Episode 260

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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, great, if I wanted to toss you in jail with no questions asked, you would have already been there.

So, how are 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 swordandscale.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 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.

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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 to get out and go do something.

Anything.

It was a nice day out, so we just went to Alkai Beach for a walk.

After what felt like an eternity in COVID lockdown, they decided to go to the Alkai 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.

Our original plan was we wanted to see the statue.

It's like a fake statue of liberty at the end of the

strip of Alkai.

But we also wanted to randonaut.

It was like a trend that was going on on TikTok at that time.

You just basically like download this app, sends sends you a random location, 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 your own imagination.

But on this day it led the group to Alkai 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 random 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 random nodding and people find crazy stuff on random.

So we were like, let's just see what's down there.

And

we were like, this could be something fun to record at that time.

Guys, we found a suitcase at the beginning.

On the drive to Alkai 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 tipping it.

Pretty normal suitcase, no tears, no anything to it.

Just had like a weird smell the closer you got to it, obviously.

Didn't really think too much of it there's a lot of garbage out there a lot of the times um didn't really think it was going to be what it turned out to be but yeah it was just his normal suitcase they dismissed the odd odor because it was obviously floating in the bay before being washed onto the rocks with other pieces of garbage we were curious we actually opened it up this thing's got

just like a really foul odor so we stopped opening it halfway um we left it there and then

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 um, we stopped and we were kind of talking about what-if situations, and then just

stopped for probably like a good five 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.

We saw a

black plastic trash bag and it was wrapping something.

It was

trash bags and then

They were just in the suitcase.

We could see that they were tightly placed on where something was inside of 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.

So there was a stick that we had, and Gabby was

very curious about what was in the bags.

And we were already hesitant because of the smell.

And we found like a little,

it wasn't a huge tear, it was just like a good soft spot for a snake to get in there.

And Gabby just kind of twisted a little bit, moved it in.

The smell immediately got 10 times worse.

It was 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 a little bit.

It couldn't really, I don't know.

It's just

pretty harsh.

I don't know.

It definitely wasn't money in this bag.

With a hole poked through the outer bag, they caught a glimpse of what was inside.

Just like

meat and um

thought it was um like food or any 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 Iwamish Point in Alkai Beach, and it has a pretty bad smell.

And it's a black trash bag.

So, yeah, there's something in it.

Okay, where where did you find it exactly, Nan?

Not knowing the address to the park itself, Natalie's eyes darted from building to building, across the street searching for an address.

1150 Alkai.

Perfect.

1150 Alkai 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 block.

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 bar cross 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.

911, what is your emergency?

Hi, so I called about an hour and a half ago.

Okay.

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 is about to get covered.

Okay, I'll go ahead and make that notation.

How long do you think it is until the police officer arrives?

Oh, I don't know.

Yeah, we don't have that information.

I wouldn't be able to tell you.

Okay.

Elliott 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, um, we decided to some people were down at Alkai, and they were just really hyper-alert.

We're at like the historical point of interest, this little park on Alkai in West Seattle.

And

they said they reported a couple hours ago a suitcase and we just went and they were 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, it looks like we have a call.

We are aware that they're waiting.

We're going to get somebody out there.

We're just waiting for an officer to become available, clear up from a previous 911

So we'll be there as soon as we can.

Okay, all right, yeah.

Thank you, man.

Bye-bye.

When the police finally showed up, the kids had already gone.

Hello?

See you at the police.

Can you hear me?

Um, 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,

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.

On the rocks, kind of right off the pier there was

a luggage bag, kind of like a 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 remember 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 like tools I can reach out

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.

Erring 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.

Would you guys be able to send some resources down to 1150

Alkai Avenue Southwest?

Basically, we went down there, we found a suitcase.

They're trying to retrieve it from the rocks down there, and it has a foul smell coming from it, and it looks like to be organic matter in it.

Okay,

all righty, I'll send a truck down there.

All right, thank you.

Yep, all right, bye-bye.

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 the light kind of highlighted 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 Alkai Beach and the surrounding waters after the report of found human remains in a suitcase.

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A suitcase and duffel bag discovered on Alkai 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 bags contained two heads,

hands, feet, an armed.

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 were basically wanting to do a trend to post on random nodding, and it was the summer during like a pandemic.

We didn't really have

a lot of options of entertainment.

That was just the source of it.

And

I don't know, maybe I was just very into the idea of showing this and like

I've like I had such a very crazy surreal experience I wanted to just like document it.

First we want to begin with some breaking news.

Seattle police are investigating after several bags filled with human remains were found near the water on Alkai 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 Alkai.

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.

Okay, 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.

Seattle Police Operator 31.

Hi, I have...

This is unfortunate to say, but I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't relevant.

We're at Looney Park this morning and there was a suitcase.

Seattle police, what are you reporting?

Hi,

my name is Diane Cognera.

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 on wheels.

I don't know if that black bag had the human remains.

That stretch of alka, I don't think I've ever seen anybody walking with a rolling bag.

Seattle Police operator 105.

Hi, um, I am calling because I

saw something last week that I just can't get out of my mind.

And I wanted to let 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.

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 a 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, and 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, 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

drink bottle or something, 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

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 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, we were able to sort of fit the pieces together, sort of like a puzzle piece.

The medical examiner used tattoos and sawmarks 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 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,

you know, 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 offered to feed him, you know, that sort of thing.

And then he was going to be doing doing, um, helping flatten some area for a shed that I had bought in.

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 Burian.

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, I didn't.

Jennifer.

Like I said, right, if I wanted to toss you in jail with no questions asked, you would have already been there.

I don't live with somebody that murdered two people.

Just kidding.

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.

The deputies asked a few more questions before realizing she had information.

about the recent bodies discovered on Alkai 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 people in it, two victims, and it's a homicide case.

First of all, did you know 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's your current landlord?

His name is Michael Dudley, D-U-D-L-E-Y.

Okay.

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 meeting 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

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 wounds.

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 ask him if he's okay, that's when he turns to the computer and starts texting me and telling me weird things.

Apparently the two residents were

renting the room upstairs.

He had told me he had tried to lock him out of his house twice that day

and that people are trash

and they steal from you and yada yada yada he used to come over to dave's house and complain what piece of shits that they are that they don't pay him rent they won't move out yeah okay so you know they already had like a bad he already had bad juju with them at that point he emailed me a couple weird things i got kind of spooked out and i left and i didn't come 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.

After taking a shower, she opened the door to the room formerly occupied by Austin and Jessica.

She immediately regretted what she saw.

I opened the door, and right here on the ground is heaps of clothing.

I can see the figure of a body, like,

and then the hand sticking up.

Okay.

And it's just, I just remember a bloody hand.

That's it.

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.

He knows everything, every creek.

So, I immediately shut the door,

you'll hell Mary and walk down the stairs and go tell him I think I fucked up.

And he looked at me.

He's like, why?

Said I did something in your house I shouldn't have done right now.

I just opened the door.

And he looked at me.

And 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 ceiling, 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.

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's killed somebody.

Right.

For, you know, and I'm staying away in 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 that situation because I don't want to talk about it, right?

And he kept saying, Your room's ready for you, your room's ready for you.

I said, Why are you having me go and move in that room?

Because Kim's not there no more.

He goes, Why do you think

Austin's name is still on my Goku TV every time I turn it off?

Psychologically, fuck me up

every day when I turn on the TV off.

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 mine did it.

Okay.

Magic Mike, I call him Magic Mike.

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 you cleaned up?

I mean, has the room got furniture in it now or anything like that?

Yeah, yeah.

and I just looked down and noticed something yesterday, and you're gonna freak out.

It looks like a bullet hole, actually.

And then, and at the foot of the bed, it looked like a bullet was grazed, too.

I've opened that nice hand 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, right?

Right, 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 Birian P.D.

for the police history at the house, they found another clue.

Quite a big one.

911, what are you recording?

Hi, my husband and I believe that we just heard gun cross 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 neighborhood they're in,

so they're technically like not on our street.

Okay.

But our house borders with their backyard.

Okay, 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 this house, 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.

Viewing cars are reroute processes.

There was some progress in the North 6, South 166, and 2 Avenue South.

Nora 17.

Guards 1.

203, South 166th Street.

She heard what sounded like a couple of shots and now a man's voice yelling.

Can't see anything that's going on.

203 South 166th Street.

Units were dispatched quickly.

Shots fired was a far more more urgent call than a stinky bag on the beach.

911, 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 16466

Ambaum Boulevard South.

Have you heard any additional disturbance since then?

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 to town and tell them where they're going.

They're getting my updates.

All right.

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, help.

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, 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.

Didn't find anything broken.

No 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.

I mean, the only thing that I remember

smelling from

the Dudley property was an extremely pungent and overwhelming smell of rotting.

It 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 smelled like that, but

a million times more powerful.

The police investigation into the human remains found in bags along the Alkai 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.

Hey, my county detective holds on.

I did my charge myself.

So, you have no idea what this is about?

Am I under arrest?

You said that.

Technically you're under arrest.

That's why you're here.

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 Austin?

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.

I got a question too.

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.

Okay, did you see anything about them in the news about uh yeah yeah okay so what you see all about in the news about that uh i've heard something about uh alkai beach anyway and uh washed up and suitcased garbage bags or something okay and did you hear anything about cause of death or anything like you know they've been shot 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.

I'm getting hold on the finger at me.

People that know you that maybe don't like you, okay?

So I'm just.

Who doesn't like you?

Well, again, well, we all, not everybody likes everybody, okay?

There's people that don't like you.

Well, I can't, again, I told you, I'm not going to 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?

I was waiting for you guys to call me.

I figured you'd be right there.

Well, when we didn't call, why didn't you call?

Well, there's really nothing to report.

I figured, you know, you'd be there.

Isn't that part of your standard procedure?

Yeah, but I was kind of sitting there like wondering

where the hell have you guys been?

Now I started wondering what the hell is 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 East Washington that hadn't talked to him for four years and called us.

So I, I mean, do you see why we're 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 staying there, I mean, anybody else staying there when

you guys were just on lockdown?

Uh, we were on lockdown.

Okay.

Did you have any problems with Austin at all?

I mean,

the biggest problem I had with him was stealing.

Everybody says he would steal anything if it wasn't locked.

He was a freaking prolific thief, but, you know, again, we were quarantined together and you know

you know it

got to know him pretty good

and her got to know them 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, but that way.

When Dudley was asked to elaborate on the other people that would want Austin dead, he brought up the same false leads from earlier in the investigation.

You know, he'd go on and on about, you know, his conspiracies and this and that.

But then he said, oh, no, no, it wasn't Mexicans, it was

Samoans.

And if I got this right,

he robbed the Samoans who robbed the Mexicans who owed money to some cartel.

Wow, man,

take it particularly off the bottom.

Did he say what he robbed from the Samoans?

He said it was like double 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, it had little beefs with him.

You know, I was, you know, always, you know.

Well, I mean, like a beef with him.

He's my friend.

He claimed to be their friend, but was upset about the stealing and not paying rent.

I gotta ask you: you ever shoot your gun in your house?

I have occasionally.

had a misfire

sometimes.

Can you explain that to me?

What are your friends or people finding?

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.

Okay.

So, I mean,

can you explain that?

I've had that.

I got that from my friend Tom, and,

you know,

been there for a long 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.

Well, yeah, I mean, Jessica cut her

18 stitches in her thigh when she was walking 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 alerting 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

dead bodies in my basement, basement.

I'm sure of that.

Okay.

Even in the chicken coop or anything like that.

You can 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.

And they actually told people: if something bad happened to me, you know, this mic 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 even?

I don't know.

That's why I'm asking you.

Why would they say that to her?

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

said, 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.

Thanks again for supporting Sword and Scale.

We can't say this enough.

You guys are awesome.

Thank you for being patient with us while we get this new app rollout going.

And look, there's a lot more updates coming.

We're going to add autoplay.

We're going to add offline downloads.

We're going to add a shuffle, all that stuff.

So just calm down.

It's coming.

Oh, yeah.

And stay safe.

Hi, I just wanted to to say that I love the podcast so much that it is the very first time I have ever paid or put money towards a podcast.

Maybe I shouldn't be proud of that, but I know other people identify with me when they get the notification that Apple hit their bank and took a charge out.

And you go in thinking, what did I forget to cancel?

Which free subscription did I forget?

But it's this podcast.

So

Story Scale is worth it.

Not gonna ask for a refund on that,

and

can't wait to hear the next step.

So