UPDATE: Human Remains Stuffed In Suitcase Discovered By Seattle Teens Filming TikTok Video Identified
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victims as Jessica Lewis, a 35-year-old mother of four, and her longtime boyfriend, Austin “Cash” Wenner, 27.
Jessica Lewis and Austin “Cash” Wenner [GoFundMe]
UPDATE 8/24/20:
Michael Lee Dudley, 62, is in custody for the double homicide of Washington mother of four Jessica Lewis, 35, and her 27-year-old longtime boyfriend Austin Wenner.
On June 19, teens creating TikTok videos and using the explorer app Randonautica, were checking out a West Seattle beach when they found the victims’ remains wrapped in garbage bags and stuffed in two suitcases.
According to probable cause documents, Lewis and Wenner had been renting a room in Dudley’s Burien home during the COVID quarantine period but got into a fight with him after they fell behind on their monthly $1,500 rent payment, Westside Seattle reported.
Detectives wrote in the documents that on June 9 they went to Dudley’s residence but got no response after neighbors called 911 “because they had heard gunfire from inside the house and then yelling from a male [saying], ‘Please don’t do this, just let me leave.’”
On Aug. 19, exactly two months after the grisly discovery of the shooting victims’ remains on the rocky shores of Alki Beach, investigators executed a search warrant at Dudley’s home and allegedly discovered “bullet holes, bullet strikes, spent rounds and blood” in one of the rooms, the probable cause documents state.
After Dudley was taken into custody, according to the documents, he allegedly “admitted to having arguments with the victims” and “he could not explain the bullets or the bullet holes in the blue room,” which “had recently been painted and cleaned.”
Lewis’ aunt, Gina Jaschke, called Dudley a “freaking psycho” and “sicko” who allegedly once had killed a dog in front of the couple and “left the carcass outside for three days to scare them,” according to Westside Seattle.
“They had nowhere to go,” Jaschke said, explaining, “That's why they stayed there.”
Dudley is currently being held on $5 million bail at King County Jail.
ORIGINAL POST 7/9/20:
Several teenagers who hoped they had just stumbled upon a bunch of cash instead made a disturbing discovery while shooting a TikTok video along the rocky shores of Duwamish Head in West Seattle, Washington.
On June 19, the group came across a black roller bag that had washed up on Alki Beach. One girl, the social media video shows, used a stick to pry open the suitcase and was hit with an overwhelming odor coming from what police determined to be human remains wrapped in black plastic.
A second bag containing more body parts was later found in the water, the Seattle Police Department said in a news release.
The King County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victims as Jessica Lewis, a 35-year-old mother of four, and her longtime boyfriend, Austin “Cash” Wenner, 27.
Investigators believe the two may have died on June 16. Lewis had been shot multiple times, while Wenner had suffered a single gunshot to the torso.
Gina Jaschke told Seattle’s KIRO-TV that Wenner and her niece, who was a caregiver for developmentally disabled adults, were fun-loving and “just nice normal people.”
Jaschke has now launched a GoFundMe page to raise reward money for information leading to the arrest of who she called the “sick animal” responsible for killing the couple of eight years.
“We will never give up until they are caught,” Jaschke wrote in a July 9 update on the crowdfunding platform. “NOBODY had the right to do this to them. And hopefully we help stop this inhumane creature from ever hurting anybody else again.”
Read more: Heavy
