Sword and Scale - Episode 340

Episode Date: February 22, 2026

In the quiet backroads of Dallas County, Missouri, investigators uncovered a nightmare hidden in plain sight. Cassidy Rainwater, a young woman whose search for stability led her to a remote cabin. What seemed at first like an isolated disappearance soon unraveled into something far darker. Disturbing digital evidence, cryptic messages, and chilling interviews revealed just how calculated and sinister the truth really was.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

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On October 4th, 2021, firefighters rushed to 386 Moon Valley Road in Dallas County, Missouri. The name sounds like it should be printed on a postcard. Moon Valley makes you think of a serene getaway with cozy cabins and campfires. In reality, Moon Valley Road is a boring strip of gravel that cuts through dense Ozark woods. These trees are so thick that they almost block out the sky when you look up from the ground. The nights are so dark you can't see your hand in front of you. There are no streetlights, no neighbors in sight. Only the kind of isolation where bad things happen without anyone noticing.

By the time they get there, the fire is already out of control. Nothing on the property can be salvaged. Flames shoot out of every building and don't stop burning until they've destroyed them all. After the fires are finally out, a Dallas County deputy steps onto the property. The ground is soft and city with wet ash. The black mud sticks to the property. his boots and smoke is seeping from the rubble. The cabin is a shell now, with the roof collapsed and the windows blown out.

The outbuildings are mostly gone. In the middle of the cabin's rubble stands a lone familiar piece of furniture, a bathtub. The deputy wades through the debris, scanning with a flashlight. Then his beam catches a wire, stretched tight, almost invisible, still attached to to two scorched posts. He freezes. It's a trip wire. He knows that if he moves the wrong way, he could trigger it and blow them all the pieces.

His eyes follow it carefully, and his focus is locked on the wire until it leads to a device buried in the rubble. They call the bomb squad who detonates one device on site and removes two more. These are homemade bombs. The fire marshal will make the easy call. This was arson. Scarce but solid details being released on what could have caused a late-night fire on Moon Valley Road. Hours before Cassidy Rainwater suspected kidnappers were due in court, a cabin where James

Phelps and Timothy Norton had been living, burned to the ground. A report obtained by Ozarks' first today shows the Springfield Bombs Squad discovered not one but two explosive devices among the ashes. And while it doesn't say whether the fire was set intentionally, it does list what equipment was taken by investigators. The report calls them incendiary devices made with mortar tubes, balloons, and coiled fuses with a tripwire attached. As Springfield Fire Marshal says one of the explosives was detonated on site, but what happened to the second device has not yet been released. The Missouri Ozarks cover more than 40,000 miles of rough, isolated country, over half the state, and twice the size of Switzerland.

The Ozarks aren't a true mountain range, but a high ancient plateau of limestone, carved over millions of years. These limestone hills fold into deep valleys. Caves run for miles underground, and rivers disappear into sinkholes without a trace. And a lot of the roads are narrow and surrounded by woods. What goes on in the hollows is anyone's guess. Tourists come here for the fishing cabins, float trips, and lake towns. But the Ozarks have another side. Civil War Confederates use these woods to disappear and then ambush their enemies.

Prohibition gangs built stills so far back in the timber that no one dared to go there. Meth cooks and armed weed growers still guard their territory like they're at war. And then there are the legends, weird lights moving through the trees with no source, numerous Bigfoot sightings, and whispers of feral people living in the back country. Out here, it's easy to go missing, and even easier to stay that way. 33-year-old Cassidy Rainwater didn't just disappear all at once. It happened slowly and under the radar. The kind of missing person's case that didn't start with a 911 call,

but with a gap in contact that kept getting longer. Cassidy was a free-spirited girl, loud. If she walked in a room, everybody knew she was there. but she had a beautiful soul. She was born on June 9, 1988, near Lebanon, Missouri. Officially, Cassidy's parents were Clifford Welch and Tracy Wawasuck. But she went by Rainwater, a Native American name tied to someone in her past, her grandfather, who happened to own land on Moon Valley Road near where she was last seen.

Cassidy had her first child with a high school boyfriend named Ben. The couple tried to make it work for the sake of their baby, but they chose to put him up for adoption at some point. Regardless, she and Ben remained on good terms. Later, she remarried and had other children with that partner. Reports say that she was still legally married in 2021, but living apart. By the summer of 2021, Cassidy's life, was unsettled. She'd been moving between places looking for stability.

Her first partner, Ben, remembered being worried about her. She was in a bad way. At that time, I'm pretty sure she was homeless. And she and I were talking and was just like, come to Kansas City, we'll get things figured out. Searching for her place to stay eventually led her to a small property on Moon Valley Road, a remote rental cabin occupied by 60-year-old Jim Phelps.

and owned by a man named John. John knew Cassidy's grandparents and suggested she talked with the guy living there. Jim, living in the cabin, had a soft spot for taking in women and girls, but none of them ever said anything negative about him. Okay, Jim is a friend once again. He let me stay with him from time to time when I was having a hard time. I have a lot of health problems, so it's hard for me to work, which is why I'm getting a job.

to wear i can work on my own time now so he was like in the five-faced yeah but um jim he was really kind he was a sweet guy but when i met him he was a really kind guy um he was caring he was really nice no sexual relations not put that out there i mean i've met jim's family i've met tim's family they know me i know them Amanda didn't just stumble into this story her paths here started months earlier when she met 56-year-old Tim Norton, Jim's best friend. Amanda met Tim through a friend who was engaged to his nephew and living there. At the time, Amanda was between home, so she moved into Tim's trailer, which by all accounts was a disgusting pig pen.

Tim was a long-haul trucker, and Amanda sometimes went along for the ride. Other times she acted like his personal dispatcher or helped with his finances. People assume they were a couple. Amanda says that's ridiculous. He was too old for her. According to Amanda, she was just helping him in exchange for a place to live. I mean, he was 56 and she was 19. Nothing to see here, right?

Months later, Amanda's living situation shifted again. The chaos of everyone living in the trailer wore her down. Tim suggested she go and stay at his buddy Jim's cabin for a while, so she did. On paper, it sounded like a quiet escape, a rural place with a name that could pass for a weekend getaway. But this was no campground. The cabin sat isolated, hidden from the road, with sheds of outbuildings scattered across the property. Amanda says her time there was temporary, but her connections with Jim and Tim were already cemented,

and they were about to become a lot more than casual acquaintances. Let's circle back to Cassidy Rainwater. Amanda knew who she was because their time at Jim's cabin overlapped. Amanda remembered meeting her. I met her once. Me and her him went over there because, I had some mail to pick up because that's where my mailing address is right now. I didn't really talk.

She didn't, she was kind of quiet, which I get new person. I'm quiet too with new people. But she didn't really talk. She kind of stayed herself. Whenever I went to go do something in my car, and when I came back in, she had told him that she wanted to leave, that she wasn't comfortable. There's too many people.

Jim didn't tell her that people were coming over and she wasn't comfortable with it. It was just me, Jim, Tim, and her. Okay, that's it though? That was too many people? Yeah. It wasn't exactly a warm welcome. Cassidy, like Amanda, wasn't looking for new friends. You could say both women had retreated to the cabin for the same reason.

To escape drama and conflict and peace themselves back together. The problem was that the place was starting to feel less like an isolated hideout and more like the worst kind of Airbnb. The kind where the host keeps allowing more guests to book the place without telling you. According to Amanda, the two tried to stay out of each other's way. This was around mid-July of 2021. By the time Cassidy went missing in late August, Amanda had already moved out. I did really, I try not to get involved in too much because I just, I can't take the stress. Yeah.

I looked at Jim and I said, so how is Cassidy doing? Because I was just kind of curious, because I know she's been struggling with some stuff. And I was in the name and he was like, I don't know, she left in the middle of the night. I was like, oh. And then later I found out that she was busy. I was like, no God. until I read the article and I was like, oh, what the fuck happened? And then, like I said, in the back of my mind, it was like, that could have been me.

In August, a friend noticed that it had been about six weeks since anyone had seen Cassidy. She was reported missing. The last person to admit seeing her was Jim. It wasn't the police who made the first big move in the case. It was the FBI, after someone sent them an email with photographs labeled Cassidy. The first one showed a topless woman in a cage. And whoever sent it made sure the FBI knew exactly where to find her. Or at least, what was left of her.

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promo code sword for 21% off. All right, let's continue. In the summer of 2021, Jim Phelps was living in a small cabin on Moon Valley Road, a patch of rural Missouri surrounded by dense Ozark Woods. He was a quiet, reclusive person who spent most of his time at the cabin. His closest friend Tim Norton was a long-haul trucker, also with a habit. of keeping to himself, and yet, somehow, women kept finding their way to that cabin. One was a 19-year-old woman named Amanda.

She also stayed at the cabin for a few weeks, after life became too crowded at Tim's place. Cassidy Rainwater, whose life was unraveling, had come to the cabin searching for solitude and some kind of sanctuary. Like Amanda, she was private, guarded, not quick to share her world. Their paths only crossed briefly before Amanda moved out. A few weeks later, Cassidy was gone too. But unlike Amanda, she didn't choose her next destination. She simply disappeared.

After six weeks, with no sign of her, she was reported missing by a family member. The last person to have seen her was Jim Phelps. One night deputies drove out to Moon Valley Road. The cabin was lit only by a porch bulb and their headlights. Otherwise, it was an opaque kind of darkness. They knocked, asking Jim where Cassidy was. Howdy? Howdy? Howdy?

Yeah, is a Cassidy here? No? No? I've seen her in weeks. Really? Well, I'm trying to check on her. You know her. You know Cassidy.

Yeah, I know her. Well, I've been trying to check on her. Jim Phelps, over six feet tall, bald with glasses and a white beard, came to the cabin door wearing only jeans and a dog tag around his neck. He looked relatively harmless, at least for Ozarkian Missouri. Do you have a phone number for her? Nope. Okay.

Do you know? Oh, no, if she's not here, she's not here. She's not in any trouble. They're just worried about her. Do you know maybe where she's at? Last I heard, she was going to Colorado. Going to Colorado? Yeah.

Oh. Do you know what's over there? No. She never told you? Oh. Yeah. How long? What she told me last.

How long ago was that? All right. Well, if she comes back or if she comes and visits you, I'd appreciate if you'd call us so we can tell, you know, tell her family that she's okay. So, all right. Well, I guess I'll get out of here. You mean to tell me that in the whole time Cassidy was staying there under his roof? He didn't even have her phone number. Come on.

Just a few weeks later on September 16, 2021, an anonymous email lands in the FBI's tip line inbox. Attached are pictures, all labeled with the same name. Cassidy. The first picture. stops the FBI agent cold. It's a woman in a cage. Blonde hair, bear from the waist up, crouched in a cage with her knees pulled tightly against her chest. She has a vacant stare. In between the steel bars, he sees the room behind. This is a large animal cage, but it's inside a room. It's inside someone's house.

He clicks to the next frame and the scenery is outside. Old, weathered sheds, piles of scrap and a tall metal frame. To most people it's nothing, but he's seen enough hunting setups to know what this is. A deer gantry. The details fall into place in his head. The wood grain on the walls, the layout of the yard, and all of its clutter. Whoever sent him this email wasn't trying to hide anything. They wanted him to know exactly where this was.

And as he stares at the screen, one thought is very clear. Whatever's happening out there on Moon Valley Road, it's probably already too late to stop it. On the same day, Dallas County detectives get a warrant and show up in broad daylight. They want to compare the scenery to the photos. This time, the officer stops the car halfway up the gravel lane when he sees Jim's dog on a long leash. And then spots Jim walking slowly across the yard. Now, he's fully clothed, but still as nonchalant as last time. Nope.

Haven't seen her. Hello. How you doing? Yeah. Well, I was just following up with you on Cassidy. It's been, what's it been a couple weeks since we've been here? And we haven't heard of peep out of her, you know, so I'm just going to see if maybe you had heard anything out of her or anything extra. You can send us to do follow-ups on something. We're coming up. No, I haven't heard of him.

Well, he doesn't like it, does he? Actually, he wants you to play with him. Oh, yeah? Yeah, the last time I was here, I was walking by him, and he grabbed a hold of me. I didn't know if he was trying to play or... He wants to play. For what, so. The dog looks well cared for.

So does Jim, actually. But as unbothered as he seems, his posture says a lot. While his voice is easy, his words are. compliant. He almost immediately folds his arms tightly across his chest. They call that a defensive posture. Jim, the last time I was here, let me get a piece of paper. I got to do a big report on it and stuff and I have Jim Phelps, but I don't have any other info. I just wonder if I get that from you. Jim Phelps. Is it Jim or James? James. James Phelps. What's your date of birth?

January 13, 63. If you pay close attention, Jim is getting increasingly anxious. Listen for his nervous laugh. I guess you know your social, do you? 13 years in military. Yeah, I know. Oh, yeah. You remember those things after that long.

No. After the first day or so, you remember it. You remember it. You don't want to have to go back there, dig it out. What's that number again? I remember going. You go through MEPs. It was like, because I didn't know mine.

Yeah. It was like every time I turned around, I was digging it out. By the end of that day, I had it back. By the end of the first days. Rattle it off without a problem. And you still can today. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. There was a picture that I had come across of Cassidy. Yeah. And I was wondering if it was done here. Would you mind if I looked at your backyard? My backyard? Yeah. There's a picture taken ever with a stump in the background.

Do you have anything like that in the backyard? I don't have a stump. No stump. You might have to take a look real quick. Back there's my hoist. Jim tries to brush it off, saying the only thing back there is his hoist. But once they step into the yard, it's like walking right into the pictures themselves. 3D now.

Not just images on a page. The hoist, the clutter, the leaning sheds, every detail of the image lines up. Get up against that truck right now and get your hands on that truck. Do not fuck with me. Get up there on that truck. On the truck. Hands behind your back. What's going on? Okay.

What's going on? Mr. Phelps. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say, canon will be used to get you in a court of law. You know how the rest of that goes. fact, you probably have it memorized. You understand your rights? Yeah.

Okay. And what's going on? Right now you're under arrest for the homicide of Cassidy Rainwater. What's going to happen to my dog? We'll talk about that in just a little bit. To understand who Jim Phelps was, you have to hear from John Warren. He's the man who actually owned the cabin on Moon Valley Road. He wasn't just a landlord.

He was family. He was Jim Phelps' brother-in-law and rented property to Jim for a mere $200 a month plus utilities. Keep in mind, the place was no mansion. This guy also knew Cassidy because her grandfather, Bill Rainwater, used to be his neighbor. So that's when you met Cassidy when she was a kid? She was just a little son of his kid. Came up from Bill one day. I kind of find out about two years later her mother disappeared.

Hmm. Found out about 20 years later, who had done it in him when it had happened. What was that about? Her boyfriend beat her death and put her in a box and took her out and be every inch of a grave. Every inch shall agree, Loma, Monroe. Oh. They found that out 20 years later. Oh.

Where was that? Overluckily, again. Oh. Who was your boyfriend? I said, I don't know. Bill told me about it. In other words, John Warren wasn't just Jim Phelps' landlord and brother-in-law. He was linked to all of them.

He tied Jim to the property, and he tied Cassidy to a family history already marked by violence. Her mother's murder, hidden for 20 years, had only come to light a few years before Cassidy herself would disappear. John said Cassidy was going through a hard time. Finding out her mother was murdered was probably part of that. And so he and his wife were trying to help her. Cassie just took a bunch of jewelry that Robin had. And tell her, you need to make things ride with Robin. She needed a vehicle to get back to forth to her.

Cassie didn't? Yeah. Then I told her, just, you know, you're going to screw it up because now you can't like to drive with Robin. Probably's in the next world. You can't make a ride with her. I'll let you use my truck. It seemed like John Warren, was kind of a grandfather to Cassidy.

He tried to help her, but she stole from his wife, and he continued trying to help. A recovering addict, he told Jim Phelps that to use his property, there was a zero-tolerance policy for drugs. He told Cassidy the same thing before he allowed her to stay on the property with Jim. By the time Cassidy was staying there, Amanda had already been in and out of the cabin.

Their time overlapped, and Amanda remembered Cassidy as quiet and uneasy, not comfortable with strangers coming around. Apparently, John, the property owner, felt the same way. Yet another friend of Tim's was making herself at home without getting permission. And this little gal is not got anything on from the way stuff. And I said, you might want to put some on in her in a fuck of you. I'm Tim Sprint. I said, well, Tim Sprint, you need to get your ass down here and get your stuff back because you're leaving.

Mm-hmm. Because that's not part of the deal. Where's Tim? He's up in Canton or someplace. Working there all week and she's staying there. That's a fly. Mm-hmm. But to find out, the reason that they called me was because Jim was in the hospital.

And this person was in the cabin. I missed to getting right of there. And as soon as she walked out the door, I got to lock on the door because of Tim's in my hospital. Jim has the other key. So Jim's at the hospital and you kicked Tim's friend out? Yeah, I did kick Tim's friend out. Keep Tim's friend out in the most amazing thing. Tim was able to come down and pick her up.

And he wasn't supposed to be there until two or three days. I think it was open. And imagine that. He actually was able to show up a couple of hours later. None of this was sitting well with John. He made it clear. He doesn't like Tim hanging around the property. Tim always seemed to be lurking around the corner.

corner, quick to show up, always in Jim's shadow. John said he never wanted him out there in the first place. Meanwhile, on September 16th, Jim was already in custody. Deputies sit him down and ask about Cassidy. He doesn't give them much. He sticks to his story. She talked about going to Colorado. She left in the middle of the night. Someone picked her up, and he hadn't seen her since. when they press, he deflects, even whining about his dog. And then he shuts up completely. He wants a lawyer, he says. Investigators still have an angle, though.

His friend Tim Norton. It seems pretty clear he's a big player in whatever happened to Cassidy. And if he isn't an active participant, he at least knows stuff. A lot of stuff. detectives bring him into another room. Compared to Jim, he is easier prey. Where Jim had clammed up, Tim talked so much that he couldn't hold his story straight for more than five minutes.

At first, he flat out denies knowing anything about Cassidy's disappearance. He says he didn't see her, doesn't know what happened, and doesn't have a clue. But when asked about her relationship with Jim, he's got a lot to say. Were they in a sexual relationship? Not that I know of, I know he talked about that she said she was going to do certain things, or that she would spend the night and, you know, sleep with him and stuff.

But Thornton, I know nothing ever happened because he always, he was always aggravated after she left because she didn't do what she said she was going to do. Okay, so it's your understanding that Jim thought that the two of them may at some point have a romantic. or sexual relationship. Okay, but you don't think it ever happened based on that. No, I don't think so. Okay. Both Jim and Tim were annoyed with Cassidy for different reasons.

But the property owner kept sticking up for her. I didn't like her. Okay, what about Jim? He tolerated her because of John. He tolerated her because of John. Yeah. And John again being the person who owns the property. See, Jim tried to keep her out of the property after a while.

while after she's stolen the rings. Okay. But she would go to John and get John to go to the okay or come out there and stay in the cabin. Jim's hands were tied. They believed John when he said she had stolen jewelry from his wife. But John was willing to forgive her. But later, a collection of Tim's knives went missing from the cabin, and Tim blamed Cassidy. Tim and Jim's plan escalated quickly.

What started as talk of confronting her turned into restraining her and ended with killing her. By that point, Cassidy had already spent time locked inside a dog cage. How did that progress? That one, I do believe, progressed with him saying he wanted her dead. Okay. I was about to tell you that she was accusing me and or Mr. Phillips of kidnapping her or killing her or I'm not sure exactly what she was. Cassidy accused them outright of kidnapping her and planning to kill her. And that, according to Tim, pissed Jim off even more.

And so during that planning process between you and Mr. Feld, was anyone else ever a part of that? Yes, there was one person, one time, maybe two times. No, it was there. Her name was Amanda Ghali. Don't let Amanda's small baby voice fool you. to thinking she was innocent. She insisted she wasn't his girlfriend. He was too old for her. She had her age limits.

No sex. Nothing to see here. But she was much more involved than she said. She did either nor do you, Phelps, Jim or Tim, neither of them ever talked about Felix. They talked about, you know, like hunting and stuff like that, like deer and stuff, fish, fishing and stuff like that, but never killing anyone. They made jokes.

They're like, oh, she's pretty. I'll take her home. That kind of stuff. But, you know, I never thought anything of it. Because, like I said, when I met these two men, they were sweet men. They were really nice. They were carrying. But their jokes may not have been jokes at all. I mean, who jokes about that?

Detectives were already onto the fact that they weren't joking. They had text messages and Facebook dialogue between the two of them. If there was any doubt about how dark Jim and Tim's conversations got, the messages they sent each other erased it. Jim told Tim flat out, You need to bring me a woman. I don't care where you get her. Tim didn't push back.

He asked, Where do you want me to get her? Jim's answer was as casual as it was chilling. Parking lots are good. Big lots is a good place to people watch. I can watch women all day. And it didn't stop there. Jim bragged,

I've been watching the girls in town. One day, I'm going to have one tied up out here. Then came the line that made investigators' stomach's turn. I want fresh meat. You know what I mean. We here at Sorenscale did a little digging and found someone who almost got caught up in Tim Norton's web. This is Wren.

So my name is Lauren. I, at the time was in college in 2021, I believe. I can't remember what month he got arrested, but I do remember that it was about two weeks. after I had met him, after I met Timothy. I was working at a Buffalo Wild Wings in like middle of nowhere, college town, South Georgia. But whenever I was there,

I had the patio section in the morning, which was typically nobody was really out there. And so I was just trying to make conversation, see if I could get a tip. And he didn't really want anything from me, but he wanted to talk more than I think most people want to talk to their waitress. And when he had come through, he had said something about being a truck driver from Missouri. Wren described Tim as looking much older than his 50s and having what she described as a strangely

flat face. The conversation started somewhat normally. He started off asking if I like my job. And I said, not really, but it pays the bill. He had told me I should get a rich boyfriend so I don't have to work this job anymore, and he wouldn't let a woman work like that. And that's when it started getting kind of weird, but it got creepy when he started asking me if we had any cameras in the parking lots and what time I got off work.

The text messages alone suggested that Tim and Jim were a team, just as they'd always been. There's not a lot of information out there about who they were, but they described each other as brothers. Within the team, it seemed Tim was the scout or maybe more like a predatory lion, hunting during the day and bringing the kill back to share. He had ended up telling me that he was a truck driver from Missouri, and he knew I-75 like the back of his hand. And like, when I say that it sounded like a threat, sometimes people don't understand what I mean. But the way that he looked at me and the tone that he said it was like, I know where I'm going. I don't need to leave a trail to tell you I was there.

It was just, it was weird. And the way that he looked at me and also at a lot of the other girls that were working there just seemed. very predatory? We haven't even scratched the surface here. Back at the investigation, detectives had a broad idea of what actually went on the day that Tim and Jim decided to make Cassidy go away. Still, they had no idea how many details Tim would give them,

and it all corroborated what Amanda was finally revealing. However, minima, she presented herself. Your Honor, tell you, that he killed, Cassie. He didn't tell me he killed her, no. But I know that there were jokes made. Okay, tell me about those jokes. That jokes that were made was that if they were to kill someone, they would cut them up in little pieces and put them in the woods.

Good joke, right? He never told me he killed her. I swear, he never told me. Because if you told you that that's not on you, that's just... As far as I can remember, he never told me. As far as you can remember. Yeah. Because if you told you, it's okay, we need to just...

Hold on. I'm trying to remember that conversation. If we had the conversation, it was evolving. I don't know about you, but if someone told me they wanted to get rid of somebody and then joked about how if they did it, they'd cut them into little pieces. I'd kind of remember that. But, oh, wait, just kidding. She did remember.

Oh my God, I did. Tell me about this. She was talking about how she had stolen something from him and that he had helped restrain her and that him and Jim, like, apparently Jim looked at her and Cassie looked at him and said, why? He said, because you said that I would, that I've done it before.

I didn't think anything of that. Oh, my God. It's okay. I thought he was joking. I seriously didn't. Did he tell you that they killed? Me thinking it was a joke, yes. And how did he say it?

She's dead. I guess. It was all too easy for Amanda to play dumb. when the story lined up exactly with what Tim admitted to telling her. Unlike Amanda, Tim didn't have the luxury of hiding behind just joking. When detectives pushed, the thin wall denial cracked. First a slip, then a fragment, and then a flood. What he finally confessed, piece by piece, is the kind of thing you can't unhear.

Okay, so it's 8 o'clock in the morning in the middle, in, late July. Yeah. So the sun is up? Sun's up. Okay. When you brought up in every with that, like some. Okay.

So you can see. Yeah. You think you can see clearly. Okay. And the person whose legs that you grabbed was Cassidy playing water. Okay. All right. So you were holding your legs.

You already described how you knelt down and were holding her knees, I think, is what you said. Yeah. Yeah. Right under her knee area. Okay. So it would mobilize all of her leg. I mean, I've got enough training and stuff,

and I know how to do that. Sure. And then what did Jim do? Well, there again. Like I said, I had my head down, but I really didn't see what he originally started doing. I did look up and he was trying to get the bag over her head, not this way, just this way.

And she was, I mean, she was yelling. but she was talking a little louder than normal. Okay. Asking why, why, why. And that's when I looked at him to see what he was going to say. And I seen his eyes, and at that point, like I told you,

at that point, I wasn't sure about my life. At first, Tim said he just held her legs. Well, Jim used a bag and then his hands. But as the questions kept to, coming, the details got darker. He finally admitted he joined in, his own hands tightening around her throat until she stopped struggling. All in all, it took 30 minutes to strangle the life out of her. Afterwards, they left her body lying there before dragging it outside toward the gantry. This was the same gantry that would later show up in those photographs.

The gantry stood in the Ozark Woods, where it held. called captive numerous corpses of deer, cattle, pork, and who knows what else as the blood drained from them. Only this time, it would be a human. It would be a mother. At least, this is the only time the detectives knew about. That night, the two men worked methodically, knives, buckets, plastic wrap. Tim told the officers how they cut her legs apart piece by piece. He described it flatly as if they were reading instructions off a page. Tim acted like he had no vested interest in doing this. But he was lying.

He thought she was a liar and a thief. And in his words, he didn't deal with people like that. And then he walked over to the crank. If you remember correctly, that was a rope at the crank. He craked it up, raising her up. like I said it'd be, you know, that he referring her to like that, but there's no better way to put it.

Took her head off first, pulled a wash basin, not how country-fied you are, but me tell them, might be able to make anything, slid up underneath her, which would be nothing unusual because it was processing a deer or whatever.

He took off her head, put it in there, and then he started to cut it wrote down the center. Okay. So all the blood and the guts and everything went down there. Piece by piece, Cassidy's body was carved apart, dropped into buckets like waste at a slaughterhouse. And so he handed you the camera and asked you to take a picture.

Yep. And what did you take a picture of? Him standing next to her. Okay. Somebody just, it's not coming in real clear. I think he'd be said to grab her head and pulled it up. Like posing with the body. Yeah.

I mean, he was standing up almost straight. Jim even had Tim take a picture. He was posing with Cassidy's head like a trophy buck. Tim claims he was emotionless and just following Jim's orders. Hand me this. Take away that. Like a butcher's assistant. He started cutting one off and then after he splitter down the middle,

not just the gutting room, but the splitting. and he went to the corner parts. There again, knowing what we did with regular carcasses, he just began natural to do it. We know you love true crime, but if you ever find yourself saying it feels natural to cut a human into pieces, I'm sorry, but there's no help for you.

You're fucked. Jim wasn't finished. What he did next crossed the line from killing to desecration, the kind of act that makes investigators question whether this was about murder at all, or something far more primal. He cut off her boobs. Okay. He answered you don't tell you.

Okay. As you'll tell you, he put in the bowl. Okay. The boobs, he threw in the bucket. When you say the bucket, you're talking about the bucket. The washband. The washband. Then we had all the guts and everything in.

Jim was all about trophies, apparently. They got rid of her like she was nothing more than a carcass. According to Tim, Jim had him dig a hole in bury her head. The visceral remains, the guts, were carried off in buckets and dumped in the woods. Let the animals do their jobs, in Tim's words. The rest was butchered, quartered, and handled peace by peasant. peace. When investigators later served a warrant, they opened a freezer on the property. Inside, they found packages of meat. Some were labeled deer, some coon, and every other form of wildlife

you could imagine. But they also found neatly wrapped packs labeled simply 724, the day they murdered and processed Cassidy. This raised a question darker than anything investigators were prepared for. Was this murder for murder's sake? Or had Cassidy Rainwater been killed, butchered, and prepared for something else? And then the biggest mystery of all. Why would anyone, whether it was Tim, Jim, or another accomplice, send those pictures straight to the FBI.

It could only have been for some kind of sick bragging or proof that more people were involved. And there may have been more victims. Now, there are more questions than answers in the disappearance of a 33-year-old Missouri woman. Cassidy Rainwater hasn't been seen or heard from since at least July 25th. With Rainwater still missing, two men Timothy Norton and James Phelps are in custody in charge with kidnapping. in connection to the case. They're accused of locking her up in a cage inside this small cabin near Lebanon, Missouri, adding to the mystery just hours before both men were scheduled to make their first appearance in court, that same cabin burned to the ground. The Dallas County Sheriff's

Office has been tight-lipped about the case. In a lengthy post online, the sheriff condemned rumors about the case, adding, quote, no, you are not entitled to a play-by-play of an ongoing investigation. If you want to be in the know, we are hiring along with every other law enforcement agency in the country. The property was burned to the ground just days before their first court appearance. To this day, by the way, no one has been charged. Officially investigators said it was a propane tank explosion. But for a community already buzzing with rumors of cages, body parts, and cannibalism, it only deepened the paranoia.

The sheriff's department was frustrated and issued a harsh statement to the public. But here's the problem. The stories weren't all wrong. The cage was real. The pictures were real. The meat in the freezer was real. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.

If Cassidy was packaged like venison, where exactly was this meat going to end up? The Ozarks are creepy, put it that way. You've seen the TV show, I hope. It's a great show, by the way. And the characters in it are pretty spot on. Those hill people are weird, man. There's no other way to put it. By late summer of 2021, Dallas County, Missouri was giving the best example of what is dark and creepy about the Ozarks.

A lonely cabin on Moon Valley Road surrounded by thick Ozark Woods seemed like just another rundown property, hidden from view like so many others in the backcountry. Jim Phelps lived there, a reclusive man with interests in BDSM. His closest friend was Tim Norton, a truck driver who hovered around Jim's orbit, more follower than leader. At least, that's how he described their relationship. Both men had reputations for keeping to themselves, but also for letting strangers, especially young women, drift into their lives. Cassidy Rainwater was one of them. She was a 33-year-old mother trying to put her life back together after years of set. By August, she was staying at the cabin because the property owner told her she could.

Within weeks, she had disappeared. What happened next was no mystery of the woods. Jim and Tim got tired of her existence and strangled her to death. They quartered her body on a gantry, like game, and left investigators with photographs that looked more like hunting trophies than evidence of a crime. They say she stayed willingly, that she climbed into a dog cage willingly and stole from them freely. But these allegations weren't true. She had no idea what she was getting herself into.

And before she knew it, she was a captive. If this could happen to her, who else could it or did it happen to? Text messages between Tim and Jim suggested they were constantly on the prowl, looking for. for women. Worse yet, probably underage girls. They even suggested that Tim may have been bringing women or girls back after being on the road as a trucker. The messages were always cryptic and coded. Wren, the young woman you heard from before, remembers her first-hand experience.

One of the first things that I thought after he left was there's no way that man doesn't have people in his basement. He's weird. Wren didn't know was that Tim Norton was worse than weird. He was, in fact, a predator of young women. I thought that he was, like, a little too old to be doing all this, and especially too old to be hitting on women who were, I think, God, I was probably 22 at the time.

Like, he was, the conversation that I had with him, I have never had anybody speak to me that way, so I remembered him. But when that mugshot came up, I remember being in my college apartment, and it had come across like CNN or some big, it was a mainstream thing. And I saw it, and immediately I texted my friend that I worked with. And I said, do you remember that creepy guy that I was telling you about? Like, I swear to God, this is him. and then I read kind of more about who he was and what he did.

And when I saw a trucker from Missouri, I was like, oh, my God, that's him. Fortunately, Ren had enough life experience and confidence to keep Tim at a distance. And she immediately reported what had happened. I had talked to my general manager, and I said, this guy is weird, and he's asking me all these weird questions. I need you to, like, let the other girls know that, they need to have somebody walk them to their cars tonight. I don't know how long he's going to be here,

but he doesn't seem like he has a lot going on. And he kind of blew me off. And then, you know, one or two-ish weeks later, I came back in with the mugshot pulled up. And I said, you know, this is the guy that I was telling you about, like, I'm serious, we need more cameras. Right before Tim left the restaurant, after staying way too long without ordering food,

Ren remembered the feeling she got from him. I noticed that he looked sort of satisfied that I was uncomfortable. Like he really enjoyed that what he was saying was kind of making me squirm. Like I really obviously didn't want to speak to him. And he knew that. And I think that that was kind of part of the game for him. Ren's experience offered a glimpse of how Tim would, operate in public, unsettling, inappropriate, and just weird.

But in his own words, he gave investigators an even darker view of what was happening back at the cabin where he and Jim hung out. During his interview, Tim admitted that both he and Jim were into BDSM. But Jim took it even further. He interacted online with all kinds of women, including minors in his sick fantasy world. According to Tim, Jim was more to blame. He maintained he had only stumbled across the content on Jim's hard drive. He described it almost casually like it was just another hobby. He ever talked to you about those chaperums?

Yeah, he didn't even mention what they were about and stuff. Like what's what kind of cameras? Some of them were more than darker, BDSM and that type of lifestyle and some by lifestyle so yeah I mean I know a little bit about it mostly more than him you know as far as what it is so it's a little odd isn't that what did he get into it no I suppose maybe but maybe you continue to stay with it and what uh like did he think in particular that he didn't know I don't know if he got into it or not I mean he talked to people he had 10 years but you know like what was some of the weirdest stuff that he would talk about in there I don't know I didn't tell you what he talked about in the catrooms.

No, but he told you about. Some things he went. I mean, you mentioned, you know, this person from Sweden or this person from this country or some other country that he was talking to about it. That was about it. But that wasn't all of it. Timbdown played everything, what they thought about, what they talked about, and what they actually did. But investigators compared his story against the phone records and Facebook messages,

and the reality looked far worse than what Tim admitted. Jim's collection of bondage pictures and messages all contained in labeled folders included women hanging on crosses and women in cages. There was even a folder named milking. This contained sick images of women tied up with their breasts connected to cow-milking devices. There were other folders

labeled kids in cages and nude babies. No description needed. He didn't ever mention that she might be into it, but that, you know, he'd be willing to try it with her. I mean, I know he had some VDS himself. Like what? He got a harness, he had some handcuffs, ankle shackles. He had a toolbox full of stuff like that.

Okay. You know, adult enjoyables. That's what I could put it. And then there was a tail in there and some whips and other things. To each his own, right? Live and let live, right? All that shit. But there's a big difference between consensual roleplay and being a predator,

an older man waiting for vulnerable women to be delivered to him. Or to stumble into his trap like a fly. in the grips of a Venus flytrap, like Cassidy did, for example. And it's an entirely different matter for someone to end up the way Cassidy did, in a freezer. You've heard the phrase, where there's smoke, there's fire. Well, where there's a freezer full of human meat, fill in the blank. Jim had even written a macabre story on the topic. Not only that, it's clear he did some intense research on the subject of cannibalism.

It's like, no, I do. I want to know why he's doing this. Okay. Because that made me rethink of the story he had read when I was kind of stupid and it was hard drive looking for movies and stuff. And I seen it and it was like, what's this? So I looked at it and read it. It's like, no, I don't want to know if he's, that's what he's funny on doing? because I don't know. Okay.

You know, if you remember correctly when you said something about cannibalism, when you first interviewed me, I said, take my blood shook. Tell me if I have. Because I myself didn't know I had, if I had. Hard to hear, but that was Tim telling the detectives that they might want to analyze his blood for human DNA, like someone else's, if that's possible.

because if he had partaken in Jim's sick, cannibal fantasy, he didn't know about it. Yeah, sure, he's been to a few barbecues at Jim since the murder, but who was to say? Do you know if his intention was to consume, to eat some of that flesh? At the time, honestly, no. But since then, maybe. Okay, why maybe? Because he cut the genitalia out and he kept it. Mm-hmm.

And... Do you know what he did with the genitalia? No, I did not. Okay. As far as I know, he threw it away. I don't know. Have you told someone else something different? No.

I've had several people, and it's a running joke in the pods that I was a cannibal and that he used it to make a sandwich with and several things like that. Like I said, it's a running joke. Mm-hmm. You know, and I've done my best and explored everybody. I didn't eat it, and I had no idea what you're talking about. And yet they still make a joke out of it. And sometimes we make jokes, you know, with other people, you know,

just play along with the cannibal situation. But I didn't eat any of it, I didn't touch it, I don't know what you did with it. You know, I know what I've heard. I know what I've seen on the news. Beyond that, I don't know what anything else. Here's a good example of the way Tim would minimize. He pretended that he only went along with the jokes about cannibalism in jail because he didn't want any trouble. But he later admitted to signing autographs for money under the name Hannibal, the cannibal.

While Jim stayed silent through the days following Cassidy's murder, all of Tim's minimizing and Amanda's beliefs that it was all a joke couldn't change the overwhelming evidence. that both Jim and Tim had viciously murdered Cassidy, and Amanda knew about it. Eventually, the courtroom knew about it too. Appearing in person for the first time since being charged in mid-September, James Phelps was escorted into a Dallas County courtroom and asked if his defense was aware of the new first-degree murder charge filed against him. The judge quickly took up his attorney's motion to set a bond,

with Phelps public defender arguing Phelps is not a flight risk, having spent most of his life in the area. Mr. Felms does have significant ties to the community. He is a lifelong residence of the area, with the exception of the military, and he did live in St. Louis for about three years. Attorney Sam Gerhardt says Phelps that only faced charges of writing bad checks

and illegal hunting in the past. But prosecutors argue Phelps poses a danger to the community, especially those that are caring for Cassidy Rainwater's children. The state's position is he probably needs to be held out of the community safety. Prosecuting attorney Jonathan Barker tells the court Phelps co-defendant Timothy Norton confessed to deputies he and Phelps would search for potential victims online and at a local Walmart. There's evidence that this particular defendant online is talking with potential victims that he's attempting to persuade to appear at his location or to make themselves available. that he picked up by himself or a defendant should be brought back to his location where he discusses with that he will, in fact, harm them or shield them.

And prosecutors also said tonight, they are weighing all options in Phelps case, including possibly seeking the death penalty. By 2023, the courts had delivered their verdict. In April, Jim Phelps centered an Alford plea to first-degree murder, meaning he knew. knew that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him, but he still maintained his innocence. The judge sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole. In June, Timothy Norton pleaded guilty to the same charge and received an identical sentence, life without parole. As part of his plea agreement, charges of kidnapping and abandonment of a

corpse were dropped. Cassidy's son Aden has spoken about his mother, saying that even though his parents gave him up for adoption at the age of four, he loves her and knows she did her best. He admits that adoption was probably the best thing for him. He's had a good life. Aidan has grown up to be a very intelligent and talented young man who plays 35 different instruments and loves theater. This is what he said at his mom's funeral. about the memories and just how great they were.

She always loved the river. It was her favorite place, and I remember her always singing to me as a baby. She was a great person. She was the hardest working mom I've ever known, and I'm so proud of it. And I wish she could know that to know. Cassidy Rainwater died in the most horrible of circus. circumstances, and what they did to her body after was beyond despicable. She may have fallen through the cracks at the time she landed on Jim's doorstep, but she was a mother, a daughter, and a friend.

She just happened to be a woman who trusted the wrong people. But the question that lingers is bigger than Cassidy. Jim and Tim weren't just two isolated monsters who snapped one day. They were predators. And like all predators, they hunted where they knew the vulnerable lived. For them, it was mostly women on the margins. Alone. Struggling.

Sometimes with no place to go. But this was changing. They started stalking in parking lots and restaurants. That's where Wren's insight becomes so important. It could have been her. She crossed paths with two. Tim before he was caught and put away. And her story shows how monsters like Jim and Tim operated, not just with violence, but

with patience, with manipulation. They looked for weakness, tested boundaries, and moved in slowly until it was too late. Fortunately for Wren, she knew what to look for. She works as an EMT. I don't think I've ever ran into another murderer, but I have worked cases where people are being trafficked and on the side of the road we're getting people out of cars who are being taken against their will.

And it's a lot of the same behavior. It's a lot of that, like, I'm out to make you uncomfortable and I'm betting that you're not going to say anything about it. They look for people who kind of don't hold themselves high who kind of you shrink your shoulders, you make yourself small, you stay out of the way. And a lot of people think that like being out of sight in a way makes them a little safer,

and it just makes it easier for the people who don't want to do horrible things to you to not notice you, to not see you when you need help. And like a lot of, I've read a lot of studies about serial killers, and the way that they pick their victims is who's the smallest person in the room that doesn't look very sure of themselves. Cassidy may have been vulnerable, but she was strong-willed and stubborn, according to everyone who knew her, that is. But see, Jim and Tim didn't seek her out. She landed there and she became a problem for them because she didn't want to give in to their demands. She didn't want a sexual relationship with Jim.

Even Tim acknowledged that. And she paid for it with her life. Another thing that I wanted to touch on is like the packaged meat of it all. The cannibalism was the craziest part of it for me to read because it was one of those things, especially like, again, as the information is coming out, you see it. And it's so out there and weird. and wrong that you kind of don't want to believe it. But then again, like, and especially getting in the line of work that I'm in now,

there are definitely people that, like, beyond your worst imagination, will do things like that or kind of surround themselves with people that are cool with stuff like that. I don't know. I don't know if society as a whole just wants to push all the up. ugly stuff under the rug and don't think about it and that happens far away and, you know, it'll never be my problem. And a lot of this stuff is happening like in these tiny middle of nowhere unincorporated towns and like counties that have just woods forever.

It's hiding kind of in plain sight. Dallas County Police didn't find evidence that the human meat in Jim's freezer was ever shared or sold. But absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Bon Appetit.

That's going to do it for another one. If you're new here, head on over to sordonscale.com for more. Until next week, stay safe. Mike, you are so funny. You crack me up, dude. Keep doing what you're doing. You're making so many people laugh.

But we don't speak out, you know what I mean? So all you hear is the negative. From the neg, you know, negative, negative. Negative. Take care. Mike, and thank you. Don't believe they hate us.