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[Music] [Music] Cass is a rare person she didn't care what you thought of her she didn't care
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if you liked her she didn't care if she was too loud or too in your face she just was she was your best friend right
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yeah yeah for years I got a pair of new shorts this t-shirt two essy nail polishes she got into these things
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called haul videos where you would go shopping I will show you what I got and then I'll tell you how much everything
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cost kind of spread the word about deals 99 $7.99 $8.99 $3.50 she never really left home I got
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this for my mom I got this for my mom to go with the slippers I also got this for
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her she was always there so we were really good friends on August 25th 2020 Cassandra's
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mom Marie Smith got up she left for work everything was fine when I came home it was clear that
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she had used the master bathroom to get ready to go all of her makeup was in there and then I didn't hear from
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her I knew she had a shopping day planned and her friend Alexandra was going to be meeting with her the next
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day [Music] I remember I was late by about 15 minutes I texted her hey where are you
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hey I'm sorry I'm late I got no response I left panicked messages until her voicemail box was full she
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never just went dark like that before the morning of the 27th I had text from Marie that said to Cass spend
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the night with you is she at your place are you with her she's not with you I thought she was
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with you and that's when I realized there was something wrong when did you call the
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police I called them later that day get started out like uh any other adult missing person case the majority
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of those calls are resolved with no nefarious activity maybe she's out there the world
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is so wired with cameras there is just no way that somebody didn't see something we're able to see the white
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car Cassandra's car Cassandra's car you can see a subject getting out of the vehicle and start walking away that's
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damning evidence that's incredibly valuable evidence for us you can see him walking across the street he's dressed
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in all black black shoes black pants black T-shirt blue surgical gloves and a black
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fedora he knew something he was involved but there was something going on there we didn't know about yeah she was
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Keeping a Secret she didn't want to tell me [Music] [Music] this is Ruby I called everybody anybody
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I could think of this is going to be a complete Pet haul only and nobody had heard from her this I got for $8 and
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change it was $9 and change $5.98 I was hoping that she might be alive somewhere for Marie Smith the
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realization that her daughter Cassandra canell had been missing for more more than 2 days was almost more than she
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could take I never thought that I'd be the person sitting here talking about my [Music]
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daughter I wanted her found I don't even know how to explain how wrenching it is Marie's close friend
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Christy Sinclair says it was Agony this can't be happening this isn't real she lost her phone she lost her car
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she had no money I don't know anything but what you don't want to think about anything but that I'll show you this I
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made it this was only $5 as Cassandra's family and friends grappled with her disappearance police got to work Pierce
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County Sheriff's detective France helmy was assigned to the case his first step talk to those who knew Cassandra best
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how did Marie describe Cassandra normal I got her these pajamas they're to cute responsible yeah responsible she would
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you know call let her know you know where she was going detective helmy learned Cassandra was close with her
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family and good about staying in touch they're selling me for $15 she enjoyed making those YouTube shopping videos and
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love being on stage she'd even joined a local production of the rocky horror pictures show where people act alongside
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the movieam Marie says it was a perfect fit for her daughter she was with a group of
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people who were a little wacky like her she was good and she was adorable Sher Mueller the show's producer recalls
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Cassandra's natural Talent she was playing a character by the name of Janet Weiss she also learned the character of
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Colombia by all accounts at the time of her disappearance Cassandra was a happy 33-year-old and not someone who would
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run off this wasn't the the typical missing person that was going to come home in a in a couple days detective
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helmy canvased the area around where Marie and Cassandra lived and found on a neighbor security camera a clip of
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Cassandra's white Mazda on the morning of August 25th it was seen leaving the neighborhood did you see any video of
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the car coming back no as the hours ticked by with no sign of Cassandra her family and friends
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tried to remain hopeful it was particularly difficult for Sandra's twin brother Rob growing up the two were
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inseparable and would stay up late at night to watch scary movies she was never scared of that stuff no wow we
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laughed at most of it okay she's tough girl then yeah as they got older their shared passion for movies evolved into
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collecting memorabilia they even dreamed of opening their own collectible shop Half Price $2 it was only five bucks but
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as close as they were Rob couldn't imagine where his sister went and he was filled with remorse about their last
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conversation we were having an argument she wanted to actually come over on the 25th but I ignored her the 25th of
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August 2020 the day Cassandra went missing that's a big regret I imagine still for you yeah cuz then she probably
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would have told me what she was doing that day and I would have at least known where she had
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gone Cassandra's family and friends organized searches I can't imagine what that must feel like like to be out there
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searching and and knowing what you could possibly be looking for you put it in the back you don't think about that it's
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just help me find a clue help me find a clue and then 3 days after Cassandra vanished police found her white Mazda
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unlocked with the keys still inside it was almost underneath Interstate 705 which goes into the heart of the
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downtown Tacoma it's an industrial area where groups of homeless people off in Camp her cars in the area did something
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happen down here strange place for a young woman to park a car and then go missing yeah our alarm Bells going off
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then yeah increasingly she had clearly gotten ready to go somewhere where did she go
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who did she go to see detective heli had ordered an emergency trace on Cassandra's cell phone to try and find
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her last known location and he discovered her phone last last pinged about 2 miles south of a tower on Bashon
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island in the Puget Sound one of the first things I did was just get on Google Earth and strike an arc from that
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Tower to see where it lands and it showed his landing around this Shoreline at Owen Beach or Point Defiance Park and
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when you're seeing this huge body of water you thinking we're just never going to be able to find this yeah
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[Music] [Music] [Music] investigators chasing that last ping from Cassandra's cell phone knew it was
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somewhere here in the vast Waters of the Puget Sound which is nearly 100 m long what's the next step about trying to
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recover that we debated about that because it's a needle and a hay stack it's a huge body of water this is the
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vicinity that it showed up as it being at but detective helmy had a starting point he knew someone likely had tossed
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the phone into the water from Owen Beach finding it was a long shot but Detective
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seant Brent van djk was up for the challenge he brought the Pierce County Metro dive team out to the beach on a
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summer day we got lucky with the tides that day the tide was extremely low so it made our search area a little less
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van djk had a plan to dramatically reduce the area where the phone might be first he asked members of his team to
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throw stones from the beach to simulate how far someone could throw a cell phone
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if you picture throwing something from here it limits the distance that I would have to search for what he threw the
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dive team then formed a line essentially creating an underwater draget we had a boat out in the water and a line of
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people on snorkel that day just looking down they were told that Cassandra's phone had a case decorated with glitter
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this is the actual underwater footage the dive team was in the water for little more than an hour when
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incredibly one of the guys on the line said hey I think I got it they saw a sparkle I think I got the phone and it
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was the phone the phone was sent to a specialist to determine if any information could be
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recovered the hunt to find Cassandra was intensifying as detectives learned more
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about her she felt like she could tell you pretty much everything about what was going on in her life right yes even
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her deepest darkest secrets she would tell you first yep and a month before she disappeared
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Cassandra confided a secret to her best friend she texted me a positive pregnancy test and said I think I might
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be prar and the day she was supposed to meet Alexandra but never showed up it was going to be her first
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ultrasound for detective France helmy learning Cassandra had been pregnant at the time of her disappearance changed
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everything this is what is now peing my my interest normally in a situation where a pregnant woman disappears you
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look at who the partner is first correct Cassandra had also told her mother she was pregnant but didn't provide details
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I asked Maria did she tell you who the father was and she says well was some guy she met online or through a dating
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app she told me it was not somebody that she was actually seeing and that he didn't even live in the area it was no
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secret Cassandra was actively dating using apps like Tinder and Marie told detectives about
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an old boyfriend Cassandra was still in touch with Colin Dudley the two had dated back in 2006 while in The Rocky
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Horror acting group the show's producer Sher Mueller Colin played a character called the
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criminologist on stage outside of the stage when he wasn't performing he was the head head of Tech and he kind of ran
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the cast but after dating for several months Colin and Cassandra broke up Colin started a relationship with
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another cast member Rebecca fiser and the two eventually moved in together Steve Ammon hung out at their
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home regularly to play a game called Dungeons and Dragons explain what Dungeons and
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Dragons is it's not a board game right no not a traditional board game uh it's more of a theater of the Mind type
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gameplay doing things that you wouldn't normally do in real life role play a wizard a rogue a
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fighter the game always took place in Colin's basement Colin was kind of the dungeon master of it the one who ran the
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show and Steve liked being around him Colin was quick to help if someone needed money he says and he still
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remembers the meals Colin cooked for game nights he was a chef by profession so it was nice food in 2014 after
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Colin's father died he rekindled a friendship with Cassandra she assured me you know that she was just there to be a
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friend she's like he's got a girlfriend according to Marie Cassandra and Colin would sometimes watch movies
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or grab a bite to eat at some point Alexandra says even though Colin was living with Rebecca his
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relationship with Cassandra once again turned romantic and Cassandra told Alexandra
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that Colin was the father of her baby she was very excited she talked about you know names and games she wanted at
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the baby shower she had she had a Amazon registry already made Cassandra's only hesitation whether she should tell Colin
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he was with Rebecca and had mentioned he didn't want to have kids but but Alexandra says Cassandra did tell Colin
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she was pregnant and he was okay with it she called me and uh she said well I told him and it went better than
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expected he was calm and said not to worry about it and that they would talk detective helmy wondered if Colin
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knew where Cassandra was we're just trying to follow up with people who knew Cassandra you know places she likes to
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go that we could maybe look Colin sat and talked with Detective helmy on his front porch and the
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conversation was recorded this is a recorded statement we're going to be taking from Colin Patrick Dudley so you
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know we just kind of begin with just simple hey tell us about you and Cassandra how did you meet I met her at
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show we were in a relationship for a couple of months and then we broke up in 2006 I then
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started kind of running some of these things by him that that people were telling me talking to other people
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talking to to Cassandra's family and some other friends they reported that she was about 10 weeks pregnant and what
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we've been hearing is that she's been telling people that you are the father no way no hell no Colin was adamant he and
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Cassandra were not in a relationship and he was most definitely not the father of her child I asked him are you
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sure you know no one night stands no you know hookups after the fact or anything
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like that no absolutely not he says in fact Colin insisted he hadn't seen or spoken to Cassandra since they broke up
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back in 2006 except once when he ran into her at the mall you haven't any no contact with no messages or no Facebook
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or anything no helmy believed Colin was lying but could he prove it it turned out a clue
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to finding the answer was in Marie's [Music] paperwork detective helmy believed Colin
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Dudley was lying when he said he had not seen or spoken to Cassandra for years but it was Cassandra's mother
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Marie Who provided some proof she had been combing through Cassandra's old phone bills where she noticed a mystery
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number that kept reappearing we didn't know whose it was cuz it didn't have a name attached to it
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going back how far in the past oh we looked back months and months you know as far back as we could see this number
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kept popping up and the last time it popped up Marie told detective helmy was the morning
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Cassandra disappeared I said so okay so what what's that number and she tells me
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I immediately know it's colins humy wanted forensic investigators to take a closer look at
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Dudley's phone which detective helmy had taken when they had met on Dudley's front porch I told him you know I have a
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warrant to seize your phone I read him the warrant grabbed the phone and we left
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investigators later obtained the phone records for both Cassandra and colins's phones they were turned over to
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Detective Ryan salmon the cell phone forensics analyst for the sheriff's department salmon noticed something
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curious the name Cassandra never appeared in Colin's phone what name was he using right for Cassandra he had it
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under Velma why Velma we learned later through Cassandra's mother that she had gone as Velma from
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Scooby-Doo as a Halloween costume and it's likely sammon said that Colin Dudley did not want his living
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girlfriend to know he was still in touch with Cassandra even without the information from her waterlogged phone
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salmon was able to see when and where she and Colin interacted simply by having those phone records it's
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extremely helpful in determining where somebody was during a critical time frame people have a cell phone with them
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almost all day every day the phone records showed Cassandra's white Mazda driving to the spot where it
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was found but had Cassandra or someone else parked it there detective helmy knew the city's light rail system was
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nearby and asked their security people if they could find any footage of Cassandra's car what they found proved
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Cru crucial we have the video you want you need to get down here and look at it these videos have never been shown
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publicly in this video from a moving Light Rail train taken the late morning of August 25th helmy could see a man in
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a black hat walking away from where Cassandra's car was parked then a different camera shows that same man
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from a much closer angle he'll cross right in front of this camera so he comes walking across and you can see
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all black the blue gloves in the Fedora and he just sits down at the stop the time was 1150 a.m. the man sits for 4
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minutes and then keeps walking now he gets up and continues walking his face covered by some type of
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mask is hard to see but based on his build and gate helmy suspected that Colin Dudley was the man wearing that
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fedora the detective had been told that Colin often had asked demanded even that
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people call him hat or hatman was he always wearing a hat he would put it on and switch into his
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Persona of the hatman and preferred to be called the hatman Alexandra McCary had heard all about it from
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Cassandra the Persona was basically the main character from Clockwork Orange hi hi hi there little droogies
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very dark uh intentionally so morally dubious did you see the security video at all of the man in the Hat I did get
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to see it and did you look at it and say that's Colin well who else would it be in that video from the light rail
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system the man in the Hat keeps walking right into the Tacoma Dome station parking garage only blocks away from
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where Cassandra's car was found helkey asked security Personnel at the garage if they had any
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footage the answer was a resounding yes they find him walking into the parking garage to a truck you can see
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him using a remote control opener gets into the truck and then as he exits the parking garage you can see pretty
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clearly in the video the license plate which comes back to Mr Dudley that was Colin Chevy TR
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proving the detective said that the man in the video and Colin Dudley were one and the
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same detective helmy was convinced that Colin had done something to Cassandra and he wanted to get into Dudley's house
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immediately we don't have a body we don't have any true evidence that Cassandra is dead we're still hoping
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maybe she is tied up in the basement 6 days after Cassandra kentell vanished a SWAT team burst into Colin Dudley's
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house what do you think is the strongest piece of evidence connecting Colin Dudley to Cassandra's disappearance chat
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now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and X authorities were out in force after
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they raided Colin Dudley's house house but they found no sign of Cassandra Cassandra was not found inside but Colin
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was detained temporarily for us to do the fingerprints and DNA investigators seized several items from the house
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including Colin's Chevy Colorado truck and a black fedora I don't know if it's the same one he's wearing in the video
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or not there were numerous areas that they identified in the basement where there was possible DNA blood evidence
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they said that the Cav Dogs showed particular interest in the basement specifically a brown sofa in the
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basement detective helmy believed something terrible had happened to Cassandra dadley had stopped talking to
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investigators but his living girlfriend Rebecca fiser a carpenter agreed to sit down for an interview do you think he
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would be capable of hurting Cassandra after a 13c pause physics would say yes he's got size and
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strength on her MH I don't think he would no he would not and investigators could not prove
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otherwise Dudley was free to go why can't you arrest him well he's guilty of something but what is he
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guilty of detective helmy wanted to know every move Dudley made on August 25th the day Cassandra went missing and he he
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said it became clear that Dudley had hatched a wellth thought out plot to get rid of Cassandra he had planned this and
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probably was pretty meticulous in his planning in his police interview Dudley said that early on the morning Cassandra
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disappeared he visited Costco so the first stop he makes is at a Costco gas station then he went to a second Costco
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to pick up supplies for what he had told detectives was a spring cleaning investigators subpoenaed receipts and
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the store provided video here surveillance cameras pick up Dudley in the store around 7 a.m. this is where he
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said he stopped cuz he needed supplies for his spring cleaning correct yes the video is so Crystal Clear we think that
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probably the garbage sacks store records show that Dudley purchased a box of heavyduty trash bags goes back to his
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house right detectiv say then Dudley dropped off the supplies at home and drove to the Tacoma Dome station parking
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garage arriving at 887 a.m. we have surveillance video for that too which shows that truck again now in the back
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you'll see a bike and then you'll see him get out and put on a helmet and get on a bike and ride it
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away Dudley left his truck in the garage and began pedling home it's about a 20-minute ride investigators believe he
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wanted to be home by 9:00 a.m. because as it turns out he and Cassandra had made plans at his house sure enough text
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records show that Cassandra was outside Colin's house at 8:49 a.m. she said I'm a bit early that okay and he says he
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says yep come on down and those two messages were both deleted out of his phone and so the two phones are then
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pinpointed in that same location at the house for a couple of hours right for a little more than two hours neither phone
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showed any movement and it was during this period of time investigators believe Colin Dudley likely killed
00:27:47
Cassandra Cantrell shows you the amount of premeditation that went into planning
00:27:53
this right it appears investigators say that around 11:48 a.m. Dudley turned off
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his cell phone as Cassandra's phone shows it moving away from the house detective salmon says that's because
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Dudley had her phone with him as he drove her car to the spot where he abandoned it near the Light Rail station
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he turns his cell phone off mhm but doesn't turn her cell phone off and is driving around with it what was he
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thinking apparently he wasn't he wasn't thinking well enough not as smart as he thought he was you'll see Cassandra's
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car is that it right there yep that white one coming down and then you see Dudley in the Hat
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walking away from her car remember how he paused for a few moments and sat down detective salmon
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believes he was gathering himself after murdering Cassandra I think he's just physically
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tired because of probably how violent the incident was detectives say Dudley then retrieved his truck from the garage
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where he had stashed it earlier that day drove to Owen Beach and tossed Cassandra's phone into the Puget
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Sound and what time roughly was that last ping it was around 12:45 p.m. but while investigators had
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discovered her phone in the water they still hadn't found Cassandra they had no idea what Dudley had done with her but
00:29:31
they did have his Chevy Colorado truck and helmy had an idea as an investigator been exposed to
00:29:39
different Technologies and we knew cars had electronic evidence contained in them
00:29:46
almost every car or truck has reams of data that can be extracted as Illustrated
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here so this is where the major break in the case came through you can turn your cell phone off and not
00:30:01
necessarily be able to track but you can't turn your car's Black Box off exactly Hy got a warrant to remove the
00:30:09
truck's Black Box essentially a computer that tracks and Records nearly every move a vehicle makes he reviewed the
00:30:18
data which confirmed much of what they already knew from the phone records but there was something new that caught
00:30:25
everyone's attention the Black Box had a record of Colin Dudley's movements on August
00:30:33
26th the day after Cassandra visited his house and this is the next morning correct so now we're at 6 a.m. and then
00:30:43
of course we noticed where the vehicle stops that there's a large wooded Ravine on September 22nd 2020 detective
00:30:53
Sergeant Brent Van Dyke rushed to that Ravine which is 8 Miles from Dudley's house it was nearly a month since
00:31:01
Cassandra had gone missing I uh got there first and looked over the Hillside and uh you could
00:31:10
clearly see that there was a garbage can halfway down the hill you could see that the garbage can
00:31:17
had a a bag liner and uh some ropes around it he also spotted blood so you clearly at this point knew you had
00:31:26
remains oh absolutely helmy also at the scene wanted to make a quick identification and he knew that
00:31:37
Cassandra had a distinctive tattoo I asked them to take a picture of it so they took a picture and came walking up
00:31:43
the hill helmy recognized the tattoo immediately Cassandra Cantrell was dead Helm's heart sank when he thought about
00:31:53
calling Cassandra's mother so I called Marie and and uh told her that I had information uh that I
00:32:02
needed to share with her my first question was is she okay and he said you don't no I'm
00:32:15
sorry she's not Cassandra's twin brother Rob overheard that phone call the second I
00:32:23
heard her screaming I knew that they had found her Colin Dudley was arrested that night and
00:32:31
later charged with first-degree murder investigators felt they had built a strong case so strong that they
00:32:41
decided not to try and retrieve the information on Cassandra's waterlogged phone the case barreled toward trial for
00:32:51
2 years and then Cassandra's friends and family heard that prosecutors were considering ing making a plea deal with
00:33:00
Dudley they could not believe it it was premeditated it was literally coldblooded I have no
00:33:09
words a lot of anger though a lot see more evidence of how the case against Colin Dudley came together at 48
00:33:21
hours.com [Music] [Music] she was an optimist she never lost that even up until the end I believe
00:33:43
that she entered his house hopeful hopeful that Colin Dudley was getting comfortable with her pregnancy
00:33:50
instead investigators believe he brutally murdered her an autopsy revealed exactly how brutal the
00:33:58
were fractures major fractures to her skull so hit over the head yeah yeah cause of death was a blunt force
00:34:07
trauma investigators say they were never able to identify a murder weapon but they did find those traces of blood
00:34:14
likely Cassandra's in Dudley's basement basement floor walls a stainless steel table and the laundry room
00:34:25
sink police suspect Colin cleaned cleaned the basement multiple times after killing Cassandra and kept her
00:34:32
body there overnight before dumping her in that Ravine the next morning and they
00:34:37
believe Colin's living girlfriend Rebecca was home during some of that time and thinking about you know
00:34:44
Rebecca's there in the house too that was my next question yeah was there any thought that she had to have been
00:34:51
involved there was no I mean some people thought that investigators confronted Rebecca
00:34:58
did you have anything to do with The Disappearance of Cassandra on any level nope we did not find any information
00:35:07
that she knew that it went on that she had anything to do with it they kept separate areas of the house and so I
00:35:13
could see you know her doing her own thing and not going down the basement yeah but Rebecca did confirm to police
00:35:21
that Colin never wanted to be a father he does not want to be a dad Pierce County Deputy prosecutors Brian
00:35:30
won carry and Patrick Vincent went to work on proving Collins's guilt I thought this was a very strong case at
00:35:37
least circumstantially I mean oddly it's not one in which we had a great deal of
00:35:41
physical evidence it was a case that relied on essentially digital records like that video of Colin leaving
00:35:51
Cassandra's car those phone records placing Cassandra at colins's house the morning she disappeared
00:35:58
and the data showing Colin's truck where Cassandra's remains were eventually found for the prosecutors it seemed like
00:36:06
a lot but they were concerned about convincing a jury at trial we don't have an eyewitness we
00:36:17
don't have a murder weapon we don't have a confession so when the defense offered
00:36:22
to accept a plea deal the prosecutors negotiated eventually Colin Dudley agreed to plead guilty to murder in the
00:36:31
first degree for killing Cassandra the prosecutors brought the deal to Cassandra's family they were
00:36:41
Furious but on November 14th 2022 Colin Dudley formally entered his guilty plea with regard to the charge murdering the
00:36:51
[Music] first he was sentenced to 26 years in prison I I I have no words that would
00:37:01
even Encompass the frustration anger sadness heartache Cassandra's family and friends
00:37:08
had wanted a trial where the full story was told they're also obset that someone
00:37:14
guilty of murdering a pregnant woman would only get 26 years in prison you think the system is broken very broken
00:37:22
in this case how is it that somebody can do what he did and not have to spend his
00:37:30
life in prison it was a sentiment Steve Ammon shared he felt betrayed by his one-time friend and had even written a
00:37:38
letter to the judge saying he should not be out at all he won't learn from this Colin Dudley likely will get out
00:37:48
and with good behavior he could be free again as early as 2044 you should never see the light of
00:37:58
di again because when he gets out he could be in his early 60s yeah and he's still got all that time to
00:38:08
live Cassandra's family wants to make sure that no one else suffers the way they say they have they would like a law
00:38:16
in Washington state that if someone is guilty of knowingly killing a pregnant woman they would automatically get a
00:38:23
life sentence no possibility parole you die in jail until there's any sort of resemblance of Justice I'm not letting
00:38:31
this go and while the family wages that fight Cassandra's twin brother is trying to
00:38:37
honor his sister in other ways she would have loved you did though finally open that dream that you had together your
00:38:46
own store yes and I got a big mural of her hanging in the window and then photos throughout the store of her it's
00:38:53
a living tribute to her the store is not far from Cassandra's grave where he and his mom
00:39:01
go to visit her you know say hi keep her headstone clean bring your flowers do you think what life could be
00:39:11
like with her now if she had had the chance to live her life and be a mom yeah I think about it a lot because she
00:39:21
had all of these plans you know she had all of these sweet plants Marie says her daughter lived
00:39:37
life to the fullest immortalized by that distinctive tattoo she had of her favorite quote we don't stop playing
00:39:46
because we grow old we grow old because we stop playing she always had something up her
00:39:55
sleeve she spring little surprises on me and that's what I miss most it's just a happy presence
00:40:10
[Music] a loving mother of two fatally shot in her home but how I knew something was
00:40:32
wrong with this case from the start there were so many things that were not done a father's Relentless pursuit of
00:40:37
the truth he just led us for 9 years still leading us 48 Hours next on CVS streaming on Paramount Plus
00:40:48
[Music] [Music] [Applause] I'm anarie green and welcome to 48 Hours postmortem whether you're new to 48
00:41:06
hours or you're a longtime fan like I am the team at 48 hours is answering your biggest questions from our latest
00:41:14
episode It's called Cassandra's secret joining me today correspondent Natalie Morales and producer Betsy Schuler who
00:41:22
reported on and produced the episode thanks so much for being here good to be with you good to be with you too before
00:41:29
we get started Let's Play a clip from the episode on August 26 2020 33-year-old Cassandra Cantrell was supposed to meet
00:41:40
her best friend Alexandra McNary but she never showed up I texted her hey where are you I got no response Cassandra had
00:41:50
vanished 2 Days Later police found her car in an industrial area near downtown Tacoma
00:41:57
but why was it there Pierce County Sheriff's detective fron helmy knew the city's light rail system was nearby and
00:42:06
discovered they had footage of Cassandra's car you can see a subject getting out of the vehicle and start
00:42:12
walking away he's dressed in all black blue surgical gloves and a black fedora who was the man in the Hat Alexandra
00:42:20
says when she saw the video she immediately knew who it was Colin Dudley Cassandra met him in
00:42:29
2006 was he always wearing a hat he would put it on and switch into his Persona of the hatman and preferred to
00:42:37
be called the hatman humpy confronted Colin but Colin insisted he hadn't seen Cassandra in years Hy suspected Colin
00:42:47
was lying and there was something else Cassandra had a secret and so if you've watched the
00:42:55
episode then you know Cassandra's secret is that she was pregnant and not just that she was
00:43:01
pregnant the father of the child was a friend of hers who was in a relationship with someone else had a girlfriend and
00:43:09
that girlfriend told police he never wanted children right so this is Colin and he turns out to be the prime suspect
00:43:16
and is now behind bars for her murder all right so I have to ask I'm very curious to know what was the most asked
00:43:23
question that you got about this case I think first and foremost is you know people were asking how did Colin Dudley
00:43:32
only end up getting 26 years after all cass Sandra was pregnant and you know it certainly wasn't what her family wanted
00:43:40
they wanted this case to go to trial but in fact Colin Dudley ended up taking a plea deal and that's why he ended up
00:43:48
with 26 years I think it people will be surprised to know and it sounds crazy that the typical sentence in Washington
00:43:56
state for crime which is first-degree murder is only about 20 to 26.7 years so in the end his plea deal
00:44:06
was basically what prosecutors told us he would have ended up getting had they gone to trial who approached who about a
00:44:13
plea deal the prosecutors um told us that the defense approached them initially the initial offer was much
00:44:21
lower than 26 years so that kicked off some negotiations but once you know once the defense indicated Colin was was you
00:44:30
know willing to agree to the 26 years that's when they accepted it and I just want to say the family yes they're happy
00:44:39
he's Behind Bars he's convicted but they really wanted a trial they felt cheated
00:44:45
by not having a trial but there was a ton of evidence right why not take it to trial well look this wasn't about the
00:44:52
prosecutors not thinking they had enough evidence they did and the police did an
00:44:57
unbelievable job in this case I think the concern from the prosecutors was that there was so much data evidence
00:45:06
that assuming they could get it all admitted to trial which they were concerned about that it would be hard to
00:45:12
get the average person to understand what this data meant yeah and while they had data and all of that I would just
00:45:19
add though um you know they have a a guilty confession here you know he's pleading guilty had it gone to trial I
00:45:28
mean there is no guarantee what would have happened with the jury so um there's always that in the back of the
00:45:35
prosecutor's mind is even though you have a mountain of physical evidence you have to connect the dots and the one
00:45:42
thing we don't know is how this murder happened there's there's nobody who witnessed this murder you know when it
00:45:50
comes to creating Reasonable Doubt the defense could have gone down a road which could have led the jury in a
00:45:57
completely different direction one thing about this story is that there was all this video and so the video just didn't
00:46:05
help you tell the story it helped detectives figure out what happened and so it brings me to Colin when we see him
00:46:13
in the surveillance video right after he Parks her car and he's walking to the train station he's got the gloves on
00:46:20
he's got the mask on he's got the Hat on can you talk to me about the hatman Persona well the hatman Persona goes
00:46:28
back to um Clockwork Orange you know the Fedora wearing character with the eyelashes so that kind of tells you it's
00:46:38
it's a little bit of a a creepy role he created this whole sort of alter ego and
00:46:45
when he was on stage in The Rocky Horror Picture Show he mandated that everybody
00:46:50
in that production call him hatman did he act differently did he speak differently you know from what people
00:46:57
told us I think he did it was this Persona that allowed him to have a different Heir about him maybe allowed
00:47:06
him to get away with some things not murder obviously but um allowed him to maybe treat people in a certain way that
00:47:15
he wanted to that may not have been the right way to do things so I do think that it was um a Persona that he adopted
00:47:25
and more than just oh I like where fedoras the video from the train this sort of blurry video and he has such a
00:47:33
distinctive shape with that hat you just know it's him right away right because you have video from the train station
00:47:42
you a video from the parking garage but that doesn't necessarily tie to Cassandra's car what tied to Cassandra's
00:47:49
car is just what you said from the moving train it's just the luck that the train passed at that moment is yeah you
00:47:56
know he Parks the car in an area that you know it's known for homeless people and I thought to myself he's trying to
00:48:04
pin this on a homeless person I think he leaves the keys on the dashboard he does
00:48:09
all this stuff that really makes it seem like it's really clearly planned out and
00:48:14
then he leaves her cell phone on Natalie asked the detective that right to his face I as I asked and they
00:48:22
were like well clearly he wasn't thinking clearly enough you know and what they said is perhaps in all the
00:48:28
chaos I mean let's remember this guy just committed murder and we don't know how brutal or violent but you can only
00:48:35
assume it was a very violent murder because Cassandra died from uh head wounds so in all of that there was a lot
00:48:43
of chaos so he knew that okay I could turn my cell phone off but I guess he forgot to turn her cell phone off which
00:48:52
then allowed them to have a digital footprint of his you know it allow them to continue to follow where that phone
00:48:59
ended up they were able to track the detectives tracked it to the last ping being off of Bashan island in the Puget
00:49:07
Sound and I thought there's no way they're finding this thing and they found it talk about luck Beyond luck I
00:49:14
mean look it is a testament to the Pierce County uh Sheriff's dive team and their work but it there was a lot of
00:49:22
luck involved yeah Natalie I don't know about you but standing there like when we looked out at the water it was really
00:49:29
like it's one thing to say oh it's this many miles of water but then you're you know we're standing there and we're
00:49:34
going oh my goodness it's even worse than finding a needle in a hay stack okay I want to play a little sound
00:49:40
Natalie here's a clip from the episode of you and detective van djk who explains just how they managed to zero
00:49:48
in on the location vany had a plan to dramatically reduce the area where the phone might be
00:49:55
first he asked members of his team to throw stones from the beach to simulate how far someone could throw a cell phone
00:50:02
if you picture throwing something from here it limits the distance that I would have to search for what he threw the
00:50:08
dive team then formed a line essentially creating an underwater drag net we had a
00:50:14
boat out in the water and a line of people on snorkel that day just looking down they were told that Cassandra's
00:50:21
phone had a case decorated with glitter this is the actual underwater footage the dive team was in the water
00:50:29
for little more than an hour when incredibly one of the guys on the line said hey I think I got it they saw
00:50:38
Sparkle I think I got the phone and it was the phone and so there you have it they find
00:50:45
the phone and it turns out that they didn't actually need the phone because there was so much other digital and
00:50:50
technological evidence that really mapped out his movements but before we get to that I first want to talk about
00:50:58
the other woman in Colin's life he's living with his girlfriend her name is Rebecca and police bring her in to
00:51:07
question her and there's this bizarre moment in the questioning where she is asked whether or not she thinks that her
00:51:16
boyfriend is capable of murder let's take a listen to this clip from the episode do you think he would be capable
00:51:23
of hurting Cassandra after a 13-second pause physics would say yes he's got size and
00:51:35
strength on her mhm I don't think he would no he would not I mean what is that you know what
00:51:45
they're asking they're not asking literally is HE capable of doing that of course that is one of the most bizarre
00:51:52
answers I have ever heard in a police interview you know what was fascinating is not just her response physics would
00:52:00
say uh but there was that long pause before she answered so certainly it it to me indicates she was really thinking
00:52:09
really hard like what do I say here and how do I say this it it's it was a very suspicious sort of way to answer the
00:52:17
question did you try to talk to Rebecca we did um our team reached out to her for over a year um calling sending
00:52:24
letters and she didn't want to talk to her so coming up we're going to talk about
00:52:28
the huge break in the case the black box from Colin's truck and just how investigators were able to find
00:52:35
Cassandra we're also going to talk about the wrongful death suit Cassandra's family filed against Colin and what that
00:52:42
means for the Hat man we'll be right [Music] back welcome back you know there were
00:52:55
sort of three elements to this case that really stood out there was great investigation the detective work there
00:53:02
was certainly good luck and then there was the technology that led to the conclusion of this case so investigators
00:53:10
believe that Cassandra was killed in Colin's house but you know they they didn't have a body and as as I'm
00:53:15
watching the hour unfold you know I think to myself that's going to be the real challenge but they use this
00:53:22
surveillance information that I didn't even know you know was available which is his truck's Black Box I kept on
00:53:30
thinking to myself there's no way to be anonymous in this current no technological age you know um you can
00:53:37
turn off tracking devices you can turn off whatever you want on your phone man if people want to find you they can find
00:53:42
you so they're able to figure out where her body might be based on the truck data was that sort of new to you or have
00:53:50
you seen that before used no that was new to me um Natalie was that new to you it was new to me I mean of course those
00:53:57
of us who have more technologically savvy cars these days I mean you can assume that through your vehicle's
00:54:05
navigation systems the cameras that we have in our cars that those things can track US well you know this was a bit of
00:54:13
an older model truck but it was interesting his truck did have an OnStar system and that's how the detectives
00:54:21
were able to track and pinpoint his movements the next morning on August 26th and they pinpoint and attracted to
00:54:31
a nearby Ravine and uh one of the detectives knew that area and suspected if you're going to get rid of a body
00:54:40
this is what you would do this is where you a huge break in the case I want to play another clip from the episode
00:54:45
here's detective van djk describing where they found Cassandra's remains I uh got there first and looked
00:54:53
over the Hillside and uh you could clearly see that there was a garbage can halfway down the
00:55:01
hill you could see that the garbage can had a a bag liner and uh some ropes around it he also spotted blood so you
00:55:10
clearly at this point knew you had remains oh absolutely so this is you know the part
00:55:17
of the hour where I just thought no like oh man um and they go down the Ravine and they want a very verify that it's
00:55:27
actually her and so he asks for a picture of her tattoo can we talk about her tattoo yeah I mean it's it such an
00:55:37
identifying Mark but it also it it captures her Persona perfectly it's a George Bernard Shaw quote which reads we
00:55:46
don't stop playing because we grow old we grow old because we stop playing and that's who she was Cassandra
00:55:54
loved fantasy she her twin brother wanted to have a collectible store with a bunch of fantasy items in it she loved
00:56:01
going to Disney dressing in costume she was very Whimsical and playful in nature
00:56:08
and her mom Marie Smith said that was exactly who she was that quote encapsulates Cassandra perfectly it's
00:56:16
how she lived her life she was playful she was Whimsical and you know sadly she she
00:56:24
will not grow old and and this is you know the tragedy of this case is this is when they knew they were able to
00:56:32
identify Cassandra's body MH yeah and I think you know the family to a certain degree still had some hope up until that
00:56:40
point and it was it was almost a month later um if I remember correctly when they found her body and you know her mom
00:56:48
remembers getting the phone call and asking if she was okay the detectiv like we found you know we found Cassandra
00:56:56
and Marie asked if if she was okay and it's it's just heartbreaking often when it comes to
00:57:03
victims uh you're left with a handful of pictures and then you sort of lean into
00:57:08
their loved ones to bring them to life but you had Cassandra completely you know it was she was
00:57:15
everywhere there were dozens and dozens of YouTube videos where she did these clothing hauls she talked about her dog
00:57:23
you got to see her dog I mean you know I don't know what's more real than that and we just felt very fortunate to have
00:57:31
that and I think um and Betsy can add to this as well that when you produce these
00:57:37
kinds of stories it's hard sometimes knowing that you know the victim is dead to kind of get a sense of who they were
00:57:45
in life and those videos really tell her story she was vibrant charismatic loved
00:57:53
a good deal like so many people loved to shop and I think that really translates when
00:57:59
you see you know all that video and how how much she looked forward to helping her friends out when it came to uh
00:58:07
getting a good bargain somewhere right yeah I mean it sounds so obvious TV is is visual so on the one hand to have
00:58:14
someone describe her but on the other hand to get to see it and you really really feel it and she and she comes to
00:58:21
life through those videos you know Natalie when you were describing her um I thought thought to myself you know I
00:58:27
kind of see what is similar about Cassandra and Colin right but it's like almost
00:58:35
like the opposite sides of a coin here is a woman who is playful who enjoys role playing who is tapped into sort of
00:58:45
everything that's great about um that child like imagination and here's a guy who's
00:58:53
tapped into the same thing but but a much darker side the hatman can anyone explain why she was attracted to him she
00:59:02
had dated him before and they kind of rekindled a friendship that clearly was more than a friendship I'm wondering if
00:59:10
people that loved her her friends her twin brother her mom could they explain this relationship so her best friend
00:59:17
explained it that um it wasn't what Cassandra saw in him it's what she didn't see in herself I believe was the
00:59:26
quote um but they clearly were into the same things I mean that's so interesting
00:59:31
the way you put it and you know back when they met in Rocky Horror I mean at that age you see someone on stage and
00:59:39
and playing these different characters I mean there is some allord to that that I
00:59:43
can see MH it's a bit of that narcissistic personality you know the man who wears the hat and demands that
00:59:50
the whole cast and crew call him hatman and you know of course he's playing this
00:59:57
role but at the same time there's a power that comes with that and perhaps she was attracted to a bit of that power
01:00:04
and that Authority that he exuded Marie said the first time that um colins stood
01:00:11
on her front porch she knew he was bad news Natalie correct me if I'm wrong I think she chose not to try to break them
01:00:19
up because she felt if she tried to break them up it would make her want to be with him more at that age um
01:00:26
but she took one look at him and knew it was bad news well I think when they rekindled their relationship that's also
01:00:32
part of the secret that Cassandra was keeping was that she didn't tell her mom that she was back on with Colin Marie
01:00:39
knew that Cassandra and Colin were meeting up and going to the movies and and having you know lunch together but
01:00:46
she didn't know how far that relationship had gone at this point and she was telling her mom um and her
01:00:54
brother I believe that was only a friendship um and at some point she told at least the friend we talked to that it
01:01:02
changed into something more romantic cuz she told her mom the father of the child
01:01:07
was just somebody on a dating website that she had met cuz she was scared what her mom was going to say initially if
01:01:13
she found out it was Colin I know you've done stories before where the victim has been
01:01:19
pregnant and this is often a very crucial time for women when they are in unhealthy toxic relationships we don't
01:01:27
know the nature of this relationship prior to this but we know that his girlfriend said he didn't want a kid
01:01:33
multiple people said he had said he didn't want a kid can we talk about how often pregnant women are victims in
01:01:42
cases like this yeah you know we do we see that pregnant women are often victims in pregnancy it tends to be you
01:01:49
know a very pivotal point in relationships where somebody is in a vulnerable situation um um According to
01:01:57
some articles and statistics women in the US are more likely to be murdered during pregnancy or soon after child
01:02:03
birth than to die from medical issues even leading to maternal mortality so it's a time where it can be very toxic
01:02:12
if a relationship is already um you know at a Breaking Point it can be a very difficult time for for relationships so
01:02:22
you cover you know cases like this all the time murder cases kidnapping stalking cases all the time does it take
01:02:28
an emotional toll on you uh Natalie you know any case I think especially when you consider that somebody has lost
01:02:38
their life is very hard to cover and in this case a young pregnant woman um who had so many sweet plans as her mom told
01:02:48
us you know she even had a a baby registry set up so when you see you know this woman who was really
01:02:56
celebrating all that she had to live for and in fact celebrating the new life she
01:03:01
was creating inside of her um you know that was I think most particularly sad in my case thinking
01:03:09
about this young woman in the prime of her life like just really figuring out who she was and so excited to become a
01:03:16
mom and that that got me a couple of times I was pretty you know hard to keep the emotions in check when you're doing
01:03:23
the interviews I cried um what you know watching Marie's interview and and cried with Marie and you know
01:03:31
asked if I could give her a big hug afterwards I mean we're reporters producers we have a job to do but we're
01:03:37
humans too and these you know these stories are sad um and the more you hear about the people and the more real they
01:03:46
become and you hear the emotions from the family they lost someone they love tragically it's just really sad mhm
01:03:53
Cassandra's family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Colin the Civil Trial was delayed and it's scheduled to
01:04:00
go to trial in February of 2024 um so how does this differ from the original case and what does it mean for
01:04:08
Colin's plea deal does it mean anything at all I mean will colins plea deal actually sort of help them in terms of
01:04:15
their wrongful death case uh I don't think it will help them um you know the the civil case focuses more on you know
01:04:23
compensatory damages but but also the way the family sees it is as an opportunity to have a trial um
01:04:33
so for them I would speculate it's less about what they can actually get and more about um one of the things they
01:04:44
wanted which was for this to go to trial and more information to come out and more people to know about Cassandra
01:04:49
here's a woman that they loved completely in life and they deserve to know you know what her last few moments
01:04:56
were like and and why more than anything they deserve to know why what will you two take away from covering this case
01:05:03
you know I think for me is thank goodness we do live in such a wired world that it's almost impossible to get
01:05:12
away with murder you know if Colin thought he had a plan and meticulously you know thought of the details leading
01:05:20
up to the crime he didn't think of everything and he certainly wasn't counting on there being surveillance
01:05:26
video practically at every turn of his and tracking devices that would eventually unfold what was the actual
01:05:35
crime that he murdered Cassandra yeah I think that's a really good point um and you know yes the sentence is low um but
01:05:45
he is behind bars the bad guy is behind bars and I think that that um is always something that you can take away from
01:05:54
this and I think her family wants to make sure that that memory is kept alive and also to ensure that people
01:06:01
understand the shortcomings of our our Criminal Justice System you know it may not exactly be the result they wanted
01:06:08
but in this case Colin Dudley is locked up for a long time 26 years not as long as they would have wanted but you know
01:06:15
he is locked up so I've had the pleasure of working with the amazing team at 48 Hours um and it's always remarkable to
01:06:26
me how well you weave together the stories what does it take to put together a good 48 hour story what are
01:06:37
you looking for um it's got to have several components it's got to have people who are willing to talk to us we
01:06:43
want to hear from the people directly involved the victim's families the perpetrators or the perpetrator family
01:06:51
the detectives involved the lawyers so we definitely need people who are willing to talk to us um a compelling
01:06:58
investigation good police work always helps it was Stellar in this case this case had a lot of really good evidence a
01:07:07
lot of video evidence which television is visual interviews with people confessions stuff like that you know the
01:07:15
clip with Rebecca you know I think the personal element at least for me I find that I connect with the victims even if
01:07:23
it's someone I never met or with the family what they're going through so that's what it takes to sort of have an
01:07:31
episode and you know there's definitely other people that work on it there's great editors I mean one of my editors
01:07:38
Dorene she took all that Youtube footage of Cassandra and brought her to life like I mean it it was magical what she
01:07:47
did with all that footage you know we also spend a lot of time as a team just talking about the story right what's
01:07:54
interesting about the story and then you structure it and and the structure changes we changed the structure on this
01:08:01
Almost Up Until the End um just to find what works and that's all part of the process how best to tell it so that it's
01:08:08
a compelling story but also for the audience to understand it well it was a fantastic hour as usual um that's 48
01:08:16
Hours postmortem uh for us this week Betsy Natalie thank you so much thank you for having us thank you be sure to
01:08:22
join us next Tuesday for another postmortem watch 48 hours Saturdays 109 Central on CBS and streaming on
01:08:30
Paramount plus and be sure to follow 48 Hours wherever you get your podcast you can also listen ad free on the Amazon
01:08:38
music or wry app [Music]