I'll just say this they really didn't have a good defense. He said it was consensual. That that was it. That was the only defense. So there's got to be a bad guy here. We're in court, so they want to make Caitlin the bad guy. She wasn't having it. I just tell you she w she was not having it. But they questioned, of course, the things you hear, what she was wearing, which is funny, she was in a nice dress at the show, then they came and she's got sweatpants and long sleeves short. Ridiculous questions. You know, were you drinking? Here's the thing they want to talk about drinking all the time. Yeah, they had some wine. It came out that neither one of them were remotely at all intoxicated. They didn't have that much over a long period of time. It was just a little bit. And the defense attorney surely knew that was coming out because it was the perpetrator that said it.
SPEAKER_02:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Yet he still badgered her about it. They were going to watch a movie. It ended up being, if you remember the movie called American Pie, Caitlin didn't even know what it was. She'd never seen it. We spent 20 minutes with the defense trying to just browbeat her into her admitting she picked the movie. She's like, I never even heard of the movie. I didn't even know what it was about. It was rough. I mean, you just want to get out of your seat and go throw a forearm to somebody's head. That's how, I mean, it was it was tough. After that, when she said that about watching that, she says, you know, growing up, we just I had two sisters, we played, we didn't watch that much TV. And the defense attorney said, Are you Amish or something? I will say the judge called him out and kind of scolded him a bit, and he needed it. And in the end, they just didn't have a defense because there's too much indefensible stuff in this case. So, yeah, she went through all that, but she kept her cool the whole time. So, as far as the victimization part, yeah, it was their whole case. The defense called nobody, but they cross-examined and basically Caitlin had the worst of it. You know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's really shameful. I'm sorry for that. I want to also ask you about Tinder. Has Tinder had anything to say in response to the attack, the crime? Any other thoughts from them?
SPEAKER_00:They haven't. I mean, they probably don't even know about it. We certainly hadn't reached out. I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of unknown cases that aren't that dissimilar, starting from Tinder. I really feel like, you know, online dating is a big thing. In fact, I will say this, this might shock you. I don't think I've ever told anybody this on one of these things. Caitlin's husband now, she met online, on an online app. She met him on it and they dated a while. Of course, she was a whole lot different at this point. Right. But but, you know, they're married and they're good. And but so, you know, it can be fine. I know a lot of people that have met people through this. But I would say this this is my advice to people doing this. Until you get to know that person fairly well, which means multiple dates in public. Stay in public. I would also say there are some really good tools out there. I will mention two. I don't have anything personally with them, but I'm just telling you because I research a lot of this stuff. Okay. There's an app called I'm Safe. And you can put your friends in it, your family, you can put who you want in it. And if you're going on a date, you can turn on geo tracking, they can track you. You can tell them where you're going, they can see where you're going. If you're getting a bad feeling, if you're going, hey, we're supposed to turn left, we turn right, you can hit a help me button or you know, basically emergency button or something. And it will send those friends, it does not go to the police. Because you might want to do that when you get a bad feeling, but nothing's happened, right? And they know, so then they can call, you know, they they can see where you are. If you don't call back or something, then they can call the police. So there's some good tools out there that I would highly recommend people look into. And just because we talk about drink spiking, which is a horrible problem, and that's what you know happened to Caitlin. If you've never heard of Nike Cap it, it's a simple cover for your drink, you know, and I think that would help because it's easy to put something in somebody's drink if it's just wide open there. And the last thing on that I'll say is if you're out and you're having a drink, even if you're not on a date, you're out with your friends, and this is men or women, obviously 90% of it's women that get assaulted, but don't leave your drink alone. If you have go to the bathroom, either you have a close friend eyeballing that thing the whole time, or just get rid of it. If you happen to walk away to talk to somebody, if you've walked away from that drink, do not drink because the number of these happening. I know a lot about Nashville, it's a big party city. Yeah. And this happens constantly. Every night, I'm sure this happens.
SPEAKER_02:It's it's a huge problem internationally. It is, and I value those resources for listeners who might want to take measures to further protect themselves, but I also understand that it is, again, always the woman, always the potential victim or the actual victim who has to do all of this work. It's really, you know, we talk a lot about ending sexual violence on this podcast. That's what we need to stay focused on too, is making sure that this is a problem is eradicated. I'm curious if the verdict and the conviction of this perpetrator and even the extradition process changed anything in the way that Antigua views sexual assault, sexual violence, or prosecutes these cases.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I'm still in touch with people there. In fact, I was back there for the first time since the trial last December when I did a trauma-informed approach training to first responders. And I offered that and I did it on my own dime because it was important. But I honestly don't think anything's changed. There are a lot of people complaining. I follow news down there because I do have friends down there, and I have seen comments from the public prosecution's office and the attorney general's office, and they talk about doing training. The training I did, people thought we need to do this more, we need more people trained on this. And I've offered to come and do it as much as they want, but just nothing, nothing's come of it. And to be honest, you know, even though I've paid for everything my first time down, my flight, everything, yeah, I will give my time to do this stuff, but I'm not in a position just to pay for you know flights and all that stuff. But expenses aren't that much. So I'm like, if you'll just cover my expenses, I'll do as many classes as you want for free. And uh it's still budget, even then, it's budget. These are poor countries. There's another country I'm talking to down there about doing the same thing, and they're gonna try to get the budget pass because they're one of those four that I mentioned that I mean they're they have a problem.
SPEAKER_02:For sure. And I I can't think of a better opportunity than for law enforcement and other first responders from those countries to come to the conference on crimes against women.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I've let a lot of people know about it. Even, you know, I've talked to folks there about potentially going through our case. So I've invited the attorney general, the prosecutor, and Sarah Abraham from the UK Embassy. Would they be interested to come because then you could get all the different elements of the case? And it's just a but the budget thing is tough. It it's just tough. They don't do a lot of that because it costs them a bit of money. And I'm trying to convince them to do it. We'll see. Well, I appreciate you advocating for the perfect for your it would be perfect for your May conference because you have such an international group, and it is a unique case. Never been an extradition in the Eastern Caribbean before like this. And there's a lot of setbacks along the way. It's a long story. We just touched on it really, but yeah, I'm with you. I'm trying.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'd love to see a group from those countries come and learn with us at the conference and share their experiences as well. Now, you turned your pain into purpose and started an Antiguan justice campaign, and then later wrote a book called Antiguan Justice, a father's fight. Can you tell us about the advocacy you do through Antiguan Justice and share some of the major themes of the book?
SPEAKER_00:Well, as I mentioned earlier, I knew that I needed to get in this space. I really felt it was important, and I was just fortunate to be in a position, I've had a good career and done fairly well where I could walk away and be okay and not really knowing the financial part. I had no expectations on it. And I started working my way through it. Now, I wrote the book, not because I wanted to I I mean, I would have never in the world thought I'd write a book, but I had notes from every phone call, from every all the emails, and I had all the information. I just needed to write the story around it. So it's very much my story of the case because I spent the four years grinding this thing with the governments and police. So it's an interesting story, and I thought it'd be interesting. But also to Caitlin's point earlier, there's not enough stories about this out there. I couldn't find one that a man had written, certainly not a father, and so I thought it's unique. But I didn't write it so that I've written a book. I didn't write it for any money. It wasn't about that for me. It was about I need a tool. I'm not in this space. I come from a different industry, right? But this might be a tool to help me get in the space. That was my primary reason, and it has helped because it validates that I I'm just not somebody just coming in here. I've been through this process. And so, yeah, it kind of did what I wanted it to do. And, you know, right now, just yes about some of the things I'm doing. I do help. I mean, I volunteer for rain. I do projects with most of them so they're not long term. Just did one with them a couple months ago. I'm starting to do some things with I have a right to. I have high hopes with things I'm gonna do there. You said something earlier about prevention. I will just tell you that this is an important message. I've spent a lot of time trying to help people with tools and how to keep themselves safe, which is always gonna be important. We'll never eradicate it, right? So that's important. But through some things and some friends I've met through this space, what we really need to do is the movement that's the opposite of toxic masculinity and start talking about how to be good men, how to be empathetic, you know, how to respect people, consent. That's what we've got to do because if we can change the mindset of young men and men, they don't commit the crime. And that's the biggest chance we have. Men are the problem, men are also the solution, and I need men to get involved to be the solution.
SPEAKER_02:Excellent advice. Derek, thank you so much for talking with me today and being on the show.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. The twenty first annual conference on crimes against women will be held May 18th through the 21st, 2026, in Dallas, Texas. Learn more at conferencecaw.org and be the first to know about all conference details, as well as the latest on the Institute for Coordinated Community Response, an annual conference summit at Beyond the Bounds, and the National Training Center on Crimes Against Women. When you follow us on social media at National C C AW.