Timothy L. Norton (KHQA screenshot) and Cassidy Rainwater (Dallas County, Missouri Sheriff’s Office)
A second Missouri man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after he admitted to killing, eviscerating, and dismembering a 33-year-old woman whom he and his co-defendant also photographed as she was caged and bound to a gantry crane.
Dallas County Circuit Court Judge Lisa Carter Henderson on Tuesday ordered Timothy L. Norton so serve a sentence of life in prison without the possibility for parole in the 2021 slaying of Cassidy Rainwater, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Prior to being sentenced, Norton pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree murder in Rainwater’s death. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed to drop felony charges of kidnapping and abandonment of a corpse.
Norton’s co-defendant, James Phelps, was also sentenced to life without parole last month after entering an Alford plea to one count of first-degree murder. An Alford plea is functionally equivalent to a guilty plea in that it results in a conviction, but it allows a defendant to maintain their claim of innocence while conceding that the state has sufficient evidence to convict them at trial.
Rainwater was last seen alive in July 2021 and first reported missing the following month. Investigators were able to track one of her last known locations as Phelps’ home located in the 300 block of Moon Valley in Lebanon, which is about 170 miles southeast of Kansas City.
When speaking with Dallas County Sheriff’s Office detectives regarding Rainwater’s whereabouts in September 2021, Phelps initially said that she had been staying with him until she got back on her feet, but had left in the middle of the night about a month before, according to a probable cause affidavit. Investigators said Phelps claimed that he had not seen Rainwater since.
But a break in the case came when an online tipster provided the FBI with several disturbing photographs that appeared to show Rainwater’s harrowing death, including the gruesome aftermath.
“The photos depicted a partially clothed female in a cage who we recognized as Cassidy,” the sheriff’s office said. “The other photos depicted Cassidy’s body bound to a gantry crane, commonly used for deer processing, and her evisceration and dismemberment.”
Investigators executed a search warrant on Phelps’ property and recovered “physical evidence including the gantry device, cage, and items from the freezer that appeared to be human flesh with a date written on them of 7-24,” the sheriff’s office said. Skeletal remains later confirmed to be Rainwater were located at the home next door to Phelps’ residence.
Investigators also recovered digital evidence from electronic devices that authorities say included text message conversations between Phelps and Norton in which they planned Rainwater’s murder.
The two were arrested and charged in connection with Rainwater’s death.
Authorities said that after his arrest, Norton confessed to the horrific spate of crimes.
“Norton told FBI agents that Phelps had him come over while Cassidy was sleeping in the living room floor, so he had easy access to attack Cassidy,” the sheriff’s office said. “Norton stated, after entering the house, he held Cassidy’s legs down while Phelps strangled her and placed a bag over her head … Norton stated that Phelps bound her to the gantry crane and Phelps began the evisceration and dismemberment of Cassidy’s body. Norton stated he helped Phelps carry Cassidy’s body into the house and placed her into the bathtub.”
Phelps’ home burned down in October 2021 while both he and Norton were in custody. Investigators said that the fire was an act of arson caused by an “incendiary device” in a mortar tube with a “trip wire” attached to it.
Law&Crime’s Marisa Sarnoff contributed to this article.
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