Sword and Scale - Episode 260

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

A group of kids playing with a mysterious app called Randonautica follow its directions to Alki Beach in West Seattle. There they find a strange black suitcase on the rocks below the pier. Intrigued, they open the case to reveal a putrid smell. Responding officers would find other bags and reveal the suitcase was filled with the dismembered body parts of two people, Jessica Lewis and Austin Wenner. Seattle would be gripped in fear until their killer was caught.

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Sword and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Like I said, if I wanted to toss you in jail with no questions asked, you would have already been there. I don't believe it when somebody that murdered two people... So how you liking that new app? This is episode 260 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. Well, here we are.

We've launched and I have a cold because I've been working way too hard. But it's here. The app, the website, it's beautiful. And of course if you go there, to SwordandScale.com that is, you will see The Making Of. That is the title of our documentary about the making of Sword and Scale television. It's free to watch. I highly, highly suggest doing so. It's what we've been working on for the last year and a half or so. And while we're on the topic of paying for things, we are still having some issues with

a few customers not being able to log into their accounts. If you do have an issue, please email support at sword and scale.com. Gertie at customer support will be happy to help you log into your active account. We ask that before you do so, though, you make sure you know what your login is and you can do that by searching the email you think you used for any emails from us. If you don't see any, then that's probably not the email you think you used for any emails from us. If you don't see any, then that's probably not the email you used. That'll help us a lot because we have a very small support staff. In fact, it's just Gertie. It's just Gertie. So be nice to her, please. Be careful of who you let into your life.

Relationships even casual ones can have a profound effect on you. Building meaningful relationships takes time. You have to build trust, set boundaries, and have honest communication. Without patience and time, no relationship has a chance. So watch out for the red flags. Avoid those that bring any negativity or drama or stress along with them. Be cautious of people with a history of toxic or unhealthy past behavior. And prioritize your own well-being.

Otherwise, someday, you might find yourself trapped. It was a beautiful summer day in Seattle. A group of kids were eager to get out and go do something. Anything. It was a nice day out so we just went to Alki Beach for a walk. After what felt like an eternity in COVID lockdown, they decided to go to the Alki Beach Park. If you stand on the pier, the view of the Seattle skyline is unmatched. Natalie Castellon was in that group of kids. I was with my friend Henry and my other friend Gabby.

We already knew what we kind of wanted to do for the day, but we just randomly just selected a location. They randomly selected a location using a new app that was trending on social media, Randonautica. And I guess when you get to those locations you see like random things I guess and yeah It's like our first time doing it Randonautica is an app that gives you random GPS coordinates that may or may not Lead you to whatever you intended when you prompted the app Yeah, I know it sounds weird. It just basically gives you a set of locations and you go there and maybe there's something there. Maybe there isn't.

Fill in your own imagination. But on this day, it led the group to Alki Beach on Duwamish Head, overlooking Elliott Bay on the Puget Sound, with the skyline of Seattle in the background. I would say it's a good amount of people on the sidewalk walking just because it was a hot summer day so it's pretty typical to go to Alki. The park was busy, that beautiful summer day with people walking and admiring the view from the pier. We all noticed that there was a suitcase down by the rocks on the overlook. I think it was just like a coincidence that we saw that we were talking

about, I think on the drive there we were talking about a randall nodding and we were talking about like traveling and we wanted to like get money or something like that. It was like a weird conversation so when we saw it it was just like a like an aha moment like oh that's such a coincidence we're talking about traveling in the car and and then we're talking about randall nauti and people find crazy stuff on randall naut so we were like let's just see what's down there and um we were like this could be something fun to record at that time guys we found it that's okay that's okay guys we'll do stuff on the drive to alki park the group talked about travel and coming into a lot of money right before prompting the app for coordinates.

When they saw the black suitcase on the rocks beneath the pier, they thought it couldn't be a coincidence. They joked with each other that it was probably a suitcase full of money. We were curious so we went to go see what it was. It was just like a suitcase. We started on zipping it. Pretty normal suitcase, no tears, no anything to it. Just had like a weird smell the closer you because it was obviously floating in the bay before being washed onto the rocks with other pieces of garbage. We were kind of still in this weird childish fog of just like pretending it's not what we think it could be.

We were just joking around saying it's probably just like garbage in a suitcase that just washed up. And we stopped and we were kind of talking about what-if situations and then just stopped for probably like a good five minutes minutes six minutes just sitting there Fighting the morbid idea that this was a suitcase filled with a dead body They hesitated to open it but of course just like a cat their curiosity got the better of them and we saw a black plastic trash bag And it was wrapping something it was um The bags that were making them very tight. But there were bags in there. The trash bags inside the suitcase were stuffed full of large, heavy objects, pulling the plastic bag taut around them. Undeterred, or perhaps overly curious, they continued to investigate the rancid bag. get in there and Gabby just kind of twisted a little bit and moved it in.

The smell immediately got ten times worse. It's just very pungent, very strong. Even with like a face mask, I was wearing a face mask. It was very strong. It just like, it just takes you off your feet a little bit. I couldn't really, I don't know. It's just pretty harsh smell, I don't know. It definitely just pretty harsh. I don't know. It definitely wasn't money in this bag.

With a hole poked through the outer bag, it caught a glimpse of what was inside. It's just like, like meat. And um, thought it was like food or something like that. With the dissatisfying discovery that the bag was not full of money, the group wanted to leave but Natalie called the police. Okay, so she's calling the police so we can see if it's actually a dead body or it's just food. 911, what is your emergency?

Hi, um, so we found a suitcase on Iwamesh Point. Not knowing the address to the park itself, Natalie's eyes darted from building to building across the street searching for an address. 1150 Alki. Perfect. 1150 Alki Avenue, Southwest. Is that the number on the building? Yeah. Okay. Perfect. So you're on the, on the, across the street on the side of the water. Is that correct? Yeah, and the suitcase is on the rocks. Okay. Okay, did you open the suitcase and there was a black trash bag inside? Yeah, so me and my friends were like interested in what was in it, so we opened it up, but there was a black trash bag, and we just called. Okay, so it was on the rocks by the water and you said there's a pretty foul smell?

Yeah. Okay, I have a call in. We're gonna try to be there just as quickly as we can. I'll let officers know you're gonna be standing by with your friends, okay? Okay. Alrighty, thank you. Thank you. Bye. The group waited for the police to arrive, but the PD was overwhelmed or understaffed. And a call about a weird smelling suitcase on the beach

wasn't really the highest priority. They waited and waited but nobody ever showed up. Hi, so I called about an hour and a half ago. Okay. Um and we found a suitcase that's like really suspicious. It's like in a black bag and it smells really bad. There's flies all around it. Okay, so has anything changed since you last called? What? Has anything changed since you last called? No, but the water is rising and the suitcase Elliot Bay is directly connected to the Pacific Ocean and as such is subject to the tides. In the time since Natalie's first 911 call, the tide had come in and started pulling the suitcase into the open water. 911, what is your emergency? Hi, we just heard that some people were down at Elk Eye and they were just really

hyper alert. We're at like the historical point of interest, this little park on Elk Eye in West Seattle. And they said they recorded a couple hours ago a suitcase and we just went and we're like pointing it out to us. But they seem, I guess they looked at it and are convinced that there's human remains in there. Honestly, I didn't go down and look at it, but they're genuinely concerned. Okay, yeah, looks like we have a call. We are aware that they're waiting.

We're gonna get somebody out there. We're just waiting for an officer to become available, clear up from a previous 911 call. So we'll be there as soon as we can. Okay, thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Bye bye. When the police finally showed up, the kids had already gone. Hello?

Seattle police, can you hear me? Yes, I can now. Okay, are you still in the area or did you have to leave? I waited for a while, but we had to leave. Okay. Took too long. I'll let the officers know to check it out, thanks. Officer Terrell with the Seattle PD was the first to arrive on the scene nearly two hours after the original call. black roller bag. I could clearly see that it was open and it was empty."

He took the little path to the side of the pier down to the rocks to get a closer look at the bag. "...and that's when I saw a black trash bag that was floating in the water just several, not particularly far, just a couple of feet away from the rocks. The black trash bag the kids saw inside the suitcase was now bobbing in the tide. I wouldn't say that I identified exactly what was kind of protruding out of the bag, but I remember thinking that it looked like the upper chest of a person, specifically the pectoral region. I saw what appeared to be a nipple.

And I remembered thinking it looked like a human torso, but wasn't sure, could have been an animal or something like that. So at the time, I wanted more resources and more assistance. So I requested the assistance of fire department because they have tools that can reach out there. And I kind of made the inclination on the radio to describe it as like something organic.

I think I said organic matter because I didn't want to kind of jump the gun and say what I thought it might be. Earing on the side of caution, he didn't want to claim something that wasn't true. He needed to get the bag out of the water to confirm what was inside. Hello radio. Hey there. Would you guys be able to send some resources down to 1150 Alki Avenue Southwest? Basically, we went down there, we found a suitcase, and they're trying to retrieve it

from the rocks down there, and it has a foul smell coming from it, and they're trying to retrieve it from the rocks down there and it has Foul smell coming from it and it looks like to be a organic matter in it. Okay Alrighty, I'll send a truck down there. Thank you. Yep Waiting for the fire department to arrive. He made another discovery One that would cement his fear. I saw on the rocks kind of further east, closer to the road, was another black bag. Looked like a duffel bag. It was close enough that there was a stick or kind of a log nearby that I could kind of fish it or like push it towards me. When I was picking it up I could delight, kind of highlight what was inside.

The trash bag wasn't entirely see-through, but it was clear enough that I could instantly recognize that inside the trash bag was a foot. The call not prioritized would now spark a frenzy of activity. The police, fire department, and even the harbor patrol would descend on Alki Beach and the surrounding waters after the report of found human remains in a suitcase. Field of Greens is the healthiest thing I do every day. And we're all getting old, So listen, I want you on this journey with me. It's literally one scoop a day and it tastes great. I love the strawberry lemonade flavor, it's my favorite.

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Fieldofgreens.com A suitcase and duffel bag discovered on Alki Beach were found to contain human remains. Authorities scrambled to investigate. A call that took forever for the police to respond to ended up being the beginning of a huge investigation. The medical examiner came to the scene to start her analysis. It was immediately clear they were dealing with much more than a simple murder. Some bags contained two heads, hands, feet, an arm. It was obvious that they were dealing with at least a double murder and dismemberment.

It was clear that there were two people. In the bags she found two severed heads, part of a torso, a female pelvis identified by the ovaries and uterus, two feet, and three hands, one still attached to the forearm. There was a lot missing, but there was hopefully enough to identify the remains. They released a statement to the public to try to get ahead of the probable media storm, but it was already too late. We basically wanted to do a trend post on randonauting and it was the summer during like a pandemic we didn't really have a lot of options of entertainment. That was just a source of it.

And I don't know, maybe I was just very into the idea of showing this and like, I had such a very crazy surreal experience I wanted to just like document it. First we wanna begin with some breaking news. Seattle police are investigating after several bags filled with human remains were found near the water on Alki Avenue this afternoon.

Police are saying they got the call about a suspicious bag on the beach and another one was located in the water. Police determined the contents to be human remains. Police say bags containing human remains were discovered. First, a viral social media video claims to show the discovery of human remains near Alki. It appears a group of young people made a video of that discovery. So we just found this suitcase and we're gonna get it.

And so they're like opening it up with the sticks. They added music and graphics and put it on TikTok. It has got a couple million views. With the news reports and more specifically the viral TikTok post, the story of the suitcase full of human remains spread pretty quickly. Social media does that. Seattle was gripped with fear and reports came pouring in. Police, what are you reporting? Hi. My name's Diane Cognata. I live in West Seattle. The reason I'm calling is I saw a man walking down Harbor Avenue, the beach thing, with a black bag and wheels. I don't know if that black bag had the human remains.

That stretch of alcove, I don't think I've ever seen anybody walk in with a rolling bag. You guys know there was a car parked on the side of the road heading east with their trunk open and their hood open. And there was this car there and then a man came out of the woods dragging a big black bag. Um, trash? Reports of mysterious luggage and strange trash bags spotted in the days and weeks leading up to the discovery came in. One man, an active rower, spotted trash bags floating down the river. I was out alone one day and a single rowing with a couple of friends and you know, I basically ran over trash bag in the river and it was

pretty weighted down it wasn't like you know the bulk of it like an iceberg or something the bulk of the thing was below the water so I didn't see it I actually kind of ran over it and I thought that was weird but I was in a single and there's no good way to like explore something or so left it alone. And then I forget if it was the day after or two days after I was coaching with the youth and we saw a trash bag again about the same area but it was a different trash bag.

It was clearly not the same one I saw the other day and it was floating higher in the water but a big black kind of hefty trash bag like an industrial you know it's big and I remember one of the youth rowers was joking like oh you should go open it up and see what's in there and I was like no way we're not doing that you see occasional debris maybe a a drink bottle or, but you don't see trash bags ever. It's just not something you see floating down the river. With the story's exposure,

everyone was taking notice of strange bags, especially near the water. A couple of days after the case hit the news, they got another strange call leading to yet another bag upriver. We arrived at the area and we were doing our usual dog walk and we made our way to the southeastern corner where the river access is and our dogs were down by the water and were down by the water. And when we looked down there, we noticed there was a suitcase floating

at the water's edge. Well, it seemed odd. And I thought it was suspicious that a suitcase would be floating, that there was something buoyant inside of it. I went down to the water's edge and the suitcase was floating a couple of feet off of the bank. So I grabbed a stick that was nearby and I pulled the suitcase to shore. Once I pulled the suitcase to shore, I opened it partially to see what was inside of it. And I observed some trash bags.

Once I saw those trash bags, I used that same stick to tear open one of the bags and see what was inside. And I observed a piece of what I interpreted to be human skin that was unidentifiable as to what part of the body I was looking at, but it did have a tattoo on it. The medical examiner hurried to the scene to see if these were the missing pieces to her two bodies.

So there are multiple commingled remains once again, including legs, arms, and multiple plastic bags. In addition, there were other miscellaneous items including clothes and a knife. So these body parts were the body parts that belonged to the same individuals that I had examined that day. And so with the additional body parts, I was able to add them to each of the respective bodies. So there were some tattoos. There were pieces of skin that had tattoos that were not attached to the body part that fit other body parts that were later recovered. Also, the way the bones were dismembered were able to sort of fit the pieces together sort of like a puzzle piece. The medical examiner used tattoos and saw marks to piece the bodies back together. All in all she had one male head, one female head,

one male upper torso, one female lower torso, three hands, two legs, two male arms, four feet, and one arm with a hand attached. Quite the jigsaw puzzle. Two hands and two feet were determined to belong to the female because the nails were painted pink. The female hand attached to its forearm still had two rings on the fingers. Luckily, they were able to pull prints from the water-saturated hands and come back with an identification. The two victims were 27-year-old Austin Winner and 35-year-old Jessica Lewis. Besides being dismembered, their actual cause of death was bullet wounds. After the identification, the police had the daunting task of informing the families.

Here's Jessica's aunt, Gina, remembering her. She's like a ray of sunshine. She helped to develop me disabled people. She worked and was a caregiver like that. And a lot of patients that I don't have. Austin and Jessica had been together for nearly a decade. He had a girlfriend, Jessica, yes. I'm not completely sure, but I know it was a number of years. Austin and Jessica were eight years apart, but despite their age difference, they were incredibly close. Inseparable. They were, they loved each other.

As a couple, they experienced a series of trials and tribulations in life. But they always stuck together. I mean, they had their struggles, like we all do. That just shows how much they did care for each other. They didn't ever leave each other when things got hard or rough and they always stuck it out together for the ups and downs. When Jessica's aunt Gina first heard the news, she was absolutely broken. Everyone, however, was told they were both shot.

They didn't mention what else happened. My brother's shock when he told me what happened and just the hurt. Of course, the families of Austin and Jessica had seen the news and perhaps the viral video. I mean, it was everywhere. I couldn't even believe that was their story because I'd seen it trying to look for them. I don't want them to be remembered for the brutality. I don't want them to be remembered in any violent way. I want them to be remembered for their humanity and their kindness. Accepting that both Jessica and Austin suffered horrible ends left the family little solace.

I want to believe that they didn't suffer. They were people. They were real people and who were loved. The investigation was far from over. Doing their due diligence, the police interviewed family and friends and subpoenaed phone records. The last time either of them had been seen by Austin's parents was three weeks to a month prior.

Jessica was weeding and she was planting her son's strawberry plant that he got. It was a reward and so she planted that for him for me and then Austin would do all the weed eating and he would mow the lawn and I mean Alfred to eat feed them you know sort of thing. And then he was going to be doing, helping flatten some area for a shed that I had bought. Austin and Jessica often helped his mother with her yard. Austin tried to see his mom at least once a month. He kept in contact with his dad on a nearly daily basis. Daily or every other day.

It was often. By mid-June, Austin's father realized he hadn't heard from his son in a few weeks and tried to contact him. And I actually went over to the place he was staying at, looking for him. They lived together in a room they rented in the city of Burien. When Austin's dad went there and talked to the landlord, he told him something unexpected. Just that they had left in a hurry and left a mess. He noticed something strange, however.

Some of my son's clothing were at the trash can, at the base of the trash can. He thought that was odd, but knew that Austin and Jessica, while they always stuck together, moved often. I asked him that if he heard from them, would he please have them contact me because I was worried and hadn't heard from them in a while. The police investigation revealed some disturbing information about Austin and Jessica. There were reports that in the not too distant past, Austin and Jessica had been assaulted by a group of Samoans affiliated with the Islander Bloods,

who burst into their home with guns wanting money. According to conflicting reports, this was over a credit card scam gone wrong, or a $1,200 COVID voucher, or some check thing. Who the hell knows? Another person said that the last time he saw the two, they were in fear for their lives because they had done something, quote, bad. Another report said that Austin had discovered a bullet in the mailbox that literally had his name on it. Other reports said that two

men, one described as, quote, Chinese black guy and the other guy named T Mac came looking for Austin knocking on doors in the neighborhood. The investigation was all over the place until the Kings County Sheriff's Office made an arrest on an unrelated matter. They picked up Jennifer Leon for carjacking. During the investigation, she denied jacking any car and insisted that she borrowed it with permission. Eventually, she just burst into tears and uttered a confession. You guys, I didn't see no car.

Jen, it's okay. It's okay. Like I said, if I wanted to toss you in jail with no questions asked, you would have already been there. She would go on to tell them she had a reason to believe the man that owned the house she was staying at murdered two people. Customers are rushing to your store. Do you have a point of sale system you can trust or is it a real POS if you know what I mean? You need Shopify for retail.

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slash sword and scale. All lowercase and no spaces. Shopify.com slash sword and scale. The deputies asked a few more questions before realizing she had information about the recent bodies discovered on Alki Beach. They contacted the PD and got in touch with Detective Cooper. This is regarding a case I'm investigating up in Seattle. And there's a couple of people in it, two two victims and it's a homicide case first of all did you know that my two victims I did not know them personally and I had never seen them personally I just know that they were residences in the bedroom

that I now am a residence at okay and who is your current landlord his name is Michael Dudley D U D L E Y. I thought he was a great guy. He's really soft spoken, older man, had a huge house. Jennifer found herself in a bit of a domestic violence situation and went to stay with Michael Dudley. He had a house all to himself. Before COVID, he rented rooms on Airbnb, but since, he relied on word of mouth. So my old landlord and Mike, Michael, my current landlord are friends.

So that's how I came about me, Mike. So he moved me out of June 8th because I was in a bad situation and he brought all my items over there. However, I did not technically show up at his house until like the 9th of June. Was anybody else there? No, it was super, super quiet. My friend Kim, Kimberly wasn't even there, but this, Mike's glasses had been broken

and he had looked like he had been in a scuffle. He had like what I would call defense rules. Right. Scratches and everything. She was concerned about his condition. She'd seen him less than 24 hours earlier and he was fine. Now he had scratches and his glasses were broken. As I asked him if he's okay, that's when he turns to the computer and starts texting me and telling broken. and they steal from you and yada yada yada. He used to come over to Dave's house and complain what piece of shit said they are, that they don't pay him rent, that they won't move out. Yeah.

So you know, they already had like a bad, he already had bad juju with him at that point. He emailed me a couple weird things, I got kind of spooked out, and I left on him and came back for a couple more days. She asked him if he was okay. Rather than tell her face to face, he chose to email her while she was in the same room. If that wasn't weird enough, the cryptic answer to her question, which amounted to little more than bitching about tenants, creeped her out. She left, but eventually had to go back. Me and Kim both came home to take a shower. Kim took a shower and left. I took a shower

and opened the fucking door. After taking a shower, she opened the door to the room, formerly occupied by Austin and Jessica. She immediately regretted what she saw. Officially you don't know it's Austin. No, I don't know. I didn't even see a face. All I saw was a body and a bloody hand. Fearing that she may be in a worse situation than she was previously, she ran downstairs and tried to play off the sighting as a joke. Her only chance for survival was to play along with Dudley. Now Mike has cameras and computers everywhere. Plus he's directly underneath me. His survival was to play along with Dudley. He looked at me. He's like why said I did something in your house. I shouldn't I did right now. I just opened the door And he looked at me

Then I My dumb ass says something like to the fact that well don't worry Halloween's my favorite holiday And I love props, and he started laughing his ass off Okay, and then that was it a Couple hours later. He told me is there somewhere he can drop me because he needs to clean up the mess. Dudley offered her his truck keys to get her out of the house. While I'm doing this he's getting plastic and where the wash basin is and the washer and dryer is there he covered everything the, every part of that part of the downstairs with thick, clear plastic.

I wouldn't let him go back there. I couldn't tell her why, but I just kept her with me most of the time. And I told her, just please don't go back there. I can't say anything, but just don't go back to the house. He's not happy with you. I was trying to make many excuses, so pretty much no. with you. I was trying to make many excuses. So pretty much no." She stayed gone for seven days, but with nowhere else to go, she eventually went back. So after I came back after seven days, because I started thinking I got somebody, I killed somebody. Right. You know, and I'm staying away for seven days and then I come back and he might be mad But he wasn't mad with me because it took him that much longer to clean up When I did come back the day after I wasn't even talking about us

It's origin because I don't want to talk about it right and he kept saying your rooms ready for you your rooms ready for you I said why are you having me go in moving that room because Kim's not there no more. He goes, why do you think? Austin's name is still on my Roku TV every time I turn it on. Psycho, actually, fuck me up. Yeah. Every day. When I turn on the TV, fuck me up. Every day, fuck me up.

For some reason I said, what happened? And he said, let's just put it this way. His gun misfired and minded it. Okay. Magic Mike, I call him Magic Mike. happened and he said let's just put it this way his gun was fired and minded it okay magic mic i call magic mic because he makes things disappear he thinks it's funny other than some strange email correspondence with dudley jennifer claimed to have more proof anything else in that room besides what you saw after he cleaned up i mean is the room furniture in it now or anything like that? Yeah, yeah and I just looked down and noticed something yesterday you're gonna freak out. Looks like a bullet hole. Actually

in the foot of the bed it looked like a bullet was grazed too. I've opened that nightstand a million times and for some reason I was looking at it yesterday and it's a round hole and it looks like a straight bullet hole. At that point I couldn't report to anybody because I was scared for my life, you know what I'm saying? But after I found out that that girl was shot multiple times, they have kids, I couldn't. Jennifer had pictures of what appeared to be bullet holes in the furniture from the room Austin and Jessica used to live in.

She claimed to have seen a body and a bloody hand poorly hidden under a pile of laundry. And she had saved emails between her and Dudley providing a timeline for the murder and dismemberment. June 9th, 2020. When they checked with Burion PD for the police history at the house, they found another clue. Quite a big one. 2911, what are you reporting? Hi, my husband and I believe that we just heard gunshots next door and now we can hear

somebody screaming for help. It's directly, it's kind of in our backyard to the right. It's like our next-door neighbor, but they're in and they're not in, so they're technically like not on our street. But our house borders with their backyard. And does it sound like a man or woman screaming or can you tell? It sounds like a man. Okay. You didn't see anything, you just heard the shots and then now the yelling? Correct.

On the evening of June 9th, before the sun was even all the way down, the Gunnersons heard what could only be gunshots coming from inside their neighbor's house. But the neighbor wasn't on the same street. It faced the street behind them. I piece of the house off of her backyard and if she heard what sounded like a couple of shots then now the man's really feeling. Can't see anything that's going on. 203 South 166. Units were dispatched quickly. Shots fired was a far more urgent call than a stinky bag on the beach. Ben 11, what are you reporting? Hi, my wife called just a minute ago about possible gunshots next door and someone screaming for help

The actual address for our neighbor's house because it's our backyard neighbor is one six four six six Ambon Boulevard South Have you heard any additional disturbance since then? Have you heard any additional disturbance since then? Um, yeah, the yelling kind of continued and just asking for help saying, please stop. Don't do this. Let me just leave. Let me just leave. Let me just leave. Oh, the police are arriving now. I want you to go talk to them. Fly down and tell them where they're going. They're getting my updates.

Alright. Thank you, sir. Officers showed up in minutes. So many officers got dispatched because it was a serious call out. It was an allegation of gunshots at the neighbor's house and somebody yelling, Helen. Is that correct?

Purion's a dangerous city. Shot calls are frequent. So anytime something like that happens, if people are available, as many go as can for our safety. After checking in with the Gunnersons, they raced through the backyard and over the fence. They searched the entire property. They knocked on the door door but no one answered. They checked every window, every door, every opening. Nothing was broken and they couldn't see

inside. The detached barn was empty. The grounds were quiet. There was no indication anything was going on. I didn't find any gunshots in finding anything broken, broken glass, no one in distress, no one injured, nothing to indicate that there was a need to enter the residence. They called me and they just they said that nobody was answering the door. And so since they didn't have a search warrant, they couldn't go inside. So that was the extent of what they could do at the time.

Yeah, they stopped by and said that they didn't, they didn't see anything or hear anything and nobody answered If only they had found a reason to go inside They would have realized that Dudley had just murdered Austin and Jessica In the days and weeks to follow the Gunnersons noticed something else unusual No, I mean the only thing that I remember something else unusual. was the smell of when you forget that you had left meat in your refrigerator and it turns bad and you open up the package and it's just rotten. It smells like that but a million times more powerful. I'm sorry. The police investigation into the human remains found in bags along the Alki Beach and the Duwamish River led to Michael Dudley.

The discovery of the 911 calls about gunshots and the eventual horrendous smell emanating from his home, combined with the witness statement from Jennifer Leon and Jessica's phone records, gave the police enough for a search and arrest warrant. The last time Jessica's phone was on was the 9th, and the last tower it connected to was in the area of the home. Dudley was lured away from his home by the King County Sheriff's Office, claiming they had a development in the case of Dudley's recently poisoned chickens, and he was swarmed and taken into custody. When am I under arrest? Well, we're investigating a death. So a couple people that's supposed to have been staying at your place.

Are you talking about lost students? Yeah. So technically to bring you in here, you're under arrest. For what? For their, related to their death, investigation of homicide. Are you out of your mind? You're saying I killed him? Well, that's what I want to talk to you about. If you didn't do it, then... I didn't do it. Okay. They're my friends. Okay then. Okay people are saying you had something to do with it.

Who's saying that? I just need to ask questions. That's all. You have questions? I got a question. Why did you come and ask me this like a month ago? I would think that if they had been living there, you would just come talk to me first. Well, and who are these people? A number of people. OK, did you see anything about them in the news? Yeah. So what did you see all about in the news?

I heard something about Al-Qaeda and the war shipping, a suitcase full of garbage bags. Okay. And did you hear anything about the cause of death or anything? Like, you know, David and Sean or anything like that? I read something about that, yeah. Okay. So with that being said, people are like pointing the finger at you. I go out there. Hold on, I'm pointing the finger at you. I go out there, I'm getting...

Hold on to the finger of me. People that know you that maybe don't like you. Okay? So I'm just... Who doesn't like me? Well again, well we all... Not everybody likes everybody, okay? There's people that don't like me. I'll go to that bitch next door. Well, I can't... Again, I told you I'm not going to tell you who it is. I can't again. I told you I'm not gonna tell you who it is. I can't do that Dudley played the part of an old man. Well He fell asleep while waiting for detectives to question him and when they finally did he tried to place the blame on Them why didn't you call the police?

You always wait for you guys to call me. I figured you'd be right there Well, we didn't call, why didn't you call us? Well, there's really nothing to report. And I figured, you know, you'd be there. Isn't that part of your standard procedure? Yeah, but... I was just kind of sitting there like wondering, you know, where the hell you guys have been.

And now I just started wondering what the hell was going on. I mean, there were people that knew them less than you did. I mean you pretty much roomed with them. They lived with you. I had a guy from Eastern Washington that hadn't talked to him for four years who called us. So I mean... Do you see why you were kind of perplexed? Well, I was perplexed, too. I mean, you know. Dudley claimed he expected to be interviewed after he heard the news of Austin and Jessica's untimely demise. But when it didn't happen, he didn't bother involving himself. I mean,

why would you? So when Austin and Jessica were standing there, I mean, why would you? Everybody says he would steal anything if it wasn't luck. He was a freaking prolific thief, but, you know, again, we were quarantined together and, you know, it got to know him pretty good, and her, got to know him both pretty good. And he, like I said, he, that's what he did, he stole. You know, he would prefer to do that over work. There's a lot of people that probably would have wanted him dead,

put it that way. When Dudley was asked to elaborate on the other people that would want Austin dead, he brought up the same falseans, he robbed the Mexicans, he owed money to some cartel. Wow. Did he say what he robbed from the Samoans? He said it was like a duffle bags full of dope. Beyond the stories about Samoan drug dealing gang members, quite a new one for me, and

I've been doing this for a while, detectives wanted to know about Dudley's relationship with the two. So you didn't have a beef with them at all? Oh, we had little beasts with them, you know, always, you know. Well, I mean like a beef with... Oh, he's my friend. He's my friend. He claimed to be their friend, but was upset, I have a misfire sometimes. Can you explain that to me? What are your friends and people finding on you? Well, they're in the blue room and they said there's two bullet strikes on the wooden bed frame.

So I'm like, yeah. So can you explain that? I got that from my friend Tom and I've been there for one time. He had an excuse for everything. And no one, has anybody ever been injured in that room or anything? Because I'm being told there's blood in the room too. Um, well yeah, I mean Jessica cut her 18 stitches in her thigh and she was mucking around with one of these, what do you call them, pressure washers.

Oh yeah, that'll do it. He explained the bed frame was used and he didn't know anything about bullet strikes. If they found any blood it could have been from the time Jessica cut her leg and required stitches. I also have cadaver dogs out there. You know what a cadaver dog is, right? Yeah. Okay.

And they're learning down in the basement and stuff like that to stuff and there's some stains down there and stuff like that. I'm asking if there's a reason why these animals dead bodies in my basement I'm sure of that okay that way even in the chicken coop or anything like that you go have a look and they're about to cut a hole in the wall to retrieve a bullet." Dudley feigned ignorance to everything the detective brought up. I mean Austin and Jessica lived at your place that was the last place they lived at. They actually told people if something bad happened to me you know this Mike motherfucker did shit to me. I'm just telling you Well, his mom told me that they said if anything bad ever happened to us Look at Mike

Why would they I don't know that's why I'm asking you I mean, I'm trying to get your side of the story if something happened to them there and you know something about it This is probably the time you want to tell us. I, I mean, what can I say? I didn't kill them and I don't know what happened to them. Dudley denied it all. Even with all the little pieces of evidence that pointed in his direction, he maintained that they just moved out suddenly and the next thing he knew, they were all over the news.

Michael Dudley was arrested and charged with the murders of Austin Wenner and Jessica Lewis after the forensic team found evidence in their former bedroom. A hole in the wall that was recently patched and painted over revealed a bullet. They also found a minute drop of blood that matched Austin. He would plead not guilty and proceed to trial. After a long two-month trial and a day and a half of jury deliberations, he was found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder. The families of Austin and Jessica wept when the verdict was read. I'm so overwhelmed right now, it's hard to even come up with the words. But my son is shining down from up above and saying, you got a mom. And I just want to thank the detectives for letting us be one of the lucky ones that,

hopefully this animal is off the streets now. The world is a safer place without Michael Dudley in it. Everybody can rest easy tonight because of that. On December 6th, 2022, Michael Dudley was sentenced to a little less than 47 years in prison. Michael Dudley killed Austin Wenner and Jessica Lewis. His reason was simple. He didn't want them in his house anymore. And the laws made it hard for him to get rid of them.

They didn't pay, they lied, they cheated, and they stole. They brought drama, negativity, and stress along with them. And that's always bad. Michael Dudley was trapped. But what Austin and Jessica didn't realize was that they were trapped also, and the cure would be worse than the disease. They all collectively ignored all of the red flags waving furiously, and then one evening, when Dudley had had enough of them, he decided to remove them from his life and the planet altogether. Rather than go through the complex and expensive process of eviction, Magic Mike just tried to make them disappear. All right, that's going to do it.

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