48 Hours - The Kassanndra Cantrell Disappearance

Episode Date: April 9, 2023

A young woman vanishes. Eerie surveillance video captures a man in a hat. Investigators learn the two are linked by a secret. “48 Hours” contributor Natalie Morales reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Cass is a rare person. She didn't care what you thought of her. She didn't care 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? Yeah. Yeah, for years. I got a pair of new shorts, this T-shirt, two Etsy nail polishes. She got into these things called haul videos where you would go shopping. I will show you what I got,

and then I'll tell you how much everything cost. Kind of spread the word about deals. 99 cents, $7.99, $8.99, $3.50. She never really left home. I got this for my mom. I got this for my mom to go with the slippers. I also got this for her. She was always there, so we were really good friends.

August 25, 2020, Cassandra's mom, Marie Smith, got up. She left for work. Everything was fine. When I came home, it was clear that 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 her. I knew she had a shopping day planned, and her friend Alexandra was going to be meeting with her the next day. I remember I was late by about 15 minutes. I texted her, hey, where are you? Hey, I'm sorry I'm late.

I got no response. I left panicked messages until her voicemail box was full. She never just went dark like that before. I've panicked messages until her voicemail box was full. She never just went dark like that before. The morning of the 27th, I had a text from Marie that said to cast spend the night with you. Is she at your place? Are you with her? She's not with you. I thought she was with you. And that's when I realized there was something wrong. When did you call the police?

I called them later that day. It started out like any other adult missing person case. The majority of those calls are resolved with no nefarious activity. Maybe she's out there. The world is so wired with cameras. There's just no way that somebody didn't see something. We're able to see the white car. Cassandra's car.

Cassandra's car. You can see a subject getting out of the vehicle and start walking away. That's damning evidence. That's incredibly valuable evidence for us. You can see him walking across the street. He's dressed in all black, black shoes, black pants, black t-shirt,

blue surgical gloves, and a black fedora. He knew something. He was involved. But there was something going on there we didn't know about. Yeah, she was keeping a secret. She didn't want to tell me. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge?

Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk-takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala? From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans,

discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. now by joining Wondery+. It's just the best idea yet. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own.

She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals.

Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. This is Ruby. I called everybody, anybody 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 change.

It was $9 and change, $5.98. I was hoping that she might be alive somewhere. that she might be alive somewhere. For Marie Smith, the realization that her daughter, Cassandra Cantrell, had been missing for more than two days was almost more than she could take. I never thought that I'd be the person sitting here talking about my daughter. I wanted her found. I don't even know how to explain how wrenching it is. Marie's close friend, Christy Sinclair, says it was agony.

This can't be happening. This isn't real. She lost her phone. She lost her car. 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. but what you don't want to think about. Anything but that. I'll show you this. I made it. It was only $5. As Cassandra's family and friends grappled with her disappearance, police got to work. Pierce County Sheriff's Detective Franz Helmke was assigned to the case.

His first step, talk to those who knew Cassandra best. How did Marie describe Cassandra? Normal. Responsible. Yeah, responsible. She would, you know, call, let her know, you know, where she was going. Detective Helmke learned Cassandra was close with her family and good about staying in touch. They're selling these for $15. She enjoyed making those YouTube shopping videos and loved being on stage. She'd even joined a local production of the Rocky Horror Pictures show where people act alongside the movie. Marie says it was a perfect fit for her daughter. She was with a group of people who were wacky like her. She was good. She was adorable.

Sherry Mueller, the show's producer, recalls Cassandra's natural talent. She was playing a character by the name of Janet Weiss. She also learned the character of Columbia. By all accounts, at the time of her disappearance, Cassandra was a happy 33-year-old, and not someone who would run off. This wasn't the typical missing person that was going to come home in a couple days. Detective Helmke canvassed the area around where Marie and Cassandra lived and found on a neighbor's security camera a clip of Cassandra's white Mazda on the morning of August 25th. It was seen leaving the neighborhood.

Did you see any video of the car coming back? No. As the hours ticked by with no sign of Cassandra, her family and friends tried to remain hopeful. It was particularly difficult for Cassandra's twin brother, Rob. Growing up, the two were inseparable and would stay up late at night to watch scary movies. She was never scared of that stuff? No. Wow. We laughed at most of it. Okay. She's a tough girl

then. Yeah. As they got older, their shared passion for movies evolved into collecting memorabilia. They even dreamed of opening their own collectible shop. Half price. Two dollars. It was only five bucks. But as close as they were, Rob couldn't imagine where his sister went. And he was filled with remorse about their last conversation. We were having an argument. She wanted to actually come over on the 25th, but I ignored her. The 25th of August, 2020, the day Cassandra went missing.

That's a big regret, I imagine, still for you. Yeah, because then she probably would have told me what she was doing that day, and I would have at least known where she had gone. Cassandra's family and friends organized searches. I can't imagine what that must feel like to be out there searching and knowing what you could possibly be looking for. You put it in the back. you don't think about that. Just help me find a clue, help me find a clue.

And then, three days after Cassandra vanished, police found her white Mazda, unlocked, with the keys still inside. It was almost underneath Interstate 705, which goes into the heart of the downtown Tacoma. It's an industrial area where groups of homeless people often camp. There are cars in the area. Did something happen down here? Strange place for a young woman to park a car and then go missing. Yeah. Are alarm bells going off then?

Yeah, increasingly. She had clearly gotten ready to go somewhere. Where did she go? Who did she go to see? Detective Helge had ordered an emergency trace on Cassandra's cell phone to try and find her last known location. And he discovered her phone last pinged about two miles south of a tower on Vashon Island in the Puget Sound. two miles south of a tower on Vashon Island in the Puget Sound. One of the first things I did was just get on Google Earth and strike an arc from that tower to see where it lands. And it showed us landing around this shoreline at Owen Beach or Point Defiance Park.

And when you're seeing this huge body of water, are you thinking, we're just never going to be able to find this? Yeah. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?

I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reach the age of 10 that would still

have urged it. It just happens to all of us. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcair extinction listen to the pit can trials exclusively on wandering plus join wondering plus in the wondering app apple podcasts or spotify

investigators chasing that last ping from Cassandra's cell phone knew it was somewhere here in the vast waters of the Puget Sound, which is nearly 100 miles long. What's the next step about trying to recover that? We debated about that because it's a needle in a haystack. It's a huge body of water. This is the vicinity that it showed up as being at. But Detective Helmke had a starting point. He knew someone likely had tossed the phone into the water from Owen Beach. Finding it was a long shot, but Detective Sergeant

Brent Van Dyke was up for the challenge. He brought the Pierce County Metro dive team out to the beach on a summer day. We got lucky with the tides that day. The tide was extremely low, so it made our search area a little less. Van Dyke had a plan to dramatically reduce the area where the phone might be. First, he asked members of his team to throw stones from the beach to simulate how far someone could throw a cell phone. If you picture throwing something from here, it limits the distance that I would have to search for what he threw. The dive team then formed a line, essentially creating an underwater dragnet. We had a boat out in the water and a line of people on snorkel that day just looking down.

They were told that Cassandra's phone had a case decorated with glitter. This is the actual underwater footage. The dive team was in the water for little more than an hour, when 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 was the phone. The phone was sent to a specialist to determine if any information could be recovered.

The hunt to find Cassandra was intensifying as detectives learned more about her. She felt like she could tell you pretty much everything about what was going on in her life, right? Yes. Even her deepest, darkest secrets she could tell you pretty much everything about what was going on in her life, right? Yes. Even her deepest, darkest secrets, she would tell you first.

Yep. And a month before she disappeared, Cassandra confided a secret to her best friend. She texted me a positive pregnancy test and said, I think I might be preggers. And the day she was supposed to meet Alexandra but never showed up, it was going to be her first ultrasound. For Detective Franz Helmke, learning Cassandra had been pregnant at the time of her disappearance changed everything. This is what is now piquing my interest. Normally in a situation where a pregnant woman disappears, you look at who the partner is first.

Correct. Cassandra had also told her mother she was pregnant, but didn't provide details. I asked Marie, did she tell you who the father was? And she says, well, it was some guy she met online or through a dating 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 secret Cassandra was actively dating using apps like Tinder. And Marie told detectives about an old boyfriend Cassandra was still in

touch with, Colin Dudley. The two had dated back in 2006 while in the Rocky Horror acting group. The show's producer, Sherry Mueller. Colin played a character called the criminologist on stage. Outside of the stage, when he wasn't performing, he was the head of tech, and he kind of ran the cast. But after dating for several months, Colin and Cassandra broke up. Colin started a relationship with another cast member, Rebecca Fisher, and the two eventually moved in together. Steve Ammon hung out at their home regularly to play a game called Dungeons & Dragons.

Explain what Dungeons & Dragons is. It's not a board game, right? No, not a traditional board game. It's more of a theater of the mind type gameplay, doing things that you wouldn't normally do in real life. Role play a wizard, a rogue, a fighter. The game always took place in Colin's basement. Colin was kind of the dungeon master of it, the one who ran the show. And Steve liked being around him. Colin was quick to help if someone needed money, he says. And he still remembers the meals Colin cooked for game nights. He was a chef by profession, so it was nice food. In 2014, after Colin's father died,

he rekindled a friendship with Cassandra. She assured me, you know, that she was just there to be a friend. She was like, he's got a girlfriend. According to Marie, Cassandra and Colin would sometimes watch movies or grab a bite to eat. At some point, Alexandra says, even though Colin was living with Rebecca, his relationship with Cassandra once again turned romantic. And Cassandra told Alexandra

that Colin was the father of her baby. She was very excited. She talked about, you know, names and games she wanted at the baby shower. She had an Amazon registry already made. Cassandra's only hesitation, whether she should tell Colin. He was with Rebecca and had mentioned he didn't want to have kids. But Alexandra says Cassandra did tell Colin she was pregnant and he was okay with it.

She called me and she said, well, I told him and it went better than expected. He was calm and said not to worry about it and that they would talk. Detective Helmke wondered if Colin knew where Cassandra was. We're just trying to follow up with people who knew Cassandra, you know, places she likes to go that we could maybe look. Colin sat and talked with Detective Helmke on his front porch, and the conversation was recorded. This is a recorded statement. We're going to be taken from Colin Patrick Dudley. So, you know, we just kind of begin with just simple, hey, tell us about you and Cassandra.

How did you meet? I met her at the Rocky Horror Picture Show. We were in a relationship for a couple of months, and then we broke up in 2006. I then started kind of running some of these things by him that people were telling me. Talking to other people, talking to Cassandra's family and some other friends,

they reported that she was about 10 weeks pregnant. And what 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 cassandra were not in a relationship and he was most

definitely not the father of her child asked him are you sure you know no one night stands no you know hookups after the fact or anything like that no absolutely not he says in In fact, Colin insisted he hadn't seen or spoken to Cassandra since they broke up back in 2006, except once when he ran into her at the mall. Do you have any, no contact with, no messages or no Facebook or anything? No. Helmke believed Colin was lying, but could he prove it? It turned out a clue to finding the answer was in Marie's paperwork. Detective Helmke believed Colin Dudley was lying when he said he had not seen or spoken to Cassandra for years. But it was Cassandra's mother, Marie, who provided some proof. She had been combing through Cassandra's old phone bills, where she noticed a mystery number that kept reappearing.

We didn't know whose it was because it didn't have a name attached to it. 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 kept popping up. And the last time it popped up, Marie told Detective Helmke, was the morning Cassandra disappeared. I said, so, okay, so what's that number? And she tells me, and I immediately know it's Collins.

Helmke wanted forensic investigators to take a closer look at Dudley's phone, which Detective Helmke had taken when they'd met on Dudley's front porch. I told him, you know, I have a warrant to seize your phone. I read him the warrant, grabbed I have a warrant to seize your phone. I read him the warrant, grabbed the phone, and we left. Investigators later obtained the phone records for both Cassandra and Colin's phones. They were turned over to Detective Ryan Salmon, the cell phone forensics analyst for the Sheriff's Department. Salmon noticed something curious.

The name Cassandra never appeared in Colin's phone. What name was he using for Cassandra? He had it under Velma. Why Velma? We learned later through Cassandra's mother that she had gone as Velma from Scooby-Doo as a Halloween costume. And it's likely Salmon said that Colin Dudley did not want his live-in girlfriend to know he was still in touch with Cassandra. Even without the information from her waterlogged phone, Salmon was able to see when and where she and Colin interacted simply by having those phone records. It's extremely helpful in determining where somebody was during a critical time frame. People have a

cell phone with them almost all day, every day. The phone records showed Cassandra's white Mazda driving to the spot where it was found. But had Cassandra or someone else parked it there? Detective Helmke knew the city's light rail system was nearby and asked their security people if they could find any footage of Cassandra's car. What they found proved crucial. We have the video you want. You need to get down here and look at it. These videos have never been shown publicly. In this video from a moving light rail train taken the late morning of August 25th, Helmke could see a man in a black hat walking away from where Cassandra's car was parked. Then a different camera shows that same man from a much closer angle. He'll cross right in front of this camera. So he comes walking across and you see all black, the blue gloves, then the fedora.

And he just sits down at the stop. The time was 1150 a.m. The man sits for four minutes and then keeps walking. Now he gets up, he continues walking. His face covered by some type of mask is hard to see, but based on his build and gait, Helmke suspected that Colin Dudley was the man wearing that fedora. The detective had been told that Colin often had asked, demanded even, that people call him Hat or Hat Man. Was he always wearing a hat? He would put it on and switch into his persona of the Hat Man and preferred to be called the Hat Man. Alexandra McNary had heard all about it from Cassandra. The persona was basically the main character

from Clockwork Orange. Hide that, my little droogies. Very dark, intentionally so, morally dubious. Did you see the security video at all of the man in the hat? I did get to see it. Did you look at it and say, that's Colin? Well, who else would it be? In that video from the light rail system,

the man in the hat keeps walking right into the Tacoma Dome Station parking garage, only blocks away from where Cassandra's car was found. Helmke asked security personnel at the garage if they had any footage. The answer was a resounding yes. They find him walking into the parking garage to a truck. You can see him using a remote control opener, gets into the truck,

and then as he exits the parking garage, you can see pretty clearly in the video the license plate, which comes back to Mr. Dudley. That was Colin's Chevy truck, proving the detective said that the man in the video and Colin Dudley were one in the same. Detective Helmke was convinced that Colin had done something to Cassandra, and he wanted to get into Dudley's house immediately. We don't have a body. We don't have any true evidence that Cassandra is dead. We're still hoping maybe she is tied up in the basement. Six days after Cassandra Cantrell vanished, a SWAT team burst into Colin Dudley's house.

What do you think is the strongest piece of evidence connecting Colin Dudley to Cassandra's disappearance? Chat now with the 48 Hours team on Facebook and Twitter. Authorities were out in force after they raided Colin Dudley's house, but they found no sign of Cassandra. Cassandra was not found inside, but Colin was detained temporarily for us to do the fingerprints and DNA. Investigators seized several items from the house, 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 or not. There were numerous areas that they identified in the basement where there was possible DNA blood evidence. They said that the cadaver dog showed particular interest in the basement, specifically a brown sofa in the basement. Detective Helmke believed something terrible had happened to Cassandra. Dudley had stopped talking to investigators, but his live-in girlfriend Rebecca Fisher, a carpenter, agreed to sit down for an interview.

Do you think he would be capable of hurting Cassandra? After a 13-second pause... After a 13-second pause... Physics would say, yes, he's got size and strength on her. I don't think he would. No, he would not. And investigators could not prove otherwise. Dudley was free to go.

Why can't you arrest him? Well, he's guilty of something, but what is he guilty of? Detective Helmke wanted to know every move Dudley made on August 25th, the day Cassandra went missing, and he said it became clear that Dudley had hatched a well thought out-out plot to get rid of Cassandra. He had planned this and probably was pretty meticulous in his planning. In his police interview, Dudley said that early on the morning Cassandra disappeared, he visited Costco. So the first stop he makes is at a Costco gas station. Then he went to a second Costco to pick up supplies for what he had told detectives was a spring cleaning. Investigators subpoenaed receipts and the store provided video.

Here, surveillance cameras pick up Dudley in the store around 7 a.m. This is where he said he stopped because he needed supplies for his spring cleaning. Correct, yes. The video is so crystal clear. We think that probably the garbage sacks. Store records show that Dudley purchased a box of heavy-duty trash bags. Goes back to his house. Right. Detectives say then Dudley dropped off the supplies at home and drove to the Tacoma Dome Station parking garage, arriving at 8.17 a.m.

We have surveillance video for that too, which shows that truck again. Now in the back, 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 away. Dudley left his truck in the garage and began pedaling home. It's about a 20-minute ride. Investigators believe he wanted to be home by 9 a.m. because, as it turns out, he and Cassandra had made plans at his house. Sure enough, text 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 says, yep, come on down. Those two messages were both deleted out of his phone. And so the two phones are then pinpointed

in that same location at the house for a couple of hours. Right. For a little more than two hours, neither phone showed any movement. And it was during this period of time investigators believe Colin Dudley likely killed Cassandra Cantrell. Shows you the amount of premeditation that went into planning this. Right. you the amount of premeditation that went into planning this. Right. It appears investigators say that around 1140 a.m., Dudley turned off his cell phone,

as Cassandra's phone shows it moving away from the house. Detective Salmon says that's because Dudley had her phone with him as he drove her car to the spot where he abandoned it near the light rail station he turns his cell phone off but doesn't turn her cell phone off and is driving around with it what was he thinking apparently he wasn't he wasn't thinking well enough not as smart as he thought he was you'll see cassandra's car. Is that it right there? Yep, that white one coming down. And then you see Dudley in the hat walking away from her car. Remember how he paused for a few moments and sat down?

Detective Salmon believes he was gathering himself after murdering Cassandra. I think he's just physically tired because of probably how violent the incident was. Detectives say Dudley then retrieved his truck from the garage where he had stashed it earlier that day, drove to Owen Beach, and tossed Cassandra's phone into the Puget Sound. And what time roughly was that last thing? It was around 12.45 p.m. But while investigators had discovered her phone in the water, they still hadn't found Cassandra.

They had no idea what Dudley had done with her. But they did have his Chevy Colorado truck, and Helmke had an idea. As an investigator, I've been exposed to different technologies, and we knew cars had electronic evidence contained in them. Almost every car or truck has reams of data that can be extracted, as illustrated here. So this is where the major break in the case came through.

You can turn your cell phone off and not necessarily be able to track, but you can't turn your car's black box off. Exactly. Helmke got a warrant to remove the truck's black box, essentially a computer that tracks and records nearly every move a vehicle makes. He reviewed the data, which confirmed much of what they already knew from the phone records. But there was something new that caught everyone's attention. The truck's black box had a record of Colin Dudley's movements on August 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, of course, we notice where the vehicle stops, that there's a large wooded ravine.

On September 22nd, 2020, Detective Sergeant Brent Van Dyke rushed to that ravine, which is eight miles from Dudley's house. It was nearly a month since Cassandra had gone missing. I got there first and looked over the hillside, and you could clearly see that there was a garbage can halfway down the hill. You could clearly see that there was a garbage can halfway down the hill. You could see that the garbage can had a bag liner and some ropes around it. He also spotted blood. So you clearly at this point knew you had remains. Oh, absolutely.

Helmke, also at the scene, wanted to make a quick identification, and he knew that Cassandra had a distinctive tattoo. I asked them to take a picture of it, so they took a picture and came walking up the hill. Helmke recognized the tattoo immediately. Cassandra Cantrell was dead. Helmke's heart sank when he thought about calling Cassandra's mother. So I called Marie and told her that I had information that I needed to share with her. My first question was, is she okay? And he said, no, I'm sorry.

She's not. Cassandra's twin brother, Rob, overheard that phone call. The second I heard her screaming, I knew that they had found her. Colin Dudley was arrested that night and later charged with first-degree murder. Investigators felt they had built a strong case, so strong that they decided not to try and retrieve the information on Cassandra's waterlogged phone. The case barreled toward trial for two years, barreled toward trial for two years. And then Cassandra's friends and family heard that prosecutors were considering

making a plea deal with Dudley. They could not believe it. It was premeditated. It was literally cold-blooded. I have no words. A lot of anger, though. A lot. See more evidence of how the case against Colin Dudley came together at 48hours.com.

She was an optimist. She never lost that. Even up until the end. I believe that she entered his house hopeful. Hopeful that Colin Dudley was getting comfortable with her pregnancy. Instead, investigators believe he brutally murdered her. An autopsy revealed exactly how brutal. There were fractures, major fractures to her skull. So hit over the head. Yeah. Many times.

Cause of death was blunt force trauma. Investigators say they were never able to identify a murder weapon, but they did find those traces of blood, likely Cassandra's, in Dudley's basement. Basement floor, walls, a stainless steel table, and the laundry room sink. Police suspect Colin cleaned the basement multiple times after killing Cassandra and kept her body there overnight before dumping her in that ravine the next morning. And they believe Colin's live-in girlfriend, Rebecca, was home during some of that time.

And thinking about, you know, Rebecca's there in the house too. That was my next question. Yeah. Was there any thought that she had to have been involved? There was no, I mean, some people thought that. Investigators confronted Rebecca. Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of Cassandra on any level? Nope.

We did not find any information 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 could see, you know, her doing her own thing and not going down the basement. Yeah. But Rebecca did confirm to police that Colin never wanted to be a father. He does not want to be a dad. Pierce County Deputy Prosecutors Brian Wassingeri and Patrick Vincent went to work on proving Colin's guilt.

I thought this was a very strong case, at least circumstantially. I mean, oddly, it's not one in which we had a great deal of physical evidence. It was a case that relied on essentially digital records. Like that video of Colin leaving Cassandra's car. Those phone records placing Cassandra at Colin's house the morning she disappeared. And the data showing Colin's truck where Cassandra's remains were eventually found. For the prosecutors, it seemed like a lot. But they were concerned about convincing a jury at trial.

We don't have an eyewitness. We don't have a murder weapon. We don't have a confession. So when the defense offered to accept a plea deal, the prosecutors negotiated. Eventually, Colin Dudley agreed to plead guilty to murder in the first degree for killing Cassandra. The prosecutors brought the deal to Cassandra's family. They were furious. But on November 14th, 2022, Colin Dudley formally entered his guilty plea. Guilty. He was sentenced to 26 years in prison. I have no words that would even encompass the frustration, anger, sadness, heartache.

Cassandra's family and friends had wanted a trial where the full story was told. a trial where the full story was told. They're also upset that someone guilty of murdering a pregnant woman would only get 26 years in prison. Do you think the system is broken? Very broken in this case. How is it that somebody can do what he did and not have to spend his life in prison? It was a sentiment Steve Ammons shared. He felt betrayed by his one-time friend and had even written a letter to the judge saying he should not be out at all. He won't learn from this. Colin Dudley likely will get out.

And with good behavior, he could be free again as early as 2044. You should never see the light of day again. Because when he gets out, he could be in his early 60s? Yeah. And he's still got all that time to live. Cassandra's family wants to make sure that no one else suffers the way they say they have. They would like a law in Washington state that if someone is guilty of knowingly killing a pregnant woman, they would automatically get a life sentence. No possibility of parole. You die in jail.

Until there's any sort of resemblance of justice, I'm not letting this go. of justice. I'm not letting this go. And while the family wages that fight, Cassandra's twin brother is trying to honor his sister in other ways she would have loved. You did, though, finally open that dream that you had together, your 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 a living tribute to her. The store is not far from Cassandra's grave, where he and his mom go to visit her. You know, say hi, keep her headstone clean, bring her flowers. Do you think what life could be 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 had all of these plans, you know. She had all of these sweet plants. Marie says her daughter lived life to the fullest, immortalized by that distinctive tattoo she had of her favorite quote. We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing. She always had something up her sleeve. She would spring little surprises on me.

And that's what I miss most, is just a happy presence. Two young women out for a night of partying together. There's a dark side to Los Angeles. How did they end up dumped at separate hospitals? And who was responsible for their deaths? Something terrible happened that night. 48 Hours, Saturday on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.