Fan Favorite: The Cassidy Rainwater Case

Chris tells the tale of two 2021 cases; one that national media tracked daily for months, and a far more mysterious, grisly case that most people have never heard about.

Transcript

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People just want to know what it's like to be me. How does it feel to see a dead body? Tell a family their loved one has been murdered, talk to a rape victim, catch a killer and get them to confess. Hold on tight, my friends. Get ready for the journey. And welcome to Murder with Mannina. Welcome to murder with Mannina Colleen, how are you? I'm great, because I just got back from Spring skiing in Mammoth. Wow, that's nice. I was on spring break in Indianapolis and the weather was shitty every day. But one day. Oh, I hate to tell you this, but it was 60 degrees up in the mountains. Colleen likes to brag a lot. But you guys will get used to that. Shitty weather. I'm so sorry for you, Chris. Anyways, we're gonna jump right into this episode, because it's an interesting episode on on a lot of different fronts. But as I go through my career, and I'm talking about my cases and my experiences, and trying to get you guys to get inside of my mind to know what it's actually like, I remember a veteran detective telling me some advice when I was really young. And that advice was you have to remember that most victims aren't true victims, because if they were, you wouldn't be able to do the job. And I thought for a second, and I'm young. And I thought that seems just so weird to me. Right? Like true victims. When you think of true victims, a lot of people like to say children, and they are absolutely true victims. But I'm really kind of glad that I never kept that mind frame. Because each case that I work in each call that I went on, there was a victim, right, or the police wouldn't have come. And so I didn't I just didn't agree with that. Because I just felt like everyone, you know, whatever lifestyle you have, and people will agree. And people have said this to me for years and years and years, you kind of live and die by the lifestyle that you have. Right? And that makes sense, right? If you're into crime, and you're into drugs, and you're doing all that stuff, it's a dangerous profession, right. And a lot of people get murdered. But I'm just kind of glad that I thought outside of the box. And just remember that at the end of the day victims are victims, and everyone's kind of doing the best that they can at that time in their life. And so I try to keep that in mind. But what's interesting is we're kind of going through these cases, and we're going to be talking a lot about my cases and then cold cases. One of the cases that Colleen and I came across and this is a really interesting case is her name. The victim's name was Cassidy Rainwater. Okay. And when you look at this case, you're gonna notice a few things. But the one thing that I noticed right off the bat, in this case is gruesome. It's twisty. It's did this really happen? It's like one of those where you go, Whoa, right. And when you think of cases that go, Whoa, a lot of times, they'll make the news. Right. And what's interesting about this case, is it happened around the same time is Gabby Petito's case. Right? So we're looking July August 2021. So Cassidy Rainwater goes missing, I think at the end of July and 2021. And nobody even reports her to the authorities, I think for almost a month later. And this happens, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Colleen, Missouri, right. It was Missouri. Yeah. Right. Okay. And we Dallas County, okay. And we've got Gabby Petito over on the other side of the country. She goes missing, right. And there's two different stories here, you've got Gabby, who's beautiful, young, attractive. You know, with her fiance, they look like the perfect couple, they're going to go across the country, and they're going to take pictures, and the whole world gets to see how great their life is. And then all of a sudden, you see some videos of them being on a domestic situation, and the whole world is watching because Gabby goes missing on the other side of the country. Cassidy goes missing. Nobody cares about it. Gabby, everybody cares about. So there's just this big kind of difference of which cases does the media pick? And that's a good question, right? Because at the end of the day, when you look at these two cases, Cassidy Rainwater's got more of the OH MY GOD effect. Gabby really doesn't. Right, right, Gabby really doesn't. So we're gonna kind of take you through. And I just think it's kind of an intriguing thing. But what the point I want to make is that regardless of class, or race, or where you come from, or you know, all of those social status, all of those things, I've always just kind of investigated cases the same that everybody needs to have their case investigated and answers for the family. If you're the family that lives in suburbia where Dateline visits a lot, or you're a case in, you know, a lower economic neighborhood. They deserve that as much so I've kind of always taken that attitude. So when you look at these two cases, that kind of happened at the same time, um, you will see a stark, you know, difference in the way that the media you don't even know you didn't even know about Cassidy Rainwater. And I'd be really interested just here if any of our listeners even knew Who Cassidy Rainwater was. Gabby Petito? Probably unless you were living under a rock. So, Cassidy's situation. And Colleen is going to kind of go through the timeline. But to start it off, she goes missing late in July. It's not reported by anybody until a month later. And then a lot of twists. I'm talking about body parts in freezers and things to that degree. So Colleen, if you want to take us through the timeline, let's talk about this case a little bit. Okay, I'll just briefly review the timeline, and then you can talk to it and we can get more into details. So Cassidy Rainwater was last seen on July 25 2021. She was reported missing by a family member a month later on August 25 2021. That's crazy. If you look at Gabby Petito. Mom was getting communication from her every day. A couple days went by, she started to get a little bit nervous, kind of talked herself out of it. And as days went by, she got more nervous and reported it immediately, immediately. And and by the way, the sheriff on this case, said it was six weeks before a family member reported her missing but when I looked at the dates that didn't add up, yeah, actually August 25. So Dallas County authorities determined that Phelps this James Phelps was the last person to have been in contact with Cassidy. So they go to a house that he's renting in Lebanon, Missouri, and Phelps tells them he was letting Cassidy stay in his loft while she got back on her feet. And he claimed that a month prior Cassidy met a car at the end of his driveway in the middle of the night and left his property on her own accord and he hadn't seen her since. On September 6 2021. The FBI contact Dallas County detectives and provided a series of photographs. The FBI had received the photographs as a cyber tip. The photos depicted a partially clothed female in a cage who they recognized as Cassidy. The other photos depicted Cassidy's body bound to a gantry crane commonly used for deer processing and her evisceration and dismemberment. Okay, stop right there. That's like Jeffrey Dahmer serial killer stuff. We're not worried about that. We're worried about where Gabby is. Right? That's crazy. Now Gabby's just as much as a victim as Cassidy but my point is, this is crazy serial killer stuff. There is no media attention, very small media attention local media attention, but we're talking about a deer evisceration. We're talking about a partially nude female that's inside of a cage. Right. And then on the same day, September 6, the Dallas County detectives go back out to the property that Phelps was renting and recognize items in the backyard that coincided with the FBI photos, the photos provided by the FBI. Then detectives placed Phelps under arrest and obtained a search warrant. For the next seven days investigators processed the entire crime scene and collected physical evidence including the gantry device the cage items from a freezer that appeared to be human flesh with a date on them of July 24. skeletal remains believed to be Cassidy's were found scattered on nearby property belonging to her grandfather. Her deceased grandfather Bill Rainwater. Also recovered was digital evidence from electronic devices including seven photos on Phelps phone of Rainwater in a partially nude state being held in a cage at his residence. In total, over 200 pieces of evidence were recovered. The remains found in the freezer were confirmed by the crime lab to be Cassidy Rainwater, and digital evidence revealed messages between James Phelps and Timothy Norton, his classmate and childhood friend planning her murder that, it's it's it's crazy. I mean, it's crazy when you hear all those specifics. Then, on September 20th, Timothy Norton was interviewed by FBI agents, Norton confessed to the murders, the murder of Cassidy Rainwater, he said he held Cassidy's legs down, while Phelps strangled her and placed a bag over her head. After Cassidy was deceased, he and Phelps took a short break before carrying her body outside. Norton stated that Phelps bound her to the gantry crane and began evisceration and dismemberment of her body. He and Phelps then carried her body back into the house and placed her in the bathtub. Wow. Right Jeffrey Dahmer stuff. It is Jeffrey Dahmer stuff. Absolutely. Then on October 4, the home that Phelps was renting, burned to the ground. So while Phelps and Norton are in jail, their house mysteriously burns to the ground. It's not mysterious. It wasn't. It was determined to be arson. They found homemade bombs and trip wires on the property. And it was determined on October 15, it was confirmed to be arson. So that means there's another accomplice out there, at least one other right, which so it even gets weirder now a little incidental detail. The address is linked to another sex offender, according to the Dallas County sex offender list, right? So this property has some very dark history. November 17, so we're talking on more than a month later, nearly four months after Cassidy Rainwater went missing, the charges against Phelps and Norton are upgraded to first degree murder, kidnapping and abandonment of a corpse. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 3 2022. And no official motive in their killing has been disclosed. So a lot of interesting things, right. Most of you guys probably haven't heard about it. And as you were hearing the details, it's a fascinating story, not a complicated story, other than maybe at this point, motive. And when we talk about motive, you know, if you're ever sitting on a jury in a criminal trial, and I and I encourage you to do it, if you get that little thing in the mail that says you got to show up for court, because a lot of people like to use excuses to get out of it. But most juries want to hear why did it happen? They have a hard time convicting people if they don't if they cannot answer the question of why did this happen? And what's interesting else too, is what happened to Cassidy Rainwater's mother. Right? This is so fascinating. So her mother, this is just it just this story just gets weirder and weirder as you go down this rabbit hole. So this is what we know about Cassidy. She had a friendly relationship with her high school boyfriend. They had had a son together. So I did the math. She had the son when she was 17 years old. He had been adopted by a family and was being raised by those parents. As she there is it's also very unclear I couldn't find. I couldn't find out if she has other children. Yeah, it was kind of odd. I dug and dug and dug and nothing ever was confirmed whether or not she had children. But it seems as though she did have other children. But she did not have custody of those children right when she went missing. So she and the boyfriend were friendly. They talked every so often, maybe once a year or so he said, and the last time he talked to her, she was really down and out. He believed that she was homeless. And he was trying to convince her to come back and he was going to you know, help her out in any little way he could. And that was the last time he talked to her. But here's the odd coincidence, Cassidy's mom, Tracy, Wahwassuck went missing on April 13 2007. And investigators found her bones a year later scattered near a field around a field near Lebanon, Missouri. Yep, same area, right. Cassidy was killed. And no cause of death has ever been released on her case. And no one has ever been arrested. Wow. So this is what's just so unique and crazy. There's so many like you said rabbit holes, right. And, you know, like I mentioned before a media chooses which cases they want to highlight and everybody in their brother was kind of paying attention to the Gabby thing. And really, at the end of the day with Gabby's situation, that's not a very difficult case. I mean, I think everybody that was paying attention to that was probably like, okay, it's the fiancee, right? Very easy to kind of figure out and then when you saw footage of the domestic situation that the police officer captured, it's it kind of all came together pretty quickly. But the world was fascinated. Flip over to Cassidy. We're talking about Cassidy's body parts being cut off her skin and meat in the freezer labeled and the weird coincidence of her mother. And so there's links there right. Her mother was linked to that property, I think at one point. And it's interesting too when you look at the two people so it's great for you guys going into the way Chris may I interject? Cassidy was only 33 years old, right? And she was also a very attractive young woman. Right? Beautiful. Absolutely. Like Gabby, right, like Gabby. So it's interesting when you have two people, which is great. I loved it when I investigated homicides where I had two possible suspects, right? Because the number one thing you want to do is try to figure out who was the weakest link and go after that person first. Obviously Norton was the weakest link. So he kind of painted the picture of every day, but he did but he also admitted that he and Phelps used to troll for victims at the nearby Walmart and and online, believe it or not, you guys, believe it or not, most people want to confess they want to tell you and Norton not only told you what happened, but one step further and talked about how they like to troll for people. It's crazy when people confess, and you're thinking, Why the hell did you do? What did he do that? Or why the hell do they confess? Believe it or not, they want to tell the story. They absolutely do. So they went after Norton, and he painted the picture. Right? He painted the picture. He gave very specifics. When they interviewed Phelps the first time because they went and talked to him before there was any arrests. And Phelps does the classic thing of Oh, yeah, she was here. So bam, it places her there at the property. But he does the old trick of saying, I was just trying to help her. So he's trying to distance himself and act like the good guy, you know, I was she was down on a luck, I gave her a place to stay in in the middle of the night she left. And that's the last time I saw. So those are kind of classic things that you hear from people, they try to distance themselves, they try to make themselves a good guy. So not to suspicion. And so those are the things as investigators we look at, but there's nothing better when you know that you have two people. And in the Cassidy Rainwater case, you have three, because somebody got a phone call from somebody that said, Oh, shit, they're in jail, you better burned down the property, which is exactly what they did. And so it just, it just it's a dynamic dynamic case and a really sad case. Because, you know, it's, it's sad, and when you look when I'm flipping back and forth, but when you look at the Gabby case, one of the things that was really, really sad to me, in that case, was the video footage that you saw of her crying and sitting there in the police car. And if you go back and you look at her face, she is so scared. And she is so sad that when I looked at it, I just had so much Oh, man, I just felt so bad for her. And it was you know, that the officers made a decision to do what they did that night and and you know, not lock him up, not lock her up and, and whatever which led eventually to her death. But you go and you look at Cassidy and you think man, she was suffocated. She was cut up. She was put in a freezer. That's sad, too. Right? That's really sad, and to hear the dynamics of both those cases and who gets the media attention and who doesn't get the media attention. And what's the backstory of Cassidy there isn't a whole heck of a lot of backstory with Cassidy or really Gabby, right, like you're seeing with, with Cassidy, we don't even know, why was she down and out that there is no mention of drugs? Right, right. Yeah. I mean, there's no, there's not really any mention of mental illness. There's just this there's huge swaths of ambiguity in this case. Absolutely. As far as what we can find in the media and what's been reported by law enforcement. you know, and and as this case started to pick up a little bit of attention, you had a lot of your armchair detectives and your crime sleuths people kind of giving information and doing that type of stuff. And it was interesting, because the sheriff, you know, made a response to, you know, stop with the, what did he say the cheese puff, eatting? Cheese Puff, eatting sitting on the couch trying to be a detective, which I think it's just a horrible, horrible comment to make. And he didn't want all of those types of crimes sleuths and people given their theories. But what's interesting about people that give their theories or give their two cents about things, in the midst of all of those theories, there's some truth that lies in it, you'll get some good information. Right on Reddit, there were actually a few people, the the people that the sheriff was responding to, they had posted on social media, that when the deputies kicked in Phelps' door the following morning, they allegedly found him eating a sandwich with human remains. And he laughed and told investigators that he had served human ribs to an unsuspecting neighbor a few days prior. So it was these kinds of things that the sheriff was responding to. Right. And yet what the sheriff said was so demeaning right to the people who had good intentions and maybe weren't going that far and like you said, was that true? I don't know the sheriff said it wasn't but they also haven't really haven't really revealed any information in the case. So but basically what he said is it's not a good idea to the sheriff Sheriff Scott Rice said, it's not a good idea to listen to a crime reporter or a blogger that is sitting in their apartment, or their mommy and daddy's basement eating great value cheese puffs and drinking box wine with grand intentions of being a social media superstar. See and that's that I disagree with completely right when you're trying to solve things and people like to use that outlet to a degree where they know information, but they don't really want to tell them their name. So they'll send off, you know, some good pieces of information, maybe somebody that knew Cassady, you know, that just didn't want to get involved, but thought it might be important. First of all, you just can't treat people like that. And secondly, you have to keep in mind that everybody is somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, somebody's wife, somebody's mother, and they need to be treated accordingly. It's crazy in this world. And I talked about a little bit with the kids that I'm teaching in high school about how many missing African American women there are, that nobody even knows about, like, we do not hit on that. And it's really, really sad, because I've just gone to so many homes, and it doesn't matter if I am in a good neighborhood, a rich neighborhood, the pain is real, and very evenly distributed when you go and you tell someone that their loved one has been killed. And so trying to say that, that victims should be investigated because of this race, or that race. And the other ones are just kind of pushed under the table, because the difference here is nobody reported. Cassidy gone for a while, right. And Gabby's mother reported it pretty quickly. But the thing is, is that adults are allowed to go away, and they don't need to tell anybody. And that doesn't mean that there's harm that there was anything, anything happened to them, they could just be gone, gone away, right. But the media decided, Oh, this is going to be something with Gabby, this is going to be something and then they decided no, this isn't going to be that big of a deal. And Cassidy when you look at and you compare the two cases, the pain is real on both sides. But what an injustice, it is, when you're following one case, and you're forgetting about another. And of course, you can't cover every single case, but there is absolutely just a different value that we put on on status and race and all those things. And that's something that I've tried to avoid. And I'm glad that I didn't take that detectives advice in my career, because I don't care. The pain is real, when you tell someone that their loved one is dead, and in class and race and, and all of that stuff kind of goes out the window when you see the life go out of somebody's eyes, because you've just given them the worst news that they've had, you know, their whole life. So it will be interesting. Both those guys, you know, Phelps and Norton are in jail. But one of the things that is going to be that people are going to want to know and I want to know is what was the motive? And that's on the investigators, right? It isn't one of those deals where Okay, well, we've locked up a couple people. And nobody really cares about Cassidy because only a couple people, you know, reported her missing and only one person talked on the news. You know, we our job is over. You can't have that kind of attitude. Because if you look at the Gabby's case, hell, they were interviewing her neighbors, the media was on the parent's lawn, they were interviewing everybody, you know, it's so funny how they dig up people, I went to school with her when I was seven, right, they do all of this background to try to paint a picture. And none of that is being painted with Cassidy. So I think that's an injustice, I think that they need to do that. They need to show that Cassidy was, you know, a human being and a person and, and this is her life story. And this is what she's about. And she's got kids and family and people that did care about her. And it's an injustice to think they didn't care because they didn't get the media attention that another case did. And that's really kind of the point with all of this. So if we can shed some light, but also what's fascinating to me is Chris, why are the do you think the detectives or the FBI are investigating other potential or possible victims of Norton and Phelps because somebody doesn't like you've taught me a killer doesn't immediately graduate to that kind of violent extreme, you know, caging a woman and torturing her and killing her and processing her like deer and then wrapping her meat for and also, you know, they don't know what was the meat being sold on the dark web there were rumors that well, why are you freezing it? You know, it could be a trophy it could be to sell it. But what's interesting in the cases that I've investigated, and most most homicides happen very quickly, they happen very quickly right an argument pull a gun, bam, shoot, like they happen very quickly. A small portion of homicides across the country. They're planned. This one was planned. It may have been a short plan, but it was planned enough to say hey, come over here. Hey, I want you to put the bag over her head. It wasn't like we're in this major argument was planned to put her in the cage like you don't just think of that. Right? It's planned with texting. They were texting each other planning it right. So and that's a little bit different than in You're right. You're absolutely right. They didn't wake up they didn't wake up as you know, they weren't perfect citizens. And then they woke up that day and decided to do what they did to Cassidy. They've absolutely had to graduate that. And so that begs the question of, are there other victims? Are there other victims out there? Did they look at the whole entire land? Right? It begs that question of, are they taking it? Are they taking it further? And the problem with it is, is if there's not a lot of media hype, and you don't have somebody call and go, Hey, I lost my loved one or you don't have a victim's family going, well, this person went missing, then probably not. They're not getting out. So that's how people killers can get away with it. Because they kill somebody who doesn't. Who doesn't have people in their life that care about them enough to report them missing and to pressure law enforcement to find answers? Is that the case? absolutely. Absolutely. That's it. I mean, they, they tend to Absolutely, kill people that that they have learned that people won't miss. And they don't care about, you know, Gabby's mother and father, they cared and loved her, you know, and they were on top of it. Nobody even reported it for at least a month, but possibly six weeks. And that's the difference. Can you imagine if you go missing, you know, who is going to call the police immediately? Do you have people in your life that are go Oh, my God, I haven't heard from call. I mean, I would. I did it when you were gone. Colleen was gone on a weekend thing. I couldn't get ahold of her. I literally called her circle of people, because I'm like, This is not right. Where the hell is she at? She told me but I forgot. But what I'm saying is, if you think that's right, I went to a self sustainable village, and it was off the grid. Completely off the grid and not on internet, which is unusual. In this day and age, and you. And I got back 48 hours later, and I had all these texts, and people worried about me because of you, Chris. And I know, right? I put out a frickin Amber Alert. But anyways, um, but it just goes to show you, you know, if you go missing, is there going to be anybody in your world that's going to call the police. And again, you can call the police. And I could have said, Hey, Colleen, I have not heard from Colleen. And they'd go, well, she is an adult, she's allowed to go wherever she wants, you know, what would make them investigate it? As opposed to just saying, You know what, she's an adult? Well, I would be like, calling all the time we know something's not right, something's off. Nobody did that. Nobody did that with Cassidy. So, you know, we, you know, on this podcast, we really just want to, you know, just just give everybody the right to have their voices heard. And unfortunately, when we're talking about cold cases, the victims are gone, and probably dead. But the families that Dateline isn't knocking on their door to sit in their living room and talk about we really want to highlight the cases that are open that don't get the attention because believe it or not, these web sleuths and these armchair detectives, which I would never call, I'm all about call me with anything, because I'll track it down. Because it's cold for a reason, right? I mean, they go cold. So I'll take any information you can give me and try to warm it up a little bit. So that's not only but not only that, Chris, more and more cases are being solved with the help. Absolutely. We've kind of got to get over that whole hobby detective. Yes. Right. And it gives you a different perspective, right? Like I'm in the midst of it, I'm living it, breathing it, seeing it, interviewing people investigating it. And then somebody who's on the outside that isn't emotionally attached, is looking at something and man, it's crazy, what you can see when you're not emotionally attached. And somebody says, Hey, did you think of this, you know, we tried to do that when we were working cases, like my partner if she wasn't, or he wasn't working with me 24/7 And he came in refreshed and was looking at me interviewing somebody, you know, and sending me a text, ask him this, because you just get so enmeshed in it you can't see outside and tired and tired and can't see what's outside your bubble. So I'm hoping that they and probably what will happen in this case is they'll take a plea, I'll be very, very surprised if this goes to trial and a plea agreement as simple as the prosecutor's office saying, Look, we're gonna give you you know, we'll give you this amount of years if you plead guilty, or even go to trial and we can triple the years. I mean, those are how pretty much plea agreement work and so you know, probably Norton will probably take a plea he may have already I don't know but and then Phelps might be lying I'll roll the dice you know, I'll never know so it a bit will be interesting. Hopefully we can figure out the specifics of it because people want to know, you know, when people can learn from it. You can learn from it what mistakes you know, did she make what what things can can you kind of compare in your life and in you know, but you have to remember that victims are victims, you know, and you can't judge based on and murder is such a violent, horrific act. How could anybody deserve that but just because of their lifestyle, and you've taught me so many times over Over and over, Chris, you say to me, when you really get to know somebody, and you get to know their backstory, no matter what the even even the killers that you've, that you Oh, I mean, there's been very many, there have not been very many killers that I've interviewed, that I didn't, you know, when the interview was over, and the confession was over, and the case was closed, and I took him to jail and all that stuff that I didn't look back and go, Yeah, I can kind of see, I can kind of see why this happened. Because it is a very, very thin line between the people who murder that step over the line and murder and the people that are just so close to that line and just didn't step. You know, it's it's it's such a thin line I've interviewed. I've interviewed good people that have murdered people. Absolutely. They didn't wake up that day thinking they were going to do that now. Phelps and Norton, they woke up that day, thinking they were going to do it, right. That's a different type of killer. That's a different type. That's a serial, that's a serial killer. So hopefully, that you know, people will come forward with them, because I would imagine I would bet my paycheck, which isn't very much but I'd still bet my paycheck that there's other victims out there. But you know, nobody, nobody says anything. Would you say we don't know the motive, although we do a little bit because of Norton said they were trolling for victims, potential victims, and that sort of tells you that they were doing this, they were career killers or at least thinking in that way. may have found out about it, too, and said, you know, who knows what she said? Or what happened? You know, maybe she found out some information and was gonna go, you know, you don't know, but unfortunately, hopefully, if they can't answer it, the jury doesn't have to have that piece in order to find them guilty. So stay tuned to that. So thanks, everybody, for listening. And if you have any comments or anything, please email us at murderwithmannina@gmail.com. Again, thanks for listening guys. Stay safe and stay alert so you can be a good detective in your own life. If you have a cold case you'd like Chris to review submit it through our website at murder with mannina.com and follow us on Instagram and Facebook at murder with mannina and Twitter at murder W mannina. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode of murder with mannina.