September 9, 2022
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| James Phelps |
The state of Missouri will seek the death penalty against James D. Phelps for the 2021 murder and kidnapping of Cassidy Rainwater-Paul. Dallas County prosecutor Jonathan Barker announced that intent in court filings this week.
Phelps' appointed capital defense attorney, Tom Jacquinot, who is a public defender--has asked that his client's case be moved to another county on a change of venue. That change will be automatically granted as Dallas County has less than 75,000 residents. There has been no word on where the case will move at this time, according to the Dallas County circuit clerk's office.
In August of 2021, a relative reported Cassidy missing and said she was last seen at a DFS meeting in Lebanon in early July.
The FBI passed along a cyber-tip with photographs labeled "Cassidy" to Dallas County investigators on September 16, 2021.
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| Timothy Norton |
Phelps' alleged accomplice, Timothy Norton, was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping Cassidy in late September of 2021 as he was leaving a Walmart in Lebanon, according to Hilton. Dallas County prosecutor Jonathan Barker said in a court hearing last year that Norton and Phelps would troll for victims online and at Walmart's.
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| Cassidy Rainwater |
It would take authorities two more months to add murder charges against Norton and James Phelps for Cassidy's death. Pictures on Phelps' phone allegedly show a partially nude Cassidy being held in a cage and tortured within the cabin and tied to a gantry crane outside, where she was disemboweled.
Norton told investigators that Phelps called him on July 24, 2021, to come to the cabin to hold Cassidy's legs down while he placed a bag over her head and strangled her. He said he also helped Phelps carry her out to the gantry crane and then back to the bathtub in the cabin where she was dismembered.
Investigators found bags of Cassidy's flesh inside a freezer in the cabin. The bags were dated 7/24 and had her initials on them. Cassidy's ex-boyfriend says he, and the children they shared, were swabbed for DNA and that's how her remains were identified.
Dallas County Sheriff Scott Rice says Norton and Phelps had been planning Cassidy's murder for a couple of months.
In early October of 2021, the cabin on Moon Valley Road burned to the ground. The fire has been ruled arson and there have been no arrests made in connection to that incident.
Dalton Chaffin, who lived at the cabin for a time in 2019, says there was only one bathtub in the cabin. A bathtub was in the fire rubble after the blaze. Whether or not it is the bathtub that Cassidy was dismembered in is not known at this time.
