‘She wanted to get him help’: Woman described as loving mom after son arrested in killing

Grayson Fults had just started to recognize and get excited by his grandmother’s voice.

No matter where they were, Kylie Douglas said, she and her mother, Kacy Joel, video-chatted each morning.

Joel would, somewhat jokingly, say: “I didn’t call to see you” since she was eager to see her 7-month-old grandson.

“We’d call grandma, and he would get this big old cheesy smile on his face, and he’d look at me, and he’d start touching the phone, reaching at her through the phone,” Douglas said.

Recent video chats were about showing Joel how close Grayson was to crawling. They last talked Tuesday morning.

Later that day, Joel died. Her 21-year-old son, Devin Nicolas Joel, is accused of attacking her with a brick or rock at their rental home near Central and Edgemoor.

Kylie Douglas said her brother had been suffering from mental health problems that had grown worse in the last year. Kacy Joel had been trying to get her son help.

Douglas described her 46-year-old mother as a loving parent and grandmother.

Kacy Joel stayed with Douglas for the 24-plus hours she was in labor and then spent the next four months with her daughter and only grandchild, waking up in the middle of the night to soothe her grandson while his mother recovered and waking up early so her daughter could rest.

“She did everything with him in the beginning,” Douglas said.

After that, Kacy Joel left California, which she called home, and went back to moving around the country with her boyfriend, Robert Vandoren, who traveled for work as a wind turbine technician, and her son.

Traveling was something Kacy Joel loved to do. She had moved to 30-plus states for short stints with her boyfriend.

Vandoren’s work took them all over the country. He’s had jobs in Dodge City, West Virginia, Hawaii and more. Douglas had traveled with her mother, brother and Vandoren for a few years before having a child.

“She loved it,” Douglas said. “She loved doing it with him.”

Kacy Joel and Vandoren had been together for roughly seven years, Douglas said.

Vandoren, through Douglas, declined to talk now. Douglas said he is busy packing up the rental they were staying in and sending her mother’s belongings home. Douglas plans to take her mother’s chihuahua, Stitch, and her brother’s Shih Tzu, Rocky.

Everywhere Kacy Joel went, Douglas said she would make friends. She has a lot of family and friends back home in California, but also friends all over the world. She described her mother as a fun-loving, free-spirited “gypsy woman” who liked to fish.

Growing up, she said, they had a normal childhood with lots of motherly love. Kacy Joel always called Douglas her “little rainbow.”

Douglas remembers her mother setting up slumber parties on the living room floor when she and her brother were too afraid to sleep by themselves.

Douglas said her brother was a normal kid, playing with toys and video games.

“He’s a very sweet kid,” Douglas said. “He has such a good heart. He’s never done nothing wrong in his life. … He was so amazing growing up and one day a switch just clicked and he was mentally unstable.”

Douglas said her brother’s mental health took a drastic decline around a year ago. She said it wasn’t drug or alcohol related. He started to hear voices in his head and make up things that never happened.

Douglas said her mother struggled to find the right resources for him. She had been looking in Wichita since they arrived a few weeks ago.

“She wanted to get him help,” Douglas said. “ It was just too late.”

Police were called around 5:16 p.m. Tuesday to the 5700 block of East Central and found Kacy Joel lying in the backyard. She was taken to a hospital, where she died.

Devin Joel was seen running from the home on foot with a knife. When police found him, he made comments about dying by suicide from police shooting him, police said. But he eventually put the knife down and was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder.

Douglas said she had not spoken to her brother since her mother’s death, but she plans to. Douglas said she wants to know why he killed their mother.

“I know she even still loves her son, because in my heart I felt like she is telling me to forgive him. … That’s just who she is as a person,” Douglas said. “She’s forgiving, she’s beautiful, she’s nice, she’s fun, she’s a happy-go-lucky person and she’s a gypsy soul. She wanted to travel the world and that’s what she was doing with the love of her life and my brother.”

Douglas said Grayson will remember his grandmother.

“He’ll remember her forever,” she said. “I’ll forever tell him stories about her.”

A GoFundMe has been set up to try and help cover expenses to bring her mother home for burial. It had raised nearly $5,000 of the $10,000 goal as of 4:40 p.m. Thursday. The fundraiser can be found at rb.gy/m3uts.