Suspicion in Silver City

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0:43Yep, even on weekends. That's pretty much all he talks about. In a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com slash Bank Guy. Capital One N.A. Member FDIC. Tonight on Dateline. I didn't want to believe it. My sister's dead. And I just... Sorry. I just kind of fell apart. You heard the water running? Yes. It was just like gushing. I saw her in the bathtub. Face down. Right. She was badly beaten. Lots of bruising. We pulled the drain. I saw black scuff marks. Like from shoes. I was suspected of everyone that had any contact with her. She told me that he was following her. She would wake up and he'd be standing over watching her.

1:35That's creepy. I was like, wow, he's going to Alaska. But that's exactly what people do. They get in trouble, they take off. After a body is found in a bathtub, a case dries up till a family takes matters into their own hands. We started looking, looking for what happened. It's so strange to have the family as a kind of CSI group. One of the attorneys says, thank you for not giving up. And I said, how could I? It was my little girl. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

2:12Here's Keith Morrison with Suspicion in Silver City.

2:22Out in the middle of New Mexico, hours of desert highway from better-known haunts like Santa Fe, is an old mining town called Silver City. And such an unusual place it is. Quirky would be a good word. Very Old West. There's a lot of history in Silver City. A vast, arid desert one way out of town, lush green mountains the other.

2:53Fourth, fifth, sixth generation ranchers and silver miners coexist with artists and hippies and wide-eyed newcomers. As we say, quirky. It's just lots of different perspectives, which is always fascinating. But of course, this is not a travelogue, no. No, this is about what happened here, or more precisely, what happened in there. Inside that little house to her. She was beaten from head to toe. She had bruises from top of her head down to her feet. Her name was Cassie Farrington. And what was done to her in the bathtub of her own house was... dreadful. And she went in the bathtub and she... I can't even do CPR.

3:50She's stiff. It was also, for a very long time, an unsolved mystery.

4:03Cassie Brooks was her name, then. Her mom and dad, Darlene and Chuck. She was very, very outgoing, driven, motivated. From when she was a little kid? Yes, from the time she was little. Straight A's all the way through. Perfect grades. Wow. She worked hard. Cassie seemed to be good at pretty much everything. She lettered in five sports her senior year, too. And she was in the National Honor Society, Future Business Leaders of America. She aced high school in just three years, announced to her family that she was going to be a doctor. And then she was 16 years old. She tried to hide what happened, but of course couldn't.

4:46She was pregnant. Med school was not going to happen. And then, said Cassie's siblings, Elizabeth and Bo, events kind of whizzed by. She had a baby, got out of the hospital, graduated high school, got married and moved out in one month. Wow. Yeah. Super fast. But the marriage didn't last. By 22, Cassie, now Cassie Farrington, was on her own in Silver City with two small kids working as a nurse. In fact, she moved into a house owned by one of her nursing professors, this woman, Sharnel Lee. Was she a good tenant? Oh, yes. Like the best. Spit spot all the time. Always. Yeah, she was awesome. Just around that time, Chernell was heading toward a breakup with her husband, Billy.

5:45Billy was also a nurse, maybe a mentor of sorts to Cassie, and he seemed to be very fond of her. Saw her a lot, at work, around the house. Then pretty soon, a serious boyfriend came along for Cassie, David Barry. He was wonderful with the children. And that was something that she really liked about him. Cassie's friend and co-worker, Mary Flores. They had a relationship that was fun. They were just building a life together. Especially on the morning of March 24, 2014, something Billy Lee had been trying to arrange for her came through. She had just been notified by Billy Lee that she was getting off of the med-surg floor, going to the ER, the job she wanted.

6:35Cassie had just finished her graveyard shift at the Silver City Hospital when she called her mom to tell her the news. That was the plum job, the one she always wanted. Yes. Then she went home to get the kids off to school and have a nap before meeting her friend Mary again later. I had heard that the shift was particularly difficult, so I texted her and told her to go home and get some rest, and then when she got up to get the kids from school, they could come by, we'd go get ice cream or something. The afternoon came. No Cassie. I understand. You have kids, and who knows? I mean, a million things could have come up.

7:18And when Cassie's parents got a call from their grandson's school to say she didn't show to pick him up, they weren't really worried. I was hoping that she'd just slept through her phone because she'd worked graveyards the night before at the hospital. But eventually, a request to Sharnel, the landlord, could she check on Cassie, please? So I drove down from my house up at the hill. Up there. Down this way and up here to go in and check on her through the back door. Which is where she noticed the strangest thing. I looked through the door and there was water. You could see through the door that there was just water rolling out.

7:56And I knocked. Was it coming out under the door? No, it was just rolling out into the kitchen right there. Weird. That would be very strange. Yeah, it was very strange. And then as soon as I saw that and I knocked, and I called for Cassie and nothing happened, and then so I had to go back up to that other house to get the key. And then just came right back here. Yeah, and then I unlocked the door. Dread gripped her then. Something bad in there. And where was Cassie? Coming up, a home full of water. An ominous sight, but nothing compared to what came next. You're a nurse. You've seen lots of things.

8:38Yeah. But that can't have been easy. No.

8:53Something was clearly wrong inside this small home on the outskirts of Silver City, New Mexico. Very strange. Charnelle Lee, checking on her tenant Cassie Farrington, opened the back door and was confronted by water everywhere. And you heard the water running? Yes, it was just like gushing. Coming from? The bathtub. So she ran to the master bedroom, intending to turn off the water. And there she was. I saw her and the bathtub was like, I've never seen anything like it. It was heaped up and the waves were just like crusty. That's a deep, deep bathtub. Yeah, it was like cresting, and she was on the top.

9:33Oh. And she was... In the water. Yeah, she was upside down, and it was... Face down. Right. I mean, you're a nurse. You've seen lots of things. Yeah. But that can't have been easy. No. Well, at the time, you know, you're just in, like, emergency mode. You know, you just... You don't even stop to think. And so I just went and grabbed her and pulled her over to here and turned her over to see if there was something I could do to help her. I mean, it was kind of horrifying because she was still in her nursing scrubs. And then I checked to see if she had a pulse and she didn't. Nothing to do now, but call 911.

10:13And she's in the bathtub and she's... I can't even do CPR. She's stiff. Okay, so she's unresponsive right now? She's dead. As Charnell talked to the 911 dispatcher, she turned off the faucet and... Oh my God, why is the water running everywhere? It's weird. I heard water running in the extra bathroom. At the other end of the house? Yes. So Chanel ran back there and discovered water running in the other bathtub too. No flooding, that drain was unplugged. When she turned off the water, Chanel noticed that the towel rack was broken. This bit right up here was just yanked off the wall? Totally yanked off the wall.

10:56Huh. And then that's her... Leaving a gaping hole or something. Yes. By then, the Grant County Sheriff's deputies were arriving, and they asked Sharnel 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. Lieutenant Ray Tavazon was the supervising chief deputy. And while his lead detective, Jose Sanchez, took charge of the scene and the investigation, Tavazon 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.

11:40And 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 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, 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. Didn't look like it. They would have taken that stuff. Correct. There was a laptop in the bathroom, and then she was laying on the floor.

12:17And at that point, I went out and called my superiors to inform them what we had. There is no getting over the phone call. Cassie's parents got them. All I remember is she started screaming no. And then she told me they found Cassie dead in her home. And I just grabbed my car keys and we were out the door and gone, headed to Silver. What was that drive like? It seemed like it took forever, but it was the fastest I'd ever made that trip. What goes through your minds? We're just hoping that they're wrong. Yeah, hoping they were wrong.

12:58But they arrived in time to watch Cassie being carried away in a body bag. And then, traumatic as that was, as they stood there, Lieutenant Tavazon approached them and seemed to say it looked like she'd taken her own life. Lieutenant Tavison mentioned you how many times? Three times? Three times in that evening. He brought up suicide, and I said she wasn't suicidal. As if, what, he's trying to persuade you of that? Yes. It wasn't a suggestion that was made. It was a question that was asked. But sitting here all this time later, Lieutenant Tavison told us they must have misunderstood him. You heard that they eventually decided that what you had done was suggest that it was suicide.

13:44Well, yeah, they were upset because I asked the question. Did you think so at the time? No. So what did the lieutenant think? The young lady just doesn't die, you know, just out of the blue. We consider it a homicide until we're proven otherwise. Sure. Of course, there was that other matter that needed proving. Who did this? Coming up... After just a few hours at the house, detectives leave the scene. How can you be done with your investigation that quick? So the family decides to do a little detecting of its own. There was still water in the tub. We pulled the drain and we saw black scuff marks.

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16:11It's a terrible thing to encounter. Cop or not, so young, just 23, and a mother of two. But there she was, and 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? It was suspicious, very suspicious. The sort of thing could keep crime scene investigators busy all night, swiping for DNA, taking fingerprints, collecting all the bits of evidence.

17:00And yet, and this was very strange. After just a few hours during which they didn't do those things, the deputies left and told Cassie's family, go on in if you want. Yeah, they released the house. You can go in. And they put their hand at the door. You can all go in now. How can you be done with your investigation that quick? Odd. Not exactly normal protocol, especially since once people start walking in and out, the scene becomes highly compromised. Did you go into the house that day? Yeah, when they said you can go in the house, we went in. They were hoping to find some sign or clue to explain what happened to Cassie.

17:46But they never imagined they'd find evidence that the deputies just left behind. There was still water in the tub, so we pulled the drain, and when we pulled the drain, then we saw black scuff marks, like from shoes, rubber, black rubber shoes. In the tub? In the tub. And where did those scuff marks come from? From a struggle. They also found Cassie's glasses and a hair ribbon near the broken towel rack. No one had bothered to collect them as evidence, so they did. It's so strange to have the family as a kind of CSI group. We gathered up the hair with the bobby pin and the ribbon, her glasses.

18:27Did it seem shocking to you that you were gathering evidence? That was frustrating. Yeah. Kind of like a tell right off the top, this isn't going to necessarily go well. deputies did return to the house the next day though and discovered the carpet in her bedroom was gone billy lee the landlord goes in starts ripping the carpet up wait a minute yeah you've got a guy going in right after and the first thing he does is rip the carpet out of the and that finally seemed to get the attention of the lead investigator sergeant sanchez who by then already had a few reservations about Mr. Lee. Why would he remove the carpet?

19:10To get rid of evidence? And what was his relationship with Cassie? Mr. Lee told him that he really didn't have any dealings with Cassie. Then later found out that she had applied for a position in the emergency room. And Billy Lee was the one that was helping her. And that's what threw red flags up for Sanchez. Why? Well, because he was thinking maybe he was there to try to collect favor for getting her the job. Did Cassie reject Billy Lee and pay a terrible price? A few days after Cassie's death, the investigating deputy set out to officially question Billy. But Billy was gone, had quit his job, left town.

20:03was far, far away in Alaska without his wife. I was like, wow, if he's going to Alaska, maybe Sanchez is on to something. That's exactly what people do. You know, they get in trouble, they take off for Alaska or someplace like that, or Mexico or something. But, for whatever reason, no effort was made to bring Billy Lee back to Silver City for questioning. And investigators quickly turned their attention to another man in Cassie's life, her live-in boyfriend, David Barry. His behavior the first few days after her death was very strange and peculiar to me. Oh, who so? I myself never really saw him shed a tear, but I was suspect of everyone that had any contact with her.

20:49I didn't trust anyone. At the funeral, Cassie's casket was left open. To tell the world what was done to her, said her siblings. Her face was covered in bruises. Her neck was a giant bruise and swollen. Her hands were black. But who had done it? For months, all anyone could do was speculate. I thought it was over. I thought she was just dead and that was it and nothing was ever going to be done about it. At the sheriff's office, investigative supervisor Tavazon questioned his deputy, Sanchez. Why hadn't he even dusted for fingerprints? He says, no, he says it's too clean. To him, it wasn't anything that would have been helpful to the investigation.

21:40Kind of an assumption there, huh? Well, I guess that's what you could call it. What's the old expression? To assume makes an ass of you 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 Cassie 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?

22:43Cassie Farrington's parents, Chuck and Darlene Brooks, were in pain. Deep, endless, searing pain. About Cassie's murder, of course, but also about the long wait for justice. That period of waiting? Hard. Very difficult. Difficult on us, between us. Who come? I was crying all the time. Few things eat at a marriage quite like grief. Even the best marriages. All she wanted to talk about was Cassie's case. And when months went by with no arrest... And I finally got to the point where I just told her, I can't do this anymore. I thought about it too, but I didn't want to talk about it all evening with her.

23:28But the topic was unavoidable. Any new lead or development had to be discussed. The medical examiner's report, for instance, that didn't come out for four months. And 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. Multiple mechanisms is what caused the death. They knew that if the case ever went to trial, that vagueness could be a problem. That is, if it went to trial. Because the investigation seemed to be going nowhere.

24:13The family found things out, like how boyfriend David had a solid alibi. So why wasn't he officially cleared? Why did Darlene seem to be a more active investigator than the deputy? She drove me nuts trying to play crime scene investigator, but it also helped me to push the cops. Too hard, maybe? Detective Sanchez said, you know, I'm tired of Mrs. Brooks calling me all hours of the night. But they kept pushing anyway. I asked, well, did you get Billy Lee down here from Alaska and have him do his polygraph? He said, yes. Remember, Billy Lee lived on the same property as Cassie and was married to her landlord.

24:57And hours after the murder, he ripped out Cassie's bedroom carpet and then decamped for Alaska. The question was, why? Months after he left, Billy returned. Your name's Billy? Billy Lee, or William, actually. And Sergeant Sanchez finally had his chance to question him. How long have you known Cassie and then what? I knew Cassie whenever she was attacked in the emergency room. But curiously, Sanchez did not ask why Billy removed the carpet, or why he suddenly took off for Alaska. But he did ask about the nature of Billy's relationship with Cassie. We were real good friends. We didn't go to bars together.

25:44We didn't go fishing together. We didn't do that kind of stuff. But we had a working relationship that was pretty close. Really? Back at the crime scene, day of the murder, at least as Sanchez told his supervisor, Billy claimed to barely know Cassie. Now they were pretty close. Too close? Billy told the detective he had an alibi. He and a buddy were out in the country working on his cabin. We were working on that roof, and when I got the call, we'd been out there for a couple of days. But of course, as any detective could tell you, people lie all the time about alibis. Sanchez asked Billy to take a polygraph.

26:27Did you inflict any injuries to the victim on March 24th? No. The results were inconclusive. Not so good for Billy. And that alibi just kind of sat there, unchecked. Until, finally, a year later, Lieutenant Tavazon himself did some checking and confirmed that Billy's alibi was absolutely solid. Though, when we tracked him down, he said this. They never did, in my mind, ever really truly suspect me because I had such an alibi. I hate to say it, but I've looked at what they were saying. You were their number one person of interest, at least one investigator's number one person of interest. They never told me that.

27:16Billy also found any suggestion he was too close to Cassie particularly offensive. Absolutely never even a thought in my mind to have had a relationship with Cassie. Not even a little bit. Treated her like a daughter. So why take off for Alaska after the murder? Got a lucrative job offer up there, so I took it. Not even thinking of... That it would look bad. Yeah, why would it look bad? And he felt the same about that carpet he ripped up in Cassie's bedroom. There were some people who thought, Billy took that out of there because Billy didn't want evidence to be found. Well, what kind of evidence would have been in the carpet more than would have been somewhere else.