Latest / NO FILTER / The disappearance of Cassie Compton [True Crime documentary]
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: It's safe to come home. Don't be scared to come home.
- 0:04Speaker 2: She was gone like a whispering the win.
- 0:11Speaker 3: Hello everyone, I'm Kevin, and welcome to Just Thought Lounge.
- 0:14Speaker 3: JTL is the true crime channel that delivers serious, well
- 0:17Speaker 3: balanced coverage of the cases that really make you think.
- 0:20Speaker 3: We're about to take a look at an eight year
- 0:22Speaker 3: old missing person's case out of Arkansas that has recently
- 0:25Speaker 3: seen some pretty strange developments. When young teen Cassie Compton
- 0:29Speaker 3: went missing near her home in autumn of twenty fourteen,
- 0:32Speaker 3: it wasn't immediately clear that foul play was involved. Even
- 0:35Speaker 3: Cassie's own mother thought that perhaps she had run off.
- 0:39Speaker 3: In a few weeks, maybe she would return. But the
- 0:41Speaker 3: circumstances did not add up, and both her mother, Judy,
- 0:45Speaker 3: and Judy's live in fiance would become the center of
- 0:48Speaker 3: an investigation. Was there foul play at home? Or could
- 0:52Speaker 3: Cassie have been taken by complete strangers? Years later, the
- 0:56Speaker 3: Internet believed they had discovered the truth. This is the
- 0:59Speaker 3: strange case of Cassie Compton. Let's take a look. Stuttgart, Arkansas,
- 1:13Speaker 3: is a small farming community roughly forty five miles from
- 1:16Speaker 3: Little Rock. The town is known as the duck and
- 1:19Speaker 3: rice capital of the world. The town is surrounded by
- 1:22Speaker 3: the Arkansas Grand Prairie. Its rice fields draws the annual
- 1:26Speaker 3: migration of ducks and geese, which makes it a destination
- 1:29Speaker 3: for duck hunting from November to January each year. It
- 1:33Speaker 3: is a quiet rural community. In the autumn of twenty fourteen,
- 1:37Speaker 3: fifteen year old Cassie Compton lived in Stuttgart with her mother, Judy,
- 1:41Speaker 3: and Judy's fiance, a younger man named Brandon Rhodes. Judy,
- 1:45Speaker 3: forty two years old at the time, had become engaged
- 1:48Speaker 3: to twenty five year old Brendan roughly two years prior.
- 1:52Speaker 3: It's unclear how the family supported themselves. Brendan was unemployed
- 1:56Speaker 3: and Judy had an undisclosed disability. Cassie was homes store
- 2:00Speaker 3: and working towards her ged. On Saturday afternoon, Cassie went
- 2:06Speaker 3: with her friend Hunter Snyder and his mother Tracy to
- 2:09Speaker 3: a demolition derby in de Witt, about forty miles from Stuttgart.
- 2:13Speaker 3: After the derby, the group returned to Hunter's home, where
- 2:16Speaker 3: Cassie stayed the night. According to Tracy, Cassie was a
- 2:19Speaker 3: regular fixture at the house. She would not disclose specifics,
- 2:23Speaker 3: but she believed that Cassie used her house as a
- 2:25Speaker 3: kind of escape, a safe haven from tensions and issues
- 2:29Speaker 3: at her own home. That Sunday was spent having a
- 2:32Speaker 3: relaxing day. They had a late lunch and no notable
- 2:35Speaker 3: activities throughout the afternoon. Between six pm and six point thirty,
- 2:39Speaker 3: Hunter dropped Cassie off outside of her house. Hunter recalled
- 2:44Speaker 3: that Brandon was home out in the drive. He said,
- 2:46Speaker 3: when Cassie was dropped off, she walked right past him
- 2:49Speaker 3: to enter the house, but neither looked at or acknowledged
- 2:51Speaker 3: him as she strode inside through the front door. That
- 2:55Speaker 3: would be the last memory that Hunter made of his
- 2:57Speaker 3: good friend Cassie. Judy was at home feeling extremely ill
- 3:02Speaker 3: and resting in her bed when Cassie entered the house
- 3:05Speaker 3: that evening. She heard the door and knew Cassie to
- 3:07Speaker 3: be home. She could hear Cassie changing her clothing in
- 3:10Speaker 3: the other room, but she did not leave her bed.
- 3:13Speaker 3: She did not lay eyes on her daughter. A few
- 3:16Speaker 3: minutes later, she heard the door again. Cassie had her
- 3:19Speaker 3: phone in hand, as she often did when she went
- 3:21Speaker 3: for walks. We know she left with her phone because
- 3:23Speaker 3: she texted Hunter on her way out. She said that
- 3:26Speaker 3: she was going to buy cigarettes. That text was sent
- 3:29Speaker 3: at about seven pm. There are no witnesses that saw
- 3:32Speaker 3: Cassie after she left her house. She was not spotted
- 3:35Speaker 3: walking on the road, nor with anyone in a vehicle.
- 3:41Speaker 1: I can't imagine where she could wear. I don't know
- 3:52Speaker 1: if she even left the veway when she walked out
- 3:58Speaker 1: the door. I don't know. Do you know if she
- 4:07Speaker 1: maybe was taken by somebody, you know, before she got
- 4:13Speaker 1: out of the drawway.
- 4:16Speaker 3: Less than three hours after Cassie sent her last text,
- 4:20Speaker 3: Brandon Rhodes made the first of three calls to Tracy
- 4:22Speaker 3: Snyder expressing concern over Cassie's whereabouts. The first call was
- 4:27Speaker 3: at nine to fifteen that evening. Brendan asked to Tracy
- 4:30Speaker 3: if Cassie was still with Hunter, had she been dropped off?
- 4:33Speaker 2: She had been.
- 4:34Speaker 3: Tracy said she had not seen Cassie since about six pm.
- 4:38Speaker 3: But why was Brendan asking if Cassie had been dropped off?
- 4:41Speaker 3: Hunter had been certain that he had seen Brandon just
- 4:44Speaker 3: outside the house when Cassie walked in. Surely Brendan saw
- 4:47Speaker 3: her enter the house. He Red called twice more that
- 4:50Speaker 3: evening to check in. Tracy told him to contact the police,
- 4:53Speaker 3: which Brendan claimed to have done, or rather, he said
- 4:56Speaker 3: that he had attempted. Lacking a driver's license, rode his
- 5:00Speaker 3: bike to the police station that night, but when he
- 5:03Speaker 3: explained the circumstances, he claims that he was told that
- 5:06Speaker 3: he could not file a missing person report until a
- 5:08Speaker 3: seventy two hour period had passed. This despite the fact
- 5:12Speaker 3: that Cassie was only fifteen years old.
- 5:15Speaker 1: She was gone, Mike I whispering to win.
- 5:21Speaker 3: From this point, the versions of events offered by those
- 5:24Speaker 3: involved begin to diverge. Judy did not get out of
- 5:27Speaker 3: bed until after eight pm. Specifically, she said she arose
- 5:30Speaker 3: at eight twelve pm. Judy originally told law enforcement that
- 5:34Speaker 3: when Cassie came home, Brendon was in the kitchen preparing dinner,
- 5:38Speaker 3: which he later served to her in bed as she
- 5:41Speaker 3: was too ill to get up and eat at the table.
- 5:43Speaker 3: Brendan claimed that he also did not set eyes on
- 5:46Speaker 3: Cassie in the few minutes that she was at the house,
- 5:49Speaker 3: despite Hunter's recollection of him being out front and witnessed
- 5:52Speaker 3: to Cassie's return. Brendan said he remained in the bedroom
- 5:56Speaker 3: caring for Judy the entire time. Not so according to Judy,
- 6:00Speaker 3: who also reported that around that exact period of time,
- 6:04Speaker 3: Brendan declared his intention to pop to the store he
- 6:07Speaker 3: was out of cigarettes. Sometime later, Brendan returned home. He
- 6:11Speaker 3: went straight to the bathroom and was sick, reportedly for
- 6:14Speaker 3: hours according to Judy. However, we know that he emerged
- 6:18Speaker 3: by nine to fifteen pm that night to call Tracy
- 6:20Speaker 3: to check in on Cassie.
- 6:26Speaker 4: She said he told her he was leaving and he
- 6:28Speaker 4: was going to get cigarettes. But at the same time
- 6:31Speaker 4: that he goes to get cigarettes, Cassie Compton texts his
- 6:34Speaker 4: hunter and says, I'm going to get a smoke. Red flag.
- 6:39Speaker 4: She's never seen again. Well, you know my concern here
- 6:45Speaker 4: is did she get in the car with him? And
- 6:47Speaker 4: it was a thing like, hey, I'm going to get
- 6:49Speaker 4: smokes and knowing if anything, I'm not going to say
- 6:53Speaker 4: he did anything to her because I do not know,
- 6:55Speaker 4: But you put two and two together. He's going to
- 6:59Speaker 4: get cigarettes. He's gone to get cigarettes, so I mean,
- 7:03Speaker 4: something's just not right there. He was gone, and after
- 7:07Speaker 4: he came back, he went in the bathroom and was
- 7:10Speaker 4: sick and stayed in the bathroom for an hour or two.
- 7:16Speaker 3: On Monday morning, Tracy checked in on the status of
- 7:19Speaker 3: Cassie's missing person's inquiry. At that time, she came to
- 7:22Speaker 3: learn that no such report had been made. There was
- 7:25Speaker 3: no record of Brandon's visit the night before, so Tracy
- 7:28Speaker 3: filed the missing person's report herself. Judy has also claimed
- 7:32Speaker 3: to be the person to have made this report. Regardless,
- 7:35Speaker 3: by Monday morning, there was an investigation underway and volunteers
- 7:39Speaker 3: began coordinating searches. At that time, Judy told the press
- 7:43Speaker 3: that there was absolutely no reason why Cassie would have
- 7:46Speaker 3: run away from home on her own accord. She would
- 7:49Speaker 3: later suggest that that was a possibility. Twenty four hours
- 7:53Speaker 3: after the report was made. There had been no Amber
- 7:56Speaker 3: alert issued phil.
- 7:58Speaker 5: So far Cassie's case short of an Amber alert, but
- 8:01Speaker 5: her mother tells me there's no reason to believe her
- 8:04Speaker 5: daughter ran away. That's why multiple law enforcement agencies are
- 8:07Speaker 5: coming together to get to the bottom of this.
- 8:10Speaker 3: After several weeks with no sign of Cassie, Judy and
- 8:13Speaker 3: Brendan ended their relationship. Judy stated she thought Cassie would
- 8:16Speaker 3: not return home, while Brandon was still there, but that
- 8:19Speaker 3: she believed that Cassie would come back if he was
- 8:22Speaker 3: no longer in the picture. Investigators had seized cell phones
- 8:25Speaker 3: from both Judy and Brandon. Location data from one of
- 8:28Speaker 3: these devices led to extensive searches in the areas surrounding
- 8:32Speaker 3: the Stuttgart Municipal Airport. Over two hundred and fifty individuals
- 8:36Speaker 3: from law enforcement, as well as community volunteers, gathered at
- 8:40Speaker 3: the airport and divided into teams to grid search the
- 8:43Speaker 3: surrounding area on ATVs, on horseback, and on foot. Other
- 8:48Speaker 3: search parties were arranged closer to the Compton home, starting
- 8:51Speaker 3: from one block away and working outwards. Railroad tracks behind
- 8:57Speaker 3: r W Manufacturing and wooded areas two blocks from Cassie's
- 9:00Speaker 3: home became focal points. The locations were speculated to be
- 9:04Speaker 3: based around areas that Brandon had been seen or frequented
- 9:07Speaker 3: when riding his bicycle near the edge of town and
- 9:10Speaker 3: local reservoirs. The FBI and state police joined the investigation.
- 9:14Speaker 3: Several weeks after Cassie went missing. A tip to police
- 9:18Speaker 3: led to the discovery of a collection of items thought
- 9:21Speaker 3: to have been purposefully left under Biameda Bridge. Approximately fifteen
- 9:25Speaker 3: miles from Casco, in an area of interest for the
- 9:28Speaker 3: search parties. These items were thought to have been left
- 9:31Speaker 3: near the creek under the bridge on October third, roughly
- 9:34Speaker 3: two weeks following Cassie's disappearance. They included a half drink
- 9:38Speaker 3: gatorade bottle, two men's shirts, men's toilet trees including shaving cream,
- 9:43Speaker 3: two folded drapes, a girl's Hugs and Kisses, sweater, a
- 9:47Speaker 3: teddy bear, and two carrying bags. If these items could
- 9:50Speaker 3: be directly linked to Cassie, it's unclear exactly how A
- 9:54Speaker 3: separate group searched the town cemetery based on reported information
- 9:58Speaker 3: that a neighborhood resident had called police to report Brendan
- 10:01Speaker 3: loitering and snooping in the area. It was also known
- 10:05Speaker 3: that although Brendan did not have a driver's license, he
- 10:08Speaker 3: nonetheless would drive Judy's car on occasion, particularly when she
- 10:11Speaker 3: was resting and seemingly unaware. The car was searched, so
- 10:15Speaker 3: was the house. If there was anything found to indicate
- 10:18Speaker 3: what had happened to Cassie, it wasn't reported. Brendan Rhoades
- 10:24Speaker 3: found himself in trouble with the law on a regular
- 10:27Speaker 3: basis over the following years, beginning in fact, only a
- 10:30Speaker 3: few short weeks after his split with Judy, when he
- 10:33Speaker 3: was found squatting in an abandoned home and was jailed
- 10:36Speaker 3: for one hundred days. Meanwhile, Judy continued to give interviews
- 10:40Speaker 3: to the local press and maintain hope for Cassie's safe return.
- 10:44Speaker 3: In what must have been intended as a cruel joke,
- 10:46Speaker 3: Judy was contacted directly by someone claiming to be Cassie
- 10:50Speaker 3: on her messaging app some two years after her daughter
- 10:53Speaker 3: went missing. Still hopeful that Cassie was out there somewhere,
- 10:57Speaker 3: she admitted that at first she believed she was messaging
- 11:00Speaker 3: with her daughter. This cruel prank was not the only
- 11:05Speaker 3: thing offering hope to Judy. In the year's following Cassie's disappearance.
- 11:09Speaker 3: The Fine Cassie Compton Facebook group and Judy's own account
- 11:13Speaker 3: are littered with articles in other news reports of lost
- 11:16Speaker 3: teens that had fallen victim to trafficking operations in and
- 11:19Speaker 3: around Arkansas. In some instances, the victims were later found
- 11:24Speaker 3: alive in return to their families. In Autumn twenty twenty one,
- 11:31Speaker 3: an unsettling video of a woman sitting in the backseat
- 11:35Speaker 3: of a car flanked by two men who appeared to
- 11:37Speaker 3: be rapping, made its way around TikTok and then saw
- 11:40Speaker 3: a second wave of popularity on Facebook. The young woman
- 11:43Speaker 3: appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties.
- 11:46Speaker 3: She had darkened eyes, likely dyed black hair, and a
- 11:50Speaker 3: disturbing and ominous stare. Viewers on the platform began to
- 11:54Speaker 3: question who this woman was, how did she come to
- 11:57Speaker 3: be in the car, why does she not break her
- 11:59Speaker 3: game is from the camera, and is she okay? An
- 12:05Speaker 3: image of Cassie progressed to age nineteen had been developed
- 12:08Speaker 3: and widely circulated, and the resemblance between this image and
- 12:12Speaker 3: the woman in the video is striking.
- 12:21Speaker 6: Via come across my Facebook story and I keep wondering,
- 12:25Speaker 6: who is this girl?
- 12:26Speaker 1: Where is she?
- 12:27Speaker 6: Why does she look so lost? Why is her eyes
- 12:30Speaker 6: so black? And why are people just laughing in the background.
- 12:35Speaker 1: I was thinking, my poor baby, she looks beat up,
- 12:39Speaker 1: she looks strung out.
- 12:44Speaker 6: It was it was shocking for me to say. I
- 12:48Speaker 6: started bawling.
- 12:51Speaker 1: And thinking, oh, my poor baby girl.
- 12:55Speaker 3: The connection between the video woman and Cassie went viral.
- 12:58Speaker 3: Commentators online but also in the greater media, began to
- 13:02Speaker 3: declare Cassie found a missing person case solved by TikTok
- 13:06Speaker 3: was the headline. With the exposure that this received, the
- 13:09Speaker 3: FBI stepped in and released a statement confirming that they
- 13:13Speaker 3: were exploring the lead and trying to determine if this
- 13:16Speaker 3: perplexing woman was in fact Cassie Compton.
- 13:20Speaker 2: The FBI little rock Off is confirming just a few
- 13:24Speaker 2: moments ago that the photo you see there on the
- 13:27Speaker 2: left hand side of your screen is being investigated right now.
- 13:32Speaker 2: This is a screenshot from a video because there are
- 13:35Speaker 2: many speculating that this could be, and I want to
- 13:39Speaker 2: emphasize could be missing Stuttguard girl Cassie Compton.
- 13:47Speaker 3: Unfortunately, for Judy Compton, the viral video provided nothing more
- 13:51Speaker 3: than further false hope. The woman was soon identified as
- 13:54Speaker 3: Hailey Grace Phillips, a Los Angeles resident who had in
- 13:57Speaker 3: fact been missing for a few days. Haley took to
- 14:01Speaker 3: Instagram to clear up the confusion, insisting to those who
- 14:04Speaker 3: still believed that she was Cassie under a fake identity,
- 14:07Speaker 3: that she was a real person. She explains that the
- 14:10Speaker 3: video was taken shortly after she had been mugged, but
- 14:13Speaker 3: her eyes were healing. Although it did little to quell
- 14:16Speaker 3: all of the associated rumors that Haley was nonetheless being trafficked.
- 14:21Speaker 3: She told her followers she was doing just fine.
- 14:26Speaker 7: Thank you everybody for worrying, but and also thank you
- 14:31Speaker 7: for making me post a picture of me with my
- 14:33Speaker 7: recovering black eyes. I was robbed this weekend. I'm fine, Okay,
- 14:38Speaker 7: I'm not kidnapped, and this is my phone and I'm
- 14:42Speaker 7: real and this is a real account, so everyone stopped
- 14:44Speaker 7: bothering me. I don't know who this Cassie is, but
- 14:47Speaker 7: I'm Haley Grace, okay, and I'm fine. All of a sudden,
- 14:53Speaker 7: these people I don't know are concerned about me. I
- 14:56Speaker 7: never even met any of you guys in my life,
- 14:58Speaker 7: and you're all worried about me. And then you're talking
- 15:01Speaker 7: about how it looks suspicious.
- 15:04Speaker 3: How does it look suspicious.
- 15:05Speaker 4: If you don't even know who the fuck I am.
- 15:09Speaker 7: I understand there's a video going around TikTok and Facebook
- 15:13Speaker 7: and people are genuinely concerned.
- 15:14Speaker 6: I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just trying to
- 15:17Speaker 6: explain the situation and let everybody know.
- 15:19Speaker 7: I'm safe and I'm fine, and if I was in danger,
- 15:21Speaker 7: I wouldn't have a problem reaching out.
- 15:25Speaker 3: The TikTok confusion had brought with it a renewed attention
- 15:29Speaker 3: to Cassie's missing person's case, and, by extension, renewed suspicion
- 15:33Speaker 3: of the main suspect, Brendan Rhodes. While in custody at
- 15:38Speaker 3: Independence County Jail under various charges, including conspiracy to commit
- 15:43Speaker 3: capital murder in an unrelated case, Brendan agreed to speak
- 15:47Speaker 3: with a local investigative journalist about Cassie's case. In a
- 15:51Speaker 3: handwritten letter, Brandon wrote that he would do whatever it
- 15:54Speaker 3: takes to bring closure to Judy and once and for all,
- 15:57Speaker 3: bring Cassie's case to a close. Because there is only
- 16:01Speaker 3: so much a man can keep bottled up inside of him.
- 16:04Speaker 3: It's time the truth was presented to everyone. The letter
- 16:08Speaker 3: was immediately turned over to local law enforcement. Although the
- 16:13Speaker 3: language Brandon used was incriminating, it was a far cry
- 16:16Speaker 3: from a confession. More was needed. Brendan had agreed to
- 16:20Speaker 3: talk when the reporter went to the jail for visitation. However,
- 16:24Speaker 3: she and the private investigator were turned away despite verification
- 16:27Speaker 3: from the online records that he was being held in custody.
- 16:31Speaker 3: A phone call directly to the jail for verification the
- 16:33Speaker 3: day before, and Brandon's own statement within the letter the
- 16:37Speaker 3: jail claimed he was not being held there. A few
- 16:40Speaker 3: days later, another letter was received. In this one, Brendan
- 16:44Speaker 3: claimed to have been in the county jail the entire time,
- 16:47Speaker 3: and he stated that he was unaware of the attempt
- 16:50Speaker 3: to visit and speak with him. He asked for another visit,
- 16:54Speaker 3: but this time it seems he was not interested in
- 16:57Speaker 3: offering any specifics about Cassie, but he did leave an impression.
- 17:03Speaker 8: He was talking about how people think he's a psychopath,
- 17:07Speaker 8: and that was kind of interesting to me too. He
- 17:09Speaker 8: asked me what I think makes a psychopath, and he
- 17:12Speaker 8: was going on and on and on about how it's
- 17:14Speaker 8: pain that creates a psychopath. And then when I ask him,
- 17:18Speaker 8: well are you do you? Are you a sociopath psychopath?
- 17:20Speaker 8: He's like what, No, what, But he's steering me dead
- 17:23Speaker 8: in the eye, trying to intimidate me into basically believing
- 17:26Speaker 8: he's a psychopath.
- 17:27Speaker 3: I think Brendan Lee Rhodes remains the only suspect in
- 17:31Speaker 3: the disappearance of Cassie Compton, but he has never been charged.
- 17:35Speaker 3: In a recent interview with Judy, she rejects the possibility
- 17:38Speaker 3: that Brendan could have had anything to do with the disappearance.
- 17:42Speaker 3: She doesn't entertain the possibility that he would have harmed her.
- 17:48Speaker 9: I never thought that he wouldn't have anything to do
- 17:52Speaker 9: with it. He looks at her life, his daughter, and
- 18:06Speaker 9: if he did, it would be shocking to me.
- 18:09Speaker 3: Judy remarried in twenty twenty one. She still holds out
- 18:12Speaker 3: hope that Cassie will be found and that they will
- 18:14Speaker 3: be reunited. The investigative report that led to Brandon's jailhouse
- 18:19Speaker 3: interview was also developed into an eight part podcast called
- 18:22Speaker 3: Timeline the Disappearance of Cassie Compton, which is available on
- 18:27Speaker 3: the standard platforms. If you have any information on Cassie's
- 18:30Speaker 3: disappearance or believe that you have seen Cassie anywhere other
- 18:33Speaker 3: than TikTok, the contacts for law enforcement and placing anonymous
- 18:37Speaker 3: tips are in the description of this video. In twenty
- 18:41Speaker 3: twenty two, Cassie would be twenty three years old. She's
- 18:44Speaker 3: approximately five foot three with brown hair sometimes dyed blonde,
- 18:48Speaker 3: in blue eyes. Thanks for watching. I'm Kevin. This is
- 18:52Speaker 3: just thought lounge, and I'll see in the next one.