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“It’s interesting because we haven’t released that information to the public, so I’m not sure how anyone would know that unless they had some sort of inside knowledge as to what happened in the Blanchet home at the time of the murders.”
Cauley held up his hands as if to fend them off. “Whoa! I have no insider knowledge. I simply heard a rumor that it was a murder-suicide.”
“But that’s not what you said,” Gonzo noted. “You said, and I quote, ‘We heard he was found with the weapon.’ That’s a very specific piece of information.”
“Look,” Cauley said as he began to visibly perspire, “I’m not sure what you’re trying to do here.”
“We’re investigating a mass homicide,” Freddie said, “and you just became very interesting to us.”
“What?How? Because I passed along arumorI heard?”
“Where were you Sunday night?”
“At home with my wife.”
“You never left?”
“No.” He moved in his chair.
Freddie wouldn’t call it a squirm, per se, but he definitely shifted.
“Wait… I went to the liquor store around nine, but I came right back. My wife can attest to that. She was annoyed that I’d gone out so late to get beer.”
“Where can we find your wife?”
“She works at a bank in Northwest.” He recited the name of the bank and the address. “She had nothing to do with this. Neither of us did. But after what he put us through, neither of us was sad to hear he was dead.”
“Can you tell us specifically what he put you through?” Freddie asked.
“You’ve seen the lawsuit, I presume.”
“We have,” Freddie said, “but we’d like to hear it in your words.”
Cauley sighed as he sat back in his chair, seeming distressed now, in addition to sweaty. “He was our last hope to have a baby. We’d practically bankrupted ourselves with treatments and procedures. He came highly recommended by some people we knew who’d gone to him for fertility treatment and ended up with twins. We waited eight months for an appointment with him, and he gave us so much hope. I don’t know if you have any experience with infertility, but it’s devastating.”
“We’ve experienced it through friends,” Gonzo said. “We know how hard it can be.”
“When Misty came home from her appointment and told me what’d happened… At first, I didn’t believe her. She was sedated, after all, so how would she know? But she said it was too vivid to not have happened. She went onto a local forum for women struggling with infertility to ask if anyone else had had an odd experience with Dr. Blanchet, and that’s how she connected with the other three plaintiffs. Their descriptions of the incidents were shockingly similar. I’m sure you know the details…”
“We do,” Gonzo said.
“When the cop working the case said he didn’t have enough to charge him, the women decided to sue. The husbands and partners have supported them every step of the way.”
Freddie put the social media post that had led them to Cauley on the desk in front of him. “Can you tell us if this was related to the incident with Dr. Blanchet?”
He rubbed his jaw with a trembling hand. “It was in part. I have a beef with people in positions of power who take advantage of others in lesser positions. Like a doctor tending to women desperate to have a baby who violates them in the most disgusting way.”
“It must’ve made you angry to hear he’d done that to your wife,” Gonzo said.
“I was… enraged. She’s already been through so much with four rounds of failed IVF, two miscarriages, an ectopic pregnancy. This was just too much for us.”
“Were you angry enough to kill him and his family?” Freddie asked.
Cauley stared at them for a second, his mouth hanging open in shock. “I didn’t kill him. And if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have killed his wife and children. I can’t stop thinking about those poor kids. Whatever drove someone to murder, how did it involve them?”
“What about the other plaintiffs and their husbands? Was anyone angry enough to commit murder?”
“They were more heartbroken than angry. He was seen as a last resort to many of us. That this could’ve happened is still surreal.”
