the supervising chief deputy. while his lead detective, jose sanchez, took charge of the scene and the investigation, tavizon had a look around. any sign of forced entry anywhere? no, no. no sort of footprints or tire marks or anything? no. the way the ground is, the gravel and stuff, there wasn t any. and inside the house? we saw that there had been what looked like maybe a scuffle in that bathroom. what told you that? well, there was a broken towel rack uh-huh. laying on the floor. there was a pair of glasses laying on the floor. and then from there, we went to the north end of the trailer. her bed was made. it hadn t been slept in. her lunchbox, her backpack and her purse were all on the foot of the bed. in other words, this was not a robbery. apparently not, no. it didn t look like it. they would have taken that stuff. correct. there was a laptop in the bathroom. uh-huh. and then she was laying on the floor. and at that point, i
what happened to her, as the deputies could clearly see, was close up and intense and murder. did you see any obvious injuries on her body? well, there was some bruising on her arms. there was some bruising around her neck. what was less clear, however, was exactly how her death was caused although did it leap out at you, though, and say, somebody beat this girl or strangled her, or something ? it was suspicious. very suspicious. the sort of thing that could keep crime scene investigators busy all night. swiping for dna, taking fingerprints, collecting all the bits of evidence. and yet and this was very strange after just a few hours, during which they didn t do those things, the deputies left and told cassy s family, go on in if you want. yeah, they released the house. you can go in. and they put their hand to at the door, you can all go in now. how can you be done with your investigation that quick?
quite like grief. even the best marriages. all she wanted to talk about was cassy s case. when months went by with no arrest. i got to the point where i told her i can t do it anymore. but the topic was unavoidable. the medical report didn t come out for four months. when it finally did, it was vague. it was homicide by undetermined means. undetermined means? you saw bruises all over her body and apparent strangulation. and they wouldn t classify it as strangulation was the cause of death. they knew that vagueness could be a problem, that is if it went to trial because the investigation seemed to be
he said, no, he said, it s too clean. to him it wasn t anything that would ve been helpful to the investigation. kind of an assumption there, huh? well, i guess i would that s what you could call it. what s the old expression? to assume makes an ass of you it makes both and me. yeah, exactly. so, with zero physical evidence to point to anyone, the case of the murder in the bathtub went cold. until? until six months later, a particular friend, once suddenly gone, just as suddenly reappeared. time for a pertinent question or two. coming up billy lee back from alaska admitting he and cassy were close. we were real good friends. but what will he say to this? did you inflict any injuries to the victim on march 24th?
by then the grant county sheriff deputies were arriving, and they asked charnelle to leave. what d you see? i saw water on the ground on the north side that had been coming out of the trailer. it was still dripping, in fact. was still dripping, in fact. lieutenant ray tavizon was the supervising chief deputy. while his lead detective, jose sanchez, took charge of the scene and the investigation, tavizon had a look around. any sign of forced entry anywhere? no, no. no sort of footprints or tire marks or anything? no. the way the ground is, the gravel and stuff, there wasn t any. and inside the house? we saw that there had been what looked like maybe a scuffle in that bathroom. what told you that? well, there was a broken towel rack uh-huh. laying on the floor. there was a pair of glasses laying on the floor. and then from there, we went to the north end of the trailer. her bed was made. it hadn t been slept in. her lunchbox, her backpack and her purse were al