The Secret in Black Rock Canyon

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Speaker 8 Tonight, on date live, we had a victim who was a 16-year-old female that had been stabbed numerous times.

Speaker 9 Now I was in a complete state of shock. Who could do this to my daughter?

Speaker 8 She was a good kid, somebody that everybody loved at school. Say hi, please.

Speaker 10 She likes laughed at every single joke that I made, even if they were terrible. She made me feel special.

Speaker 11 It doesn't happen in a small town.

Speaker 12 There were rumors upon rumors.

Speaker 8 Did we have a madman on the loose? The biggest surprise was really the videotape that we found.

Speaker 13 Unfortunately, we have the grueling task of killing our two friends.

Speaker 8 They were obsessed with kill movies, thriller movies.

Speaker 14 We're sick, psychopaths, did they get pleasure of killing other people?

Speaker 9 I was still waiting for her to walk out of the house.

Speaker 10 I just remember it was a normal day. If I would have known that was her last day, I would have treated that day different.

Speaker 15 A young life ended by killer, starring in a homemade horror film. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Date Live.

Speaker 15 Here's Keith Morrison with the secret in Black Rock Canyon.

Speaker 19 It was Sunday afternoon calm.

Speaker 4 No longer quite summer, not exactly autumn yet.

Speaker 21 Bits of yellow and orange growing here and there in the green.

Speaker 24 Around Pocatello, Idaho, it was September 24th, 2006.

Speaker 12 It was a beautiful day, really. Sunny.
There was no snow or anything on the ground.

Speaker 24 Idaho State Police Lieutenant Robert Rauch was on weekend duty when the radio squawked.

Speaker 24 I need an ambulance, Dad.

Speaker 24 Okay, what's going on?

Speaker 12 It came through our dispatch, and when the address came out, I knew exactly where it was because I grew up there.

Speaker 30 A street called Whispering Cliffs.

Speaker 5 Lieutenant Rauch raced there.

Speaker 11 Raced toward the nightmare.

Speaker 31 Couldn't know that as he drove, of course, or that what he would encounter was going to be almost literally a horror movie.

Speaker 32 What did you see in that house?

Speaker 12 Well, I saw a young lady laying on the floor,

Speaker 12 lots of blood.

Speaker 33 She had been stabbed again and again.

Speaker 26 Lieutenant Rauch secured the house, called for backup.

Speaker 24 In town, Police Captain John Gansky got an urgent call from his colleague.

Speaker 37 Did you get a sense over the phone that this was something different?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I got a sense from just

Speaker 8 his voice that we knew that we needed every resource that we could muster up to get on this and see what we could do to solve this.

Speaker 18 The victim was 16-year-old Cassie Joe Stoddart, a junior at the local Pocatello High School.

Speaker 20 That weekend, Cassie and her boyfriend Matt had gone to house and pet sit for her relatives while they took a weekend trip. Sunday afternoon, the relatives arrived home to this horror and called 911.

Speaker 26 As Lieutenant Rauch tried to absorb it all, Cassie's parents arrived.

Speaker 12 They, of course, wanted to go into the place, but we couldn't let them go in there because it's a crime scene. And, you know, I think any parent would want to go in there.

Speaker 40 This is Cassie's mother, Anna.

Speaker 9 I couldn't believe it. I'm like, I was still waiting for her to walk out of that house and everything be okay.

Speaker 9 And it wasn't happening. I mean, I was in a complete state of shock.

Speaker 9 Who could do this to my daughter?

Speaker 41 Anna had let her house sit because Cassie was so responsible.

Speaker 31 But partway through the weekend, something felt off.

Speaker 31 Cassie wasn't answering the phone.

Speaker 9 Then we got sidetracked doing other things. I'm thinking, oh, she'll be okay.

Speaker 9 She'll be okay. You know, it's Pocetello, Idaho.
You don't think that.

Speaker 9 But when I didn't get answers, I wanted to go up there that night and we just got

Speaker 9 doing things.

Speaker 22 So she told herself not to worry and went to bed.

Speaker 9 I'm like, oh, I'll just go to sleep. We'll go up there in the morning.
I'm just going to go pick her up and bring her back home. That's all there is to it.

Speaker 25 Too late.

Speaker 31 Monday morning, like an electric shock, the news spread around Pocatello High School.

Speaker 24 Our teacher Bob Beeson had just arrived when one of his students came up to him.

Speaker 11 And at first it was disbelief. She told me Cassie's been murdered.

Speaker 42 It's not something you hear about a 16-year-old girl.

Speaker 45 No, and just unimaginable.

Speaker 12 I had lost students to car accidents,

Speaker 45 but never something like that.

Speaker 38 Cassie's friend Justin Sands heard at school, too.

Speaker 5 Everybody did.

Speaker 10 I didn't believe it at first because they, you know, I'm like, no, I just saw her on Friday, you know.

Speaker 30 Cassie and Justin became fast friends in English English class.

Speaker 10 I sat right to the right of her and she sat to the left of me.

Speaker 34 Pretty close together.

Speaker 46 Yeah,

Speaker 10 we were friends. I don't know, she like laughed at every single joke that I made, even if they were terrible.
So she made me feel funny, she made me feel special.

Speaker 18 Now, once boisterous hallways were filled with hushed whispers and nervous glances.

Speaker 11 I mean, we were convinced it had to be somebody outside the school. It had to be somebody,

Speaker 11 you know, just passing through.

Speaker 15 We wanted answers.

Speaker 11 Everybody in the school did.

Speaker 39 Police, too, of course.

Speaker 6 Back at the house in Whispering Cliffs, now a crime scene, detectives were methodically piece by piece trying to figure out what happened.

Speaker 42 Was the house disrupted at all?

Speaker 37 I mean, was stuff thrown around?

Speaker 8 From looking at the scene, it was clear that Cassie put up an extreme fight. She fought for her life.

Speaker 23 But the knife, the murder weapon, gone.

Speaker 28 Along with any concrete reason, it made no sense.

Speaker 8 Some of the first thoughts that go through my mind was, you know, do we have a madman on the loose? You know, or.

Speaker 28 Because there's no obvious motive.

Speaker 8 No, no obvious motive at this point in time.

Speaker 42 Did it look as if there had been a break-in?

Speaker 8 There was no indication of forced entry

Speaker 8 or, you know, burglary or robbery.

Speaker 28 But Captain Gansky knew full well the whole town demanded answers.

Speaker 8 We know that time is of the essence. We know that, you know, we have to

Speaker 8 really get on this quickly.

Speaker 41 And so they began by piecing together, hour by hour, Cassie Joe Stoddard's last day on this earth, and somewhere buried, would be the clue they were looking for.

Speaker 14 Look, it's Cassie.

Speaker 43 Hey, look, I'll look, Cassie.

Speaker 28 The hills around the little country house they called Whispering Cliffs, bucolic and quiet on a Sunday afternoon,

Speaker 40 were lost on police captain John Gansky, focused now on the obscenity of the crime committed here.

Speaker 31 He had to know everything about Cassie Joe Stoddard.

Speaker 8 Cassie was a, you know, a thriving 16-year-old

Speaker 8 student at Pocatello High School. You know, all indications

Speaker 8 she got good grades.

Speaker 8 She was a good kid, and she was viewed as somebody that everybody loved at school.

Speaker 31 Detectives retrace Cassie's steps hour by hour, starting with her morning at Pocatello High School.

Speaker 33 Friday, September 22nd, 2006, 8 a.m.

Speaker 33 Cassie's mom, Anna.

Speaker 9 I remember dropping her off at school that morning.

Speaker 37 In her green shirt and her white jacket.

Speaker 40 As students filed into their morning classes,

Speaker 31 Art teacher Bob Beeson recalled an air of excitement in the hallways.

Speaker 45 People are already gearing up for homecoming and things like that coming up.

Speaker 37 So the social life in the hallways would be pretty intense at that point, I would think.

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 3 yeah.

Speaker 46 The hallways are hectic.

Speaker 3 So.

Speaker 30 Half an hour later, a classmate captured Cassie on video at her locker.

Speaker 30 Hello, Cassie.

Speaker 30 Say hi, please.

Speaker 48 Hi. Okay, see ya.

Speaker 48 Wait.

Speaker 34 Her schedule was, as it always was, on Fridays.

Speaker 24 Geometry, Spanish,

Speaker 29 and of course, English with her friend Justin Sands.

Speaker 10 I remember the very last time I saw her. I'll never forget that.

Speaker 48 Describe it.

Speaker 10 I remember walking out of class right behind her as we went different ways.

Speaker 32 So you have a recollection of seeing a

Speaker 32 fleeting glance as she walked away.

Speaker 35 Yeah.

Speaker 10 I just remember seeing the back of her head head and how she did, how she did her hair

Speaker 10 and

Speaker 10 just her

Speaker 10 walking down the hall.

Speaker 10 And I remember

Speaker 10 when I found out that she had got murdered, I remember that vision was what kept going through my head the very last time that I saw her.

Speaker 26 After school, Anna picked up Cassie and boyfriend Matt Beckham. and then dropped them off at the house on Whispering Cliffs to house sit and take care of the two dogs and cats.

Speaker 9 I dropped her and Matt off. I set the rules, this, this, that, and I called her that night.
I actually talked to her that night. She said, oh, I'll call you in the morning, mom, okay?

Speaker 9 Well, you know, trustful mother, you know, you trust your kids.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 18 But

Speaker 18 16 years old.

Speaker 28 As evening deepened,

Speaker 50 Anna could not resist picking up the phone just to check.

Speaker 9 I called later on that evening. It was about 9.30, 10 o'clock.
And we're just watching movies. I'll call you in the morning, Mom.

Speaker 9 Okay, I love you. Bye.
And that was

Speaker 9 the last time I talked to her.

Speaker 28 An apparently uneventful night.

Speaker 38 Except for something odd.

Speaker 40 Sometime that evening, the electricity went off, then came back on again.

Speaker 4 Boyfriend Matt said he departed around 11.30 p.m., leaving Cassie all alone at the Whispering Cliffs house.

Speaker 9 You know, he was the last one that saw her. I didn't know what was going on, who had been there, what happened to her, what was going on.
I didn't know.

Speaker 8 Her boyfriend, Matt, was with her for a period of time,

Speaker 8 but had left on Friday night. And so this was pretty interesting to us.

Speaker 28 What happened after Matt left was a mystery.

Speaker 40 Lieutenant Robert Rauch and forensic technicians scoured the house for evidence and answers.

Speaker 20 And one question in particular stuck out to them:

Speaker 52 Why did the power go out?

Speaker 12 They said, Okay, if the power's been getting turned on and off, somebody's been in the fuse box, so we probably better check that for fingerprints and make sure whose prints there are.

Speaker 12 And they discovered some prints on the box.

Speaker 30 And the prints matched a man.

Speaker 53 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 53 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 53 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 53 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 18 Police investigating the murder of Cassie Joe Stoddart believed they discovered a key piece of evidence.

Speaker 49 Perfect fingerprints lifted from the fuse box from which power was turned off and on the night Cassie was killed.

Speaker 17 And there was a match.

Speaker 37 Who did they belong to?

Speaker 12 They belonged to Cassie's mom's boyfriend. And so, you know, he naturally became the person that the police wanted to talk to next.

Speaker 5 So they interviewed boyfriend Victor and demanded to know just what was he doing in the Whispering Cliffs house.

Speaker 29 Victor told them he'd been there to fix a few things for Anna's relatives.

Speaker 12 He said that he he had done some work at that house and had been in the fuse box and so naturally his prints would be on there.

Speaker 12 They also checked him for an alibi and found out that he was at the time of this incident at the next door neighbor's house playing video games and that was corroborated by the next door neighbors and then his time back home was corroborated by Cassie's mom.

Speaker 12 So we eliminated him because we quite frankly couldn't place him at the scene.

Speaker 18 But of course, there was Cassie's boyfriend, Matt Beckham, 16 years old.

Speaker 27 Matt, after all, was the last person known to have seen Cassie alive.

Speaker 8 Matt's a person of interest that we really need to talk to.

Speaker 24 The day Cassie's body was found, Captain Gansky went to Matt's home, knocked on the door.

Speaker 37 How did he respond to your suddenly showing up at his door?

Speaker 8 Of course, we had to break the news to Matt that his girlfriend had been murdered. And it sticks in in my mind that Matt didn't show a great deal of emotion at all.

Speaker 8 And that was somewhat of a red flag.

Speaker 42 The whole thing was flat.

Speaker 8 It's pretty flat. All the way through.
Yes.

Speaker 28 Kansky made that mental note and then got down to what he had gone there to do.

Speaker 33 He asked Matt to recount his last hours with Cassie.

Speaker 46 And Matt confirmed what Anna had already told police.

Speaker 51 that after school he and Cassie were dropped off at Whispering Cliffs to house sit and take care of the dogs dogs and cats.

Speaker 8 They watched some movies, you know, they ate food, and it was his intent to stay there with Cassie.

Speaker 33 About 10 p.m., said Matt, the electricity went out, scared them both.

Speaker 5 A few moments later, the lights turned on again.

Speaker 50 So they decided it must have been a problem of the power company.

Speaker 41 At 11 p.m., Matt called his mother.

Speaker 8 Said that she was coming to pick Matt up, that

Speaker 8 Matt needed to come home. He didn't really want to come home.
And Matt requested if Cassie could come with them and stay the night.

Speaker 8 But in the background, the mother had heard Cassie say, like, no, no,

Speaker 8 I promised that I would house it. And so I've got to stay here and take care of my commitment.

Speaker 49 When Matt's parents arrived, he kissed his girlfriend goodnight.

Speaker 17 and then got in the car.

Speaker 40 And that, said Matt, was the last time he saw Cassie Joe

Speaker 37 if she had not been quite so responsible to stay and look after the house

Speaker 8 isn't that the irony of it she was trying to be responsible she's trying to do the right thing and and it it didn't turn out for her at 12 30 a.m worried about cassie all alone in that house with the scary blackouts Matt said he picked up the phone and dialed her number.

Speaker 8 He was concerned to check in on Cassie. He'd called the house several times, got no answer.

Speaker 46 Matt's story seemed plausible, but his flat demeanor worried the detectives.

Speaker 16 Didn't add up.

Speaker 38 Not to police and not to classmates at school.

Speaker 50 The rumor went around fast, said Justin Sands, that Matt was somehow involved in Cassie's murder.

Speaker 10 Instantly, everyone thought it was Matt Beckham.

Speaker 37 What can you tell me about him at that age?

Speaker 10 He was just a goofball.

Speaker 10 He didn't take much things serious.

Speaker 32 Why do you suppose she was attracted to him?

Speaker 10 I guess you wouldn't.

Speaker 10 I wouldn't ever guess those two to be together, to be honest. Oh, really? They're way different, yeah.
I've known Matt for forever, too.

Speaker 10 He was a good kid, just trying to make it through.

Speaker 26 The detectives decided to give Matt a polygraph.

Speaker 8 He took a polygraph,

Speaker 8 and guess what? He passed with flying colors.

Speaker 42 Was that a big turn? Because there had been a lot of suspicion just based based on his reaction.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. It was a big turn for us.
It was encouraging, at least, that, okay, now we don't have to spend maybe more time with him anymore.

Speaker 20 The polygraph seemed to clear Matt.

Speaker 28 But as the interview was ending, he revealed something, a detail he'd almost forgotten to mention.

Speaker 8 He just kind of mentioned in passing that, oh, by the way,

Speaker 8 Tori and Brian stopped by the house on Whispering Cliffs on Friday night.

Speaker 42 Just in passing.

Speaker 8 Just in passing. And which we thought was kind of odd that he didn't say it earlier.

Speaker 23 Mind you, said Matt, Tori Adam Chick and Brian Draper were friends, and they left the house before he did.

Speaker 28 Still, might be something in this.

Speaker 37 What did you think when you heard that?

Speaker 8 Oh, it said, absolutely. So now we've got two other people that we need to immediately, you know, start talking to.

Speaker 26 Two teenagers, fellow students at Pocatella High, who came and went the last night of Cassie's life.

Speaker 21 What did they know?

Speaker 41 It was just an offhand remark, really,

Speaker 26 when Cassie Joe Stoddard's boyfriend Matt Beckham mentioned that two students had dropped by the Whispering Cliffs house on Friday evening,

Speaker 46 Tori Adamchik and Brian Draper were their names, also 16, also students at Pocatello High.

Speaker 23 So police tracked down Tori and Brian at their homes, and they confirmed what Matt had told them.

Speaker 33 The boys stopped by the house, watched a movie together, Kill Bill 2, ate some snacks, toured the house as curious teenagers would, and then they departed.

Speaker 8 Around 9.30, they left and decided to go to a movie in Pocatello. And it was really weird to us that

Speaker 8 they weren't able to tell us what the movie was about, which we thought was odd.

Speaker 27 The detectives drove downtown to the theater.

Speaker 8 We did find a

Speaker 8 person that worked there that happened to be a classmate. of Brian and Tori's, and she was able to confirm that for us, that they were absolutely not there

Speaker 37 now there's a tell for you it is

Speaker 8 at that point did you think that we got our guys here we knew that they were lying to us now we have to figure out why are they lying to us

Speaker 40 but when captain ganski tried to contact tori again

Speaker 24 neither he nor his parents seemed to want to talk

Speaker 8 So we kind of focused our efforts on Brian. The next day, you know, day two, we had an interview, a face-to-face interview with Brian.
We've done our homework, okay?

Speaker 59 Yeah, and I'm here to tell you, you didn't go to the movie. Okay.
You were not at that movie theater.

Speaker 59 We didn't go to the movie. Okay.

Speaker 59 I can tell you what

Speaker 59 we're doing. I was trying to hide this.

Speaker 8 We went through cars.

Speaker 59 We went through cars. What does that mean?

Speaker 8 We checked for the cars that they're

Speaker 48 locked.

Speaker 41 So Brian admitted they lied about going to the movie theater because they didn't want to tell police they were actually burglarizing cars.

Speaker 59 Does he have anything to do with the murder of Cassie? No.

Speaker 8 No, I did not have anything to do with the murder of Cassie. We have a promise from you that there is no more lines, right? No, this is it.

Speaker 44 This is it.

Speaker 59 I don't know why I even think I would kill my friend.

Speaker 5 Captain Gansky wasn't buying it.

Speaker 36 So he arranged for Brian to take a polygraph the next day.

Speaker 18 But just before it was to begin, the polygrapher called the captain and said.

Speaker 8 You know, he's very, very upset. He needs to talk to the two

Speaker 8 detectives, so it was a mad dash.

Speaker 8 I knew that when somebody's upset and they're crying and they brought both, now both of his parents are with him, we knew that something's something's good's about to happen for the investigation.

Speaker 46 And here he was, clearly upset.

Speaker 18 As he told a story that seemed straight from a horror movie.

Speaker 18 After leaving the Whispering Cliffs house, said Brian, he and Tori sneaked back in through a basement door, intending to prank Cassie, just scare her.

Speaker 22 But then he said,

Speaker 29 things got crazy.

Speaker 44 So we came up the stairs and we walked here and we shut the store. We shut it just, you know, just scared.

Speaker 44 Cassie was saying,

Speaker 44 who's ironing stuff? And I was about to say, you know, hey, and then she screams loud just.

Speaker 62 When that happens, do you see her? And do you see Tori? I see Tori. Walk over there and

Speaker 62 she still right now.

Speaker 62 She was standing up and she had a cell on a cell phone, but like a health phone in her hand. So I walked closer and he was really scouting.
And I was,

Speaker 62 what's going on?

Speaker 62 Was she laying on the ground?

Speaker 62 Yes, and she was breathing really hard. And he's like, I have to kill her, I have to kill her.
So I stabbed her again. And I'm like, what are you doing?

Speaker 62 So was he stabbing her?

Speaker 59 Was he in the chest?

Speaker 62 Yes.

Speaker 62 Then it was pitched black. And then he turned his flashlight on Cassie and I saw her face.
I guess she wasn't there anymore.

Speaker 62 And I just

Speaker 62 And we walked back downstairs. We turned his power back on.

Speaker 62 And we went through Star.

Speaker 62 You stabbed her, too.

Speaker 47 No, I didn't touch Cassie. I didn't touch her.

Speaker 51 Brian swore that's just how it happened.

Speaker 19 It was a prank, gone horribly wrong.

Speaker 31 Yes, he was there when Cassie was murdered, but he was just a witness.

Speaker 23 It was Tori who killed her.

Speaker 8 Tori was the primary

Speaker 8 person behind this assault, and he was the mastermind behind it, and he was just there.

Speaker 42 So basically, giving it up, but kind of blaming the other guy.

Speaker 35 Right.

Speaker 8 Now we're armed with all this information that we learned from Brian. So now we have to figure it out.
How are we going to get it out of Tori?

Speaker 44 We put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Speaker 26 Finally, the detectives got Tori into an interview room.

Speaker 33 Accompanied by his parents.

Speaker 60 We know how it went down. Tell us what happened.

Speaker 60 Like flat out of Cassie's place. We went through cars to be branded.

Speaker 60 Okay.

Speaker 60 You know, we're not here to insult you or anything, but

Speaker 60 we don't believe your story. Take a deep breath and do it, but

Speaker 60 you know the truth. If we don't get the truth, we can't come together.
We can't work this thing out. We can't do it.
You're going to be left out in the cold. You can't talk to an inventory.

Speaker 60 You can do that.

Speaker 27 You can talk to me.

Speaker 27 And that was that.

Speaker 31 There'd be nothing more from Tori.

Speaker 40 They had enough, though, to hold both and charge them with first-degree murder.

Speaker 46 But Captain Gansky knew he hadn't heard the real story.

Speaker 21 Not yet.

Speaker 36 So Gansky and the other detectives focused on Brian.

Speaker 31 And bit by bit, Brian revealed more

Speaker 36 and even took investigators on a trip.

Speaker 25 And what he showed them?

Speaker 16 Horror movie indeed.

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Speaker 25 It was out at Black Rock Canyon that the certainty of it all hit police captain John Gansky.

Speaker 26 How incomprehensible it was, but now undeniably true.

Speaker 5 Brian had told them there was evidence buried there: clothing, Clothing, weapons, some masks.

Speaker 34 He led the way in.

Speaker 8 So Brian and Tori would have parked their vehicle somewhere in this area right here. And then they walked this way up into the canyon

Speaker 11 where they dug a hole up here.

Speaker 15 And this is where they got rid of the evidence.

Speaker 8 We were just amazed when we actually saw the murder weapons, the clothing clothing that they were wearing, the masks.

Speaker 8 And, you know, the biggest surprise was really the videotape that we found in the hole.

Speaker 46 Videotape?

Speaker 5 Brian hadn't mentioned anything about that.

Speaker 34 Maybe because they burned it.

Speaker 8 It was burned pretty badly. It looked like something that

Speaker 8 maybe we won't be able to recover what's on it.

Speaker 33 So they sent it off to the experts and kept their fingers crossed and what do you know

Speaker 8 i'd received a call um that evening and found out that you know hey that the tape had been fixed i think we can watch it and you might want to get out here and see what's going on and it was you know my fear that we were going to see the killing the whole homicide the killing and i don't know if i was ready to see that there was silence throughout the the whole room and nobody said a word you could hear a pin drop or sick psychopaths psychopaths did not get pleasure of killing other people.

Speaker 61 There on tape was a horror movie.

Speaker 14 We're gonna be just like Scream.

Speaker 61 Only this one is real.

Speaker 14 Scream, yes.

Speaker 36 The opening scene: Cassie at her locker preparing for class.

Speaker 18 The male voice you hear is Brian's.

Speaker 14 Hey, look, it's Cassie.

Speaker 43 Hey, look, I don't know. Hello, Cassie.

Speaker 13 I'm getting you on tape, okay?

Speaker 43 Say hi, please.

Speaker 43 Hi. Okay, see ya.

Speaker 26 Brian and Tori skipped fourth period

Speaker 40 in the school library.

Speaker 26 They filmed themselves creating a death list of classmates and their plan for that night.

Speaker 8 September 2nd

Speaker 8 fourth hour

Speaker 8 teaching my exact question

Speaker 8 before

Speaker 8 and

Speaker 8 They were so excited. I mean, they were ecstatic that the moment has finally come.

Speaker 59 Because I make those home.

Speaker 8 So you gotta, I probably all right down.

Speaker 32 She just happened to be the person who fell into the trap simply because she was house sitting.

Speaker 43 That was it.

Speaker 8 Right. She was their friend, but you know, that's, it's just, it's sorry, sorry, but you know, it has to be you because you're

Speaker 8 a perfect victim.

Speaker 8 I'm sorry. I'm still in Cassie's family, but she added the one.

Speaker 9 We have to confirm.

Speaker 25 When Brian and Tori arrived at the Whispering Cliffs house, they watched Kill Bill 2 together and ate some snacks.

Speaker 28 At one point, Brian sneaked away and unlocked the basement door.

Speaker 26 Around 9.30 p.m., Brian and Tori left the house, but instead of actually leaving, they went their car and recorded this video.

Speaker 65 Unfortunately, we have the grueling task of killing our two friends,

Speaker 65 and they are right in a house just down the street.

Speaker 43 We just talked to them.

Speaker 10 We were there for an hour.

Speaker 24 The boys stopped recording.

Speaker 61 Then Brian said they sneaked back into the house through the basement door, dressed in scary masks, wearing gloves, wielding hunting knives.

Speaker 24 They opened the fuse box

Speaker 24 and turned the electricity off and then on again.

Speaker 8 They were trying to lure the victims to come downstairs, but because Cassie and Matt were so afraid of the lights going on and off and the dogs standing at the top of the stairs growling into the basement that there was no way they were going downstairs.

Speaker 38 Around 11.30 p.m., Matt's parents arrived to take him home.

Speaker 8 He didn't want to leave Cassie. I mean, he wanted to stay with her because it was scary.

Speaker 27 Shortly after Matt left, it was time for the final act.

Speaker 35 Tori cut the power again, said the police.

Speaker 29 And with the house cloaked in darkness,

Speaker 18 the two teenagers crept upstairs from the basement

Speaker 29 and attacked Cassie.

Speaker 8 It's our belief that they would have killed Matt as well.

Speaker 8 There would have been a double homicide.

Speaker 50 Afterward, Brian and Tori returned to their car to record one final video.

Speaker 14 Just killed Cassie. We just left her house.
This is not a fing joke.

Speaker 36 Tori and Brian stopped at a local convenience store to buy matches and hydrogen peroxide.

Speaker 31 And then they drove to Black Rock Canyon where they tried to burn the evidence, the knives, the masks, the clothes, and that videotape.

Speaker 46 The tape that revealed the truth.

Speaker 14 I mean, when my soul size

Speaker 43 up, we gotta get our action.

Speaker 20 It's okay.

Speaker 30 They both did it, the police concluded.

Speaker 22 Brian and Tori together.

Speaker 23 Just as they planned all along.

Speaker 14 Dude, I just killed Cassie.

Speaker 36 As for Matt Beckham, he had nothing to do with Cassie's murder.

Speaker 5 He was was almost a victim himself.

Speaker 8 The fact that Matt left and lived is kind of, he's the key to unraveling this whole thing.

Speaker 8 Had he been murdered as well, I don't know if we would have ever known that Tori and Brian had been to the house.

Speaker 19 Tori and Brian?

Speaker 51 Why did they do it?

Speaker 46 What happened to those two?

Speaker 47 Hello?

Speaker 35 Is this Keith? It is.

Speaker 50 More than 15 years after the murder of that wonderful young woman named Cassie Joe Stoddart,

Speaker 22 one of her killers would try to tell us.

Speaker 66 Everyone asks me, like, what were you thinking?

Speaker 6 Why did you do that?

Speaker 24 Brian Draper and Tori Adamchik were 16 years old when Cassie Joe Stoddart was murdered.

Speaker 26 But the two teens were tried as adults, so serious was the charge of murdering their friend.

Speaker 41 Tried separately, and each time the one on trial claimed the other one was the mastermind.

Speaker 26 By then, investigators had assembled evidence that the two teens had been living in their own personal horror movie fantasy.

Speaker 12 There should be no odds against killing people.

Speaker 25 Prosecutors discovered a kill list with a dozen other student names.

Speaker 46 Their goal?

Speaker 25 To commit another Columbine-style school shooting.

Speaker 4 In 2007, both Tori and Brian were found guilty of first-degree murder.

Speaker 18 Both were sentenced to life without parole,

Speaker 18 banished from society, never to return.

Speaker 28 So maybe that why question would never be answered.

Speaker 25 And then, 15 years later,

Speaker 36 We learned that Brian had been struggling with the question himself.

Speaker 47 Hello?

Speaker 35 Is this Keith? It is.

Speaker 38 Brian agreed to talk to us by phone

Speaker 18 from the Idaho State Correctional Institution.

Speaker 66 Everyone asks me, like, what were you thinking?

Speaker 6 Why did you do that?

Speaker 51 When people ask you that, do you

Speaker 48 try to explain? What do you do?

Speaker 37 I tell them it's really complicated.

Speaker 63 It's not an easy thing. And I felt like nobody, and I felt like I'd be somebody if I did something.

Speaker 66 you know, big and bad.

Speaker 66 And I say that I regret it every day of my life.

Speaker 50 He was in middle school when it began, he told us.

Speaker 3 He had a stutter, didn't fit in.

Speaker 48 You felt like you were a loser.

Speaker 63 Yeah, I felt like I was a loser. I felt like I didn't matter.

Speaker 63 That's when I started

Speaker 63 going online, and I would go into chat rooms with people who were obsessed. I would call them by high school shooting.

Speaker 33 When he met Tori Adam Chick in high school, he said he felt like someone finally understood him.

Speaker 63 He's the one who got me into the whole horror movie thing.

Speaker 48 You were doing the chat rooms. He was doing the movies.

Speaker 66 Is that right? Yes.

Speaker 66 And so we were skipping a school assembly and we were hiding out in the bathroom and we were talking about screen.

Speaker 48 Yeah, okay.

Speaker 63 And he said, Brian, have you ever thought about doing that for real?

Speaker 63 And I said, well, yeah, I think I have. And that's how this whole thing started.

Speaker 51 I was struck by the cruelty of frightening that poor girl,

Speaker 48 turning the lights on and off, and really scaring the crap out of her.

Speaker 48 And knowing you were going to go upstairs and kill her. I mean

Speaker 48 that's hard to get your head around.

Speaker 63 It is very hard to get your head around, if I understand.

Speaker 48 When you were doing it,

Speaker 48 did you know, did you realize how

Speaker 48 terrible you were being?

Speaker 37 No, I felt like

Speaker 37 I was being watched by an audience. That's how I felt, and I felt like

Speaker 37 I was there to be in the movie stream.

Speaker 48 Is there anything more that you would say to some kid who is sort of wrapped up in these

Speaker 48 violent fantasies?

Speaker 48 I would say that it's fear. You're afraid of being a nobody.
You're afraid of being a loser.

Speaker 63 But the other half of this is that no one talks about is when you go to prison,

Speaker 62 you lose your entire life, you lose everything.

Speaker 18 Except for this particular torment.

Speaker 25 With him every day for the rest of his life.

Speaker 63 I would pay any amount of money for the rest of my life.

Speaker 24 I would give my life if I could change it.

Speaker 66 If I could go back in time and say, hey, it's us, Cassie. It's us.

Speaker 66 We're just joking around. It's us.

Speaker 66 I would do anything for that. And I think about that all the time.

Speaker 29 Dory Adam Chick was also locked up for life, sent to the same prison as Brian.

Speaker 48 Tori's family

Speaker 48 still believes that you were the main instigator in this whole plot.

Speaker 32 Is that true?

Speaker 32 No,

Speaker 32 that's not true. If he wants to, you know, blame me and hate me and have his family hate me, that's fine.

Speaker 48 Do you see him around?

Speaker 63 Yeah, oh, yeah, I see him in passing all the time. Yeah.

Speaker 43 I don't talk to him and he doesn't talk to me.

Speaker 33 Tori has since been transferred to a nearby maximum security prison.

Speaker 21 Tori and Brian, who once bonded over violence, are now locked away on their own versions of hell.

Speaker 48 As you sit in your prison cell and

Speaker 48 live your prison life, I'm sure you think from time to time about Cassie's family.

Speaker 48 And I will say, and this for the record, that you were very concerned about how they would greet the fact that you're talking to us. You didn't want them to be hurt any more than they already have.

Speaker 48 I'm concerned about that too. But

Speaker 51 what would you want to say to them?

Speaker 37 Is there something you'd like to say to them?

Speaker 28 That's hard, I know.

Speaker 28 And I'm sorry.

Speaker 66 And I promise that I will live the rest of my life as best as I can and do as best as I can to show that I'm sorry, because I'm sorry.

Speaker 48 Can't bring her back.

Speaker 48 I'm sorry and it's not fair. It's not fair that I'm here talking to you.

Speaker 44 It's not.

Speaker 44 No,

Speaker 34 and it wasn't fair either that in April 2022, Cassie's mother, Anna, died.

Speaker 49 Cancer.

Speaker 18 She was 57.

Speaker 27 The Stoddard family Deeply wounded by all of this, quite understandably declined to participate in our story.

Speaker 28 Though, about Brian, Anna's husband told us:

Speaker 5 There is no making amends.

Speaker 28 This interview with Anna is from 2009.

Speaker 9 The way she was taken from us just wasn't fair.

Speaker 43 Too young.

Speaker 14 She had too much more to do in her life.

Speaker 18 Cassie Joe Stoddart.

Speaker 30 Responsible, caring, kind,

Speaker 20 even to those two high school misfits.

Speaker 46 Her loss, a wound all the regret in the world can never heal.

Speaker 15 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Friday at 9 8th Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt, for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 15 Good night.

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