DETROIT (WXYZ) — Caitlin Tressler has been missing since the night Detroit police left her home, convinced she wasn't in danger.
On March 27th, Caitlin's father, Mike, called police to report that Caitlin was the victim of domestic violence. But the three officers who responded would leave Tressler's home without ever setting foot inside.
“They didn’t go in, they didn’t separate them, they didn’t protect her,” Mike Tressler said in an interview from his home in Colorado.
“I feel like I let her down; I shouldn’t have called the police," he said. "I feel like I’m the one who caused it to escalate by calling them. It’s something I struggle with.”
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Caitlin Tressler was a musician and an artist who moved to Detroit from Virginia only a month before her disappearance. She was looking for a fresh start, her father said, and to escape her former boyfriend.
On that night in March, Caitlin was texting with her father through the messaging app WhatsApp, telling him she was in danger and sending him a photo of her face.
“She texted me a picture of her battered face, and it was late at night,” her father recalled. “And I saw that, and I said: 'What happened?' And she said, 'what would you guess?'”
7 News Detroit reviewed a transcript of the WhatsApp conversation from that night.
“Looks like you got hit or mugged or a car accident,” Mike Tressler wrote after seeing the photo.
Caitlin responded: “No, I’m at home. He’s on the couch.”
“He,” Mike said, was Caitlin’s ex-boyfriend who had followed her from Virginia to Detroit. He has prior convictions out of state for robbery and grand larceny.
While Detroit police have named him a person of interest in Caitlin’s disappearance, 7 News Detroit is not naming him because he has not been charged with any crime.
“I’m not safe because he’s not on the right meds,” Caitlin messaged her father, adding that she was “not doing well physically” and complained of “wooziness.”
“I said that’s not okay, you need to call the police,” Mike Tressler recalled. “She said she was afraid to. She was terrified. And I said: ‘Well, I’ll call so you don’t have to out loud.’”
Caitlin texted her father that police should “approach calmly and kindly," saying her boyfriend "responds well to that but he is also suicidal and possibly armed most likely with a blade.”
From Colorado, her father called Detroit police and was eventually routed to 911.
“I told them the situation," her father said. "She’s been beat up, she said she was woozy, I think she has a concussion."
Tressler said he told the dispatcher that his daughter's boyfriend had access to a blade.
Officers made it to the home within minutes and, when they arrived, Caitlin texted her father: “I just heard them knock.”
Her father responded, telling Caitlin she could text with 911 from her phone. She replied: “I’m petrified.”
“The last I heard from my daughter Caitlin was, ‘They’re at the door, and I’m in the text with them now,’” Mike Tressler recalled. “I said okay, you take care of business and let me know how it goes.”
Two officers and a sergeant arrived at the home on Webb Street that night, but they never made it inside. They were not granted access to enter, sources say, and spoke to Tressler’s boyfriend through a closed door and Caitlin through an open window.
Sources say the officers could see that her boyfriend had a knife on his person.
The sergeant spent at least 40 minutes outside the home, determining there was no threat and leaving.
Caitlin’s father would try to call his daughter repeatedly over the next several hours and days, never reaching her again. She has not been seen since.
Tom Berry is a retired Detroit police lieutenant who spent 35 years on the force, responding to more than a hundred domestic violence calls. He reviewed the circumstances of the domestic violence call from that night.
“I’m not leaving until I get into that home,” Berry said. “One-hundred percent. There’s no way I’m leaving.”
“Why did it take 40 minutes to say no? Why did it take 40 minutes to give that girl hope? And then leave? And then leave her there…what is she thinking when they walk away?”
When 7 News Detroit questioned Chief Todd Bettison back in April, just days after Tressler went missing, he made no excuses for the sergeant’s actions and placed her on administrative duty.
Since then, the department has submitted a warrant request stemming from the sergeant’s conduct.
DPD would not comment on the nature of the charges being considered, and the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office said the warrant is pending.
“She’s a veteran member of this department. This is elementary,” Bettison told Channel 7’s Ross Jones in April. “Based off the circumstances, entry should have been made.”
Last Monday, 7 News Detroit contacted the Detroit Lieutenants and Sergeants Association, the police union representing the sergeant at the center of this case, for comment.
On Wednesday, the sergeant submitted her resignation to DPD.
Earlier this year, the Tressler family hired attorney Chris Trainor. With the investigation into Caitlin’s disappearance at a standstill, he is preparing to take legal action to try to help locate her.
He’s also considering legal action against Detroit Police.
“We’re going to file a federal civil rights claim, and we’re going to…subpoena and get a court order and bring this young man in, and we’re going to take his deposition if we have to go get him, we will,” Trainor said.
“We’re going to do their job, which they should have done a long time ago.”
Detroit Police declined to make anyone available for an interview on this story, citing the open investigation into the officers and sergeant and the ongoing search for Tressler.
Anyone with information about Caitlin Tressler's disappearance is urged to contact the Detroit Police Department's major crimes unit at (313) 596-2260 or by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAK-UP.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com or at (248) 827-9466.