The guys at the sheriff’s office call her a “cool dude with long hair” because, they say, she’s meaner than any of them—both on the gun range and in the field. Her name is Lt. Dakota Black. She’s a trained tracker and detective with the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Lt. Dakota Black explains, “I go out to scenes when there’s manhunts or trying to locate individuals.” Her specialty is finding the missing—whether alive or dead.
“I have found them underneath piles of leaves, in trees, abandoned homes, sheds… I’ve found them pretty much in any area you can think of,” she says.
Often by her side is her partner, Deputy Haven, a trained therapy dog. For kids and other family members caught in the crossfire of tragedy, Haven provides comfort and consolation—a consoling presence Lt. Black herself would rely on in the coming months as she embarked on one of the most heart-wrenching cases of her career.
Lt. Dakota Black reflects, “This case will stay with me forever. And it will be one that I always remember throughout my whole life because of how cruel it was.”
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### The Search for Makayla Meave
Andria Meave recalls, “The last thing we said to each other was ‘I love you.'”
Friday, September 15, 2023, began like most days for Andria—with a 7 a.m. phone call from her best friend and younger sister, Makayla.
Andria says, “I wish I would’ve known; I would have said so much more. I’m grateful for that at least I said, ‘I love you.'”
The next morning, Saturday the 16th, the phone rang again around 7 a.m.—only this time, it wasn’t Makayla on the line. It was Makayla’s husband, Frank Byers.
Andria recalls, “He’s hysterical, crying, screaming, can barely understand what he’s saying. And he says, ‘Makayla didn’t come home last night.'”
Frank Byers told Andria that Makayla went on a date the Friday night before with a bald man in a white truck. They left, and she never came home that night.
At the time, Makayla and Frank were headed for divorce, says Andria. They still lived on the same 10-acre property in Macomb, Oklahoma—but in separate homes.
So initially, Andria wasn’t worried.
“My first thought was, ‘She’s single. I hope she had fun,'” she says.
But as the hours went by, her concern grew. Many of her calls to Makayla went straight to voicemail.
By noon, Andria was worried. By 1 p.m., she was really worried.
Their mother, Barbara Harper, was also anxious. Makayla was supposed to help out at the family restaurant that afternoon but never showed up or called—unheard of for Makayla.
Barbara says, “The more I prayed about it, the more I realized that something serious had happened.”
Frank Byers reported Makayla missing to the Pottawatomie County Sheriff’s Office that afternoon.
—
### Community Grasping for Answers
Frank Byers appeared on local news, visibly upset.
“Even today, I call her,” he said. “I know she’s not here, but I still have her number and her phone’s still somewhere. It would’ve been nice to hear her voice.”
Many in the community tuned in to watch his interview—including Lt. Dakota Black.
When asked if she felt angry, Lt. Black admitted, “It did make me angry. It was sickening to see that a beautiful woman was gone from the world and, while he’s on TV professing his innocence, he’s still in communication with other women, trying to have intimate relationships with them.”
—
### Uncovering Frank Byers’ Past
Detective Black tracked down scores of these other women.
One was Crystal Cantrell, Byers’ girlfriend before he met Makayla.
Crystal shared, “He is very good at making you believe him… and then he’s kind of like a snake. Once he gets you in there, he bites you.”
Black learned that Byers wooed Cantrell with the same false story he used on Makayla—that his daughters were being mistreated by his current girlfriend.
Like Makayla, Cantrell had a soft heart.
“I love kids,” she explained. “I have kids of my own, so I just felt really bad for them.”
Shortly after moving in together, Cantrell says Byers began to reveal his true nature. He isolated her from friends and family and controlled her every move.
They fought. One night, Cantrell woke up to see him looming over her, clutching a pair of handcuffs.
“I closed them so he couldn’t use them on me,” she said. “After that, he just got on my back and was choking me. He wrapped his arms around me and had his hand on my throat and just didn’t let go.”
Cantrell managed to escape but was too afraid to report the incident to police. She left Byers for good but says it could have been her in that ditch.
“He would’ve killed me,” she said.
—
### Signs of Domestic Abuse
If Byers ever harmed Makayla, she never told her mom and sister.
Sometimes they saw bruises, but Makayla always said they were from roughhousing with the kids.
Andria confesses, “If I think about it too much, I go down a dark hole and don’t come out because I did see the bruises and I just chose to believe and not question. Maybe if I would’ve questioned, it would have come out differently.”
—
### Building a Profile
Piece by piece, Lt. Black and her team built a profile of a murderer.
“This photo was taken at Walmart,” Lt. Black said, showing a security camera image. Using the date on a Walmart receipt found on Frank’s property, detectives were able to track the footage.
In the photo, the cart contained bleach, ammonia, and a mop.
When asked what those items meant to her as an investigator, Lt. Black said, “Crime scene cleanup.”
They also matched the carpet found in the ditch where Makayla’s body was discovered to a carpet a neighbor had given Byers and Makayla for their dogs.
“Frank took that carpet given by the neighbor and used it to roll Makayla’s body in,” Lt. Black explained.
Detectives believe Byers killed Makayla around 4 p.m. and left her body in the home. Later, he picked up his daughters after school and drove them around, returning home about 8 p.m. That’s when he likely started moving her body.
The children reported in interviews about what happened when they returned home.
—
### Confronting the Killer
Barbara Harper recalls the moment the police confronted Byers.
“It was a hallelujah moment, a ‘about time’ moment,” she said. “We couldn’t get her back, but we knew he wasn’t walking free anymore.”
Detective Marcus May says by then, they had gathered weeks of hard evidence and were done with Byers’ lies.
“Now is the opportunity to let us know what happened,” the detective told Byers during interrogation.
Byers replied, “I… I didn’t do it.”
When pressed about why Makayla’s blood was on his boots, Byers stammered, “I… I can’t answer. I don’t know. Honestly.”
Frank Byers was charged with first-degree murder.
The district attorney sought the death penalty, but the defense requested a plea deal to save his life.
Fifteen months after Byers’ arrest, he agreed to plead guilty and serve life without parole.
—
### Family’s Heartbreak and Doubts
Makayla’s mother, Barbara Harper, was bitterly disappointed with the plea deal.
“I feel that the plea deal was a cop-out,” she said. “The moment she took her last breath, he chose that and he got to choose what he got for punishment too, and that’s not OK. It’s not OK.”
Barbara also believes Byers did not act alone.
When asked if she was convinced Frank had help, she answered, “I’ll go to my grave believing that.”
Andria Meave agrees, “I think he had to have had an accomplice. I don’t think he could’ve moved her body on his own at all.”
Peter Van Sant asked if Byers was physically capable.
“No, I don’t believe so,” Andria affirmed.
Lt. Black commented, “I think we all agree it would absolutely be difficult to move her, but people are scared—they can do amazing things.”
Detective May added, “What they’re saying is not unreasonable. If the evidence is presented to us one day suggesting that, we will take it and run with it to its fullest extent.”
—
### Remembering Makayla
Barbara Harper often visits the place where Makayla’s body was found.
“I come and sit and look at that place down there… I went and hung all kinds of crosses and different things.”
She expressed her pain: “He didn’t just take from us, he took from his own children—someone who loved them and put them first.”
Lt. Black reflected, “It didn’t have to end this way. He could have let her leave. But he didn’t. There’s cold justice for Makayla.”
For Detective Dakota Black, tracker, her painful work continues.
—
### A Foundation to Fight Domestic Violence
Barbara Harper is starting “Makayla’s Purple Butterfly” foundation to fight against domestic violence.
Andria says, “That was her goal, her mission in life—to help anyone in need.”
Visiting Makayla’s grave with her mother, Andria shares, “When I think of Makayla, I think of sunflowers. I think of joy.”
Barbara replies, “She would love that with all those sunflowers. I sure miss her smile, her laugh—oh, that laugh was something else.”
Andria adds, “She was my best friend. I strived for her to be proud of me because I looked up to her—even though she was the little sister.”
She admits, “I still lay in bed and talk to her like she’s still right there. I feel like she’s watching over us every day.”
—
### If You or Someone You Know is a Victim of Domestic Violence
Please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at **1-800-799-7233**.
—
*Produced by Liza Finley and Hannah Vair. Development Producer: David Dow. Editors: Marlon Disla, Marcus Balsam, George Baluzy, Michael Baluzy. Associate Producer: Megan Brown. Senior Producer: Peter Schweitzer. Executive Story Editor: Nancy Kramer. Executive Producer: Judy Tygard.*
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/makayla-meave-frank-byers-oklahoma-murder-48-hours/
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