Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: In the Cage - the Chilling Fate of Cassidy Rainwater

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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: In the Cage - the Chilling Fate of Cassidy Rainwater · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Body Backs with Joseph Scott. Morgan accorded to phrase a
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: few years ago when I was appearing with Nancy Grace
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: on her shows, and I've used it constantly sitting since then.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'll state it right now just so that everyone knows.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: And it's a bit melodramatic, but sometimes you just you
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: can't form the words and so you just go back
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and I have to use this that the house of
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: depravity has no basement. And what I mean by that
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you see things that so shock your conscience. You hear
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: about them, you read about them, and when you begin
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: to think about what cases you want to discuss, sometimes
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: you retract from it, but you sally forth and you
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: do what you do. And it's that way with certainly
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: with my career. There were certain things I didn't want
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to bear witness too, that I didn't want to see,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: but I had them. And today on body Bags, we're
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: going to talk about the death, the homicide, the brutal
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: homicide of a young lady named Cassidy Rainwater, and not
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: just her death, but what we believe she endured leading
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: up to the moment in time when people finally, investigators
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: finally verified that they had her mortal remains, or at
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: least all that remained of her. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and this is Bodybags. I gotta apologize to you. I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: apologize for dragging it down this road. I felt as
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: though that we needed to chat about this case with
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: me is Dave Mack. He's a senior crime reporter with
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Crime Online. We cover a lot of things man this case, though,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: it's a bit difficult to take in. Would you agree
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: with that.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: The home of Depravity has no basement? Is that what
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: you said?
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: The House of depravity has no basement?
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: The house? This is the story that defines that I
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: had to look up terms used in the reporting of
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: this to know exactly what they were talking about, because
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: these are things associated with wild animals that one might hunt,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: not human beings that we're supposed to care and love for.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And the story of Cassidy Rainwater, it's beyond the pale.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: It really is one of these stories, Joe that you
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: keep thinking this has got to be made up for
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: some kind of slasher movie, but no, it actually did happen.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: A thirty three year old woman need a little bit
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: of help going through all the ups and downs of life.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: We come through them, and she thought she had found
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: a friend, and that friend offered her a place to stay.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Does she get her feetback under? He gave Cassidy Rainwater
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: a place to stay in a loft inside his house.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: She was reported missing by a friend who hadn't seen
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: her in a while, and the only person that she
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: knew to talk to was a person she thought his
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: name was James Phelps. The story that James told her friend,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Cora Terry didn't add up. Cora Terry picked up the
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: phone and made a missing person's call. My friend is missing.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know where she is. That's the official start
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: of the last chapter of Cassidy Rainwater's life. Four weeks later,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: a picture shows up at the FBI field office. But
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: the FBI has a tip line. In this particular case,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: the tip line helped bring about the case.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, and just so, folks have kind of
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: a geographic orientation to this. This case comes out of
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: southwest Missouri, and so whoever called us in. And I'm
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: fascinated because this is an anonymous tip Dave. This is
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: not like, Hey, I'm so and so and I'm giving
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: you this information. It is an anonymous tip and that's
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the way it's being framed. Who would have had knowledge
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: about this, Who would have known about this, who would
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: have had that picture? And that's a much more when
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: we talk about the pictures in just a moment, that's
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: a more ominous thing when you think about who's distributing
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: this kind of image, so that it's being consumed by
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: someone out there they have it in their possession. But
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: the field office that this was called into was the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Kansas City Field Office, which you would probably expect would
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: cover this region of the country. It's down near Springfield, Missouri,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: and it's in an isolated area to a great degree.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It's very rural. Lot of farming that goes on down
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: in that area and certainly a lot of hunting lots
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and lots of hunting. It's renowned for taking big deer
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: white tail down in that area. So folks that occupy
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: that space are going to know more of a farm
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: like setting.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Or more of a rural type of world.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: That they're going to be exposed to. And the actual
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: setting of what turned out to be the crime scene
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: is a place of isolation. It's wooded, thickly wooded, where
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: if you didn't know that it was there. You know,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: you might pass by it and not have an awareness
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: that it's there. The photographs were just the start. When
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: we learn about what went on at that location, you
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: can understand why a perpetrator in a case like this
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: would need privacy and isolation. In the age that we
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: find ourselves in right now, when it comes to photography
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and forensics, there is a specific thing that we look
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: for in photographs. It's not like back in the days
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: of analog photography, you would essentially take it somewhere and
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: have images develop. My wife likes to joke she was
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: in college, Dave, you might remember this. My wife was
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: actually a photo mate, which means she worked in one
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of those little booths that people would drive up to
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and drop off their film. They have to take it,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and they take it and send it off to a lab.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: A truck would come by pick it up and they
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: process the film. And those days are way behind us
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: now at this point in time, forensics now. And you
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: talk about digital photography, particularly if you're imaging things on
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the phone, Forensically, there's a lot of value with that
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: phone and things are dayton Tom stamped relative to that,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: and so that's very important. I think that that actually
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: plays a role in certainly the case of Cassidy Rainwater.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: This story of Cassidy Rainwater is every parent's nightmare. I
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: have daughters. We have tried to warn them their whole
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: life that there are people in this world you cannot trust.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: It doesn't mean we don't tell our boys that it's
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: just with girls. I have girls in this age group here,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: and I think about my precious Hayley and my precious
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Hannah at the hands of evil that befell this woman,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Cassidy Rainwater. I mentioned that it was a family friend.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: Relative hadn't seen Cassidy in a month, and when she
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: tried to find out where she was, she couldn't find out.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Wasn't a lot of help, and that's why she picked
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: up the phone and called the Sheriff's office said, hey,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: I can't find my friend. Well they started looking. The
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Sheriff's did, Well, we got to look for her. She's
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: thirty three years old. Thirty three ye old women don't
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: just disappear. And so as they started looking, they knew
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: they had one contact where this friend slash relative said
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: that she was with this guy named Phelps. When they
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: talked to James Phelps. He said that Cassidy left for
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Colorado round July twenty fifth. He actually volunteered that date.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: When investigators start an investigation and they have a person
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: that might have information about the they start making notes
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: and they write down everything like date and time July
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: twenty fifth, about what time and the reason is. They
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: come back later on ask that same person same question
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: and see if they they say it was it. You
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: said it is July twenty third at nine am that
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: she took off for Colorado, and the suspect says, yeah,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: that's it. Well, they know he's lying because the first
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: he said July twenty fifth at twelve o'clock. And that's
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: what they did with Phelps. They tripped him up and
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: knew right away they had a big case. They didn't
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: know how big til the FBI calls in the middle
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: of September when they talked to Phelps, looked at his phone.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: What did they see? They saw pictures of Cassidy rainwater,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: partially clothed in a cage, partially nude body inside a cage.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: The anonymous tip with photos that went into the Kansas
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: City Bureau the FBI. We mentioned this earlier. Where did
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: they come from who sent those how to be somebody
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: close to it, right, But that's what gave them. We're
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: looking at an anonymous tip picture of the girl we're
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: looking for in a cage, partially nude, and that's why
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: they were like, we've got to see if these photos
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: began on Phelps' phone.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: You try to validate what they call the provenance of
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the photographs. Try to validate it not simply Dayton Tom
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: stamp on it, but also points of origin. Is it legitimate?
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Is it a real photograph?
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  Speaker 3: Because I got to tell you, Dave, if I see
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: a photo which these people have seen, these investigators, I
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: got to ask myself this question, just that human part
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: of me, am I actually seeing something real?
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Or is this something from a movie set? Because how
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: in the world do you look at this and think?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: And keep in mind, those of us that are in
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: investigations and in forensics, we're very jaded. Okay, we're very jaded,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: and we always say nothing surprises this. However, in a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: case like this, if this crosses your desk as an
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: investigator and you look at it, this is going to
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: have you take a step back. This is kind of
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: like a moment in time that the investigator will remember,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: it's so striking when you have an image of fellow
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: human being inside of a cage that's obviously being held captive.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Is she being held captive at that moment in time?
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  Speaker 1: Is she doing this of her own free will? You'd
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: have to ask that question, because, let's face it, you've
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: got people that engage in all kinds of behaviors. And
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: is this something she's doing because she's chosen to, she's
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: engaging in it, she's partially nude, it's very provocative. Or
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: is she being deprived of her freedom? Is she being tortured?
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Anybody ever took an intro sociology class, they talk about
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Maslow's hierarchy, you know those basic things that we need
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: clothing and shelter and food and all that. Well just
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: demonstrated right here. You've got somebody that's partially clothed. Has
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: she had clothing taken away from her? And what's the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: purpose of her clothing being taken away from her? Why's
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: she being held in the casion? Why are you photographing it?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: To begin with? Why are you actually photographing this? Well?
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Why do we photograph things? Well? To document that we
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: document that thing that we're doing or that we're engaged in. Well,
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  Speaker 1: are you doing this in order to review it for
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: your own pleasure or are you doing this to share
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  Speaker 1: it with others? And my friend, there are huge networks
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: of people that are out there in the dark web
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  Speaker 1: area that feast off of this sort of thing, this
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  Speaker 1: kind of depravity that they will share images like this,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and as an investigator, you begin to think, well, is
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: this what happened? Did somebody, this anonymous person, maybe they
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: had this image shared with them and suddenly they grew
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: conscious all of a sudden. Even in my construct of normal,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: this is not normal. You know what am I viewing here?
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: This is something that's critical that I need to get
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: to somebody that can do something about it. So when
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the investigators begin to dig into this, they know that
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: they have Phelps there, They know that he's somebody that
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: they need to chat with. At minimum, they know that
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: he probably has a phone, and they know that they
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: need to execute a warrant. You know, the thing about
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: predators like this is that when they document things, and
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: let's just say they're doing it for their own pleasure,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: it's not They've gone to a lot of effort to
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: go through all of the steps first off to deprive
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: somebody of their freedom through kidnapping, then holding them and
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: imprisoning them, and then essentially torturing them, and all along
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the way. They're documenting every step. From an investigative standpoint,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that's something that we can look at forensically and begin
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: to put together a timeline. You'd mentioned earlier. Her friend
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: noticed that she was missing. Okay, from where was she
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: missing and when was she last seen alive? What has
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: happened in the meantime. This guy claims that she was
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: staying there with him until she got back on her feet.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: It's interesting when police actually went to his home to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: conduct an initial interview, he had said that she was
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: staying in this kind of lofted area that he had
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: in his house, and when they observed that area, there
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: were no belongings of hers there. You're talking about somebody
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: that was trying to get back on her feet. Wuldn't
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: you think that she would have some element of clothing
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: or some type of personal item that was up there.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: There was nothing. Matter of fact, the police actually actually
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: used the word stripped.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Even if she packed up to leave, even if there
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: would still be signs she had been there, there'd have
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: to be something. It's actually the lack of evidence in
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: this case that becomes evidence.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. And we've talked about that before on
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: body bags, that negative findings are just as positive as
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: or just as good rather as positive findings in an investigation,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: because it leads you down a different road investigatively, you're
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: not judging the roads you're going down. You're just saying
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: it's a different road. It's pushing you in a different
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: direction as the investigation takes you. So an absence of
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: a demonstrative evidence that somebody had existed in this location,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: there's a stark absence of it. And so you're saying
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: to us that you gave her a space in which
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to get back on her feet. Why is there no
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: evidence here that she had en twelve the structure with you?
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: What did you do with these items? All the while
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the investigators, you know, formulating these questions in their mind.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: And then can you imagine being a sheriff's investigator in
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: some small rural area in isolation like this, and you're
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: looking into this case, you're trying to put it all together,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you're contacted by the
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Feds that say, listen, we've got something for you here.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: We've got something that might be connected to your jurisdiction
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and a lady that's currently missing. I think you're going
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: to want to take a look. I can't even begin
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to imagine what those Sheriff's Office investigators thought when they
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: saw these images. When I was thinking about what cases
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: to discuss on body bags, I never thought the words
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: cage and gantry crane were going to be part of
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the discussion, but my gosh, they certainly are in this case.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: I had never heard that term gantry crane used while
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: dealing with human beings in a case, I had to
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: look up what it was. Tell everybody what it is.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Gantry crane. They've been around for a while, and you
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: can actually make these things at home if you wish.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, there's an image that floats
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: around out there from back in the fifties, from case
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: involving all that many of our listeners will have heard of,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and that's Ed Gain from Plainfield, Wisconsin. The original leatherface,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I think, and he was a necrophile who had also
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: killed a woman in addition to disinturning bodies, and this
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: sort of thing and doing horrible things with bodies. But
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: there's an image of crime scene image that was taken
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: at his rural farm where he had fashioned a type
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: of gantry crane in order to literally feel dress one
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: of his victims. And it's one of those types of
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: images that you never forget when you see it because
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: if particularly those of you that are not familiar with
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: the dressing or field dressing of a deer. The deer
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: when you place them on a crane like this and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: you can wench it up, You can attach a wench
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: to it and it can either be hand cranked or
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: it can be electric. You wench the remains of the deer,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: and it's inverse because you want the blood to flow
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: out and the body of the animal is eviscerated. That
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: means the organs are removed. We've talked about that, I
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: think in my autopsy episode of body bags, because of
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: visceration is the term that we use when we remove
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the organs and the blood is drained at that point
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: in time. In this particular case, apparently what law enforcement
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: is stating is that they actually have an image. I'll
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: let this think in just for a second. They actually
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: have an image of this poor woman, Cassidy Rainwater. Will
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: say her name again, Cassidy Rainwater, as she has been
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: winched up onto a gantry crane and eviscerated. Her organs
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: have been removed. Now we don't know specifically what cause
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: of death is in this particular case, but what we
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: do know is that she was imaged inside of a cage.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: We know that she was held against her will, and
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: then there's documentation that she is deceased. By virtue of
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the fact that they've identified the image that they have,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: they suspect that it is her remains. This goes to
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: things like an abuse of a corpse. And one more
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: chilling thing about this is that there were her remains
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: that were actually found labeled, according to the police, inside
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: of a freezer. Dave, inside of a freezer.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: It's the way you would mark Hamburger Meet if you
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: were freezing it and you wrote on the outside July
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: twenty fifth, so you'd know what day you put it
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: in there. That's how these were labeled in that freezer.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and because of the blood evidence that they were
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: able to find relative to this, they were able to
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: get a specific scientific idea on Cassidy. I would imagine
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: that this was matched through DNA. You could certainly do
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: it at a rudimentary level with blood typing determined if
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: you know what her blood type is. But you know
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: you're going to extend it further than that.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you a question, because when you
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: get to this point where you're talking about if this
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: goes to trial, you can prove that these body parts
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: are what is left is cassidy rain water. You can
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: prove that with DNA. But as a juror, don't I
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: need to know what happened? Don't I need to know?
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Just seeing a picture that could be photoshopped is one thing.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Seeing the victim here nude, partially nude inside a cage.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: As a juror, I've got to know how did it
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: get from there to a body part in a freezer? So,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: as the forensic guy, can you tell me that? Can
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: you fill in the blanks based on just having the
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: body parts and what you can assume or presume happened.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: It's very difficult because you don't know what status that
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: those remains pass through after death or even in those
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: moments leading up to death. Because if a body has
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: been now keep in mind they've already validated this by
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: saying that there is an image of her having been
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: eviscerated and she's to a gantry crane her remains. Following that,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: after the evisceration has taken place, what happened to her organs? Okay,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and we have to ask that question, what happened to
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: her organs? And then where her remains butchered? Well, if
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: they were butchered, which if we followed this line of
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: logic where they're treating her remains as if you would
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: an animal carcass, what was the purpose of the butchering? Well,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: if you're retaining butchered remains, it would stand a reason
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you want to preserve them, you're labeling them. It's not
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: too far down the road, I think, intellectually at least
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: to begin to think about is this a case of cannibalism?
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure that that's been entertained by the investigators,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And there has been a dive that they've gone into
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: because they did find skeletal remains at the scene which
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: they have positively identified as Cassidy's remains. So what do
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: we look for relative to that bit of information. Well,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: you can't necessarily say that she was shot. You can't
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: say that she was stabbed. You certainly can't say that
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: she was suffocated in some way with any definition unless
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: you actually have they photographed a lot of things here.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: What if they find more photographs which demonstrate her death
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: being brought about where they're actually videotaping or imaging all
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: of these steps, Because all we know right now we
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: have her in a cage that was documented, and then
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: we have these eviscerated remain. So what about the end
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: between those moments leading up to her death? Is there
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: any evidence that some method was utilized to bring about
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: her death that we no longer have evidence of? Because
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: when you talk about butchering of remains, one of the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: things that we look for and understand this when you
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: work at a medical examiner's office, and this is something
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: that people are probably not even aware of. Did you know, Dave,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: that we will randomly have set that will come off
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: of the street and they'll have a bone in their
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: hand and they'll say, first off, we found this large
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: bone on our property and we want to know what
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: is it. What they're asking is is this a human
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: remain that I found on my property? Well, you begin
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to kind of examine the remain, and most of the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: time when people show up with some type of skeletal remain,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: and particularly if it's large, you can say, well, this
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: is some type of hog, or it's bovine, it's a
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: beef bone, and we'll look for what to referred to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: as butchering marks on the bone, and you can see
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: where a sharp force has been used in order to
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: render the remains down to a manageable size. If you're
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: talking about like particularly when it comes to pigs, for instance,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and they're butchered, you look for spiral markings on the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: ends of the bones where they've been cut through and
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: you get the spiral saw that they use to cut
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: it down. You'll see these kind of elliptical marks on
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the end of the bones. So we began to look
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: for those kinds of evidences. Well, if you've got perpetrators
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: that might have a history of butchering animals, what type
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of skill set do they have, what level of skill
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: do they have things like a bandsaw that they have
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: access to. Is there evidence at the scene that if
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: they do have instruments like this, Do you have DNA
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: other than an animal you have perhaps human DNA found
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: on the same tools that they would butcher a deer
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: with or maybe a hog, and that's going to be important.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: That's why everything at a scene like this has to
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: be collected and examined very very thoroughly. And then the
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: skeletal remains that you have left behind. If you believe
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: that this is a case of that perhaps cannibalism was involved,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: you're going to look for a couple of things. First off,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: though they are human remains where they butchered in a
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: manner in which they were processed for consumption, the way
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that you would prepare roast, for instance, if you're a
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: local butcher. Also, on bone, one of the things that
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: we look for our animal activity, and you can find
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: teeth marks on bone, and you find this often with
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: discarded animal remains, where you can actually see these kind
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of straded marks that are left behind by teeth. I
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: don't know if you know this, but humans leave those
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: marks as well. If they have bone and they have
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: chewed on it, for instance, you'll see those kinds of
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: marks that can be at least in a very broad
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: sense identified, These might be consistent with the scraping of
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: human teeth on a bone. So those are all the
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: things that have to be taken into consideration with this.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: And the reason we're thinking about this is, for what
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: other reason would you be preserving a human remain, particularly
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: in the manner in which you would preserve an animal
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: remain that you were going to be setting aside for consumption,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: unless perhaps you're thinking of some way to dispose of
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the human remains so as not to draw attention to
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: yourself parceling out the remains, and you're going to distribute
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: them in various locations. Well, if that's the case, why
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: were there remains found at the same property that were
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: not retained, that were, as far as we know right now,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: skeletal remains that have been tied back to this young lady.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: So there's I think that there's very big questions that
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: are going to be asked, certainly in court when this case,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: if it does it finally does go to trial.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: There's the one part about what you just said kind
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: of it proks my ears a little bit here, buddy.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: You said, preparing to get rid of these somehow yet
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: we know they found something in the freezer label July
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: twenty fifth, which I'm based on what we know, that's
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: probably the day or real close to the day in
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: which Cassidy Rainwater was murdered and or cut up. Forensically speaking,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: can you determine if this was a first time effort
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: by the individual or if this is something that had
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: been done before four And the reason I asked that is,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: we know we have two men, James Phillips and Timothy Norton.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: James Phillips who Cassid he was staying with in his
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: rented house. He called Timothy Norton and said, come here,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: I need you to help me hold this person in place,
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: restrain her. And Norton restrained her for a long period
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: of time for Phelips to do whatever it is he's
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: going to do. And I can say that because Phelps
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: has taken an offered plea in this case, this doesn't
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: sound like the first time these two have done this.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: What I can't speak to. I think in a case
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: of dismemberment like this, one of the things we look
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: for is the level of skill. All right, there's several
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: things that you look for. First off, at the scene,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: do you have tools at the scene that would easily
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: facilitate the dismemberment of animal remains or human remains? Okay,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: that's the first thing you're going to check off then,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and this is important too. I think folks might not
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: think about this. If you have let's say that they
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: have been butchering deer, or maybe they've got hogs that
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: they butcher, do you have evidence of that at the scene,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and what was the level of skill that was applied
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: during that practice and by extension, the remains that you
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: recover that turn out to be human remains. What level
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of skill is involved? How do we measure that? Well,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: if you're using, say, for instance, a hacksaw in order
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to dismember or remain, are you going to the shaft
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: of the bone in order to facilitate this or are
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: you going to a joint which would be more easily
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: facilitated in order to kind of break down the body
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: into base elements where you're removing parts like this. Somebody
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: that has no level of skill, first off, they think
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: that they're going to be able to take a saw
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: and just saw through soft tissue. The saw is not
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: used until the very end. You have to get through
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the soft tissue. What do you use to do that? Well,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: you have to use a sharp instrument, and I don't
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: mean saw teeth. You would use classically a butcher's knife.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, are a filet knife. You
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: look to the level of skill of the person that
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: is wielding these instruments. Is there evidence in their past
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: that they have done this sort of thing. If you're
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: an investigator and you're going to go talk to some
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: of the principles involved in the case or some of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the peripherals rather that know these individuals, one of the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: first questions you would ask is, are these guys deer hunters?
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Do they raise hogs or cattle? Have you ever known
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: them to butcher their own food? Do you know if
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: they ever work, for instance, at a slaughterhouse, which obviously
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that would give them access to tools that would give
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: them access to the knowledge that's required, because it's like
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: working on an assembly line. For those of you that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: have never been to slaughter house, it's that way. You're
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: processing a lot of animals over that period of time.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And we have places out here in the rural South
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: we call deer coolers, and the signs pop up every
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: year during deer season, and deer coolers are actually it's
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: a term that's used for individuals that have businesses set
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: up that if you go out and you kill a deer,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: you don't butcher it yourself. You take it to the
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: deer cooler and the person there will actually process the
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: animal for you, and they'll make it out anyway you
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: want it made out. They'll cut it into steaks, they'll
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: cut it into roast, they'll grind it up to make
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: ground meat for you. They have very specific abilities in
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: order to do all this, So you're looking at the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: level of skill. And this goes again more broadly or
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: more specifically to the area in which this is done.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Is there a set aside area. How long had this
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: individual possessed this game tree crane. Is it something that
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: they recently bought or is it something that you know
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: they've had for a couple of years. And it's in
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: the same spot. Because if you're using a gantry crane
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and you quote unquote bleed an animal, well, when you
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: open the animal up, it's going to be a huge
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: dump of tissue, specifically blood. And then on top of
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: the blood, when you eviscerate an animal, as you begin
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to dissect out the inside of the animal, those organs
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: actually fall to the ground. Well, that's kind of this
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: contact trace element that comes into play with the soil
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: or the underlying surface beneath the gantry crane, So you'll
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: have multiple DNA from multiple animals. If you're using this
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: gantry crane to butcher animals in this location, that makes
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: it all the more difficult if you introduce human DNA
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: into this environment. It's a wail of an undertaking here
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: from an investigative standpoint, because how do you kind of
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: suss out the animal DNA if it's, say, for since,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: a deer that has been butchered here from human DNA,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: And that's something that investigators have to look at very carefully.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: James Phelps, who was charged with first degree murder in
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: the death of Cassidy Rainwater, has entered an Alfred plea
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: in the case. We mentioned this earlier, and Alfred plea
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: does not admit guilt, but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: evidence to convict if the case had gone to trial. Meanwhile,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Timothy Norton has pled not guilty, has not taken an
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Alford plea, and he'll be going to trial later.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybags