Original subtitles

This is a story about a group of friends...

They just fed off each other like that,

just being goofy and off the wall.

...who lived life to the Max...

It was just something we would do, you know,

after a few beers or quite a few beers.

...and follow their passions.

But behind the smiles lurks a monster...

...who will tear everything apart.

Clearly something evil in that house that night.

And it makes you sick to your stomach.

January 2010, fort Smith, Arkansas.

Aaah!

22-year-old Cassie Leigh Hardy's

making dinner.

But it's not going to plan.

Cassie's friend Erin is behind the camera.

Housemate Paul is on the couch,

next to Cassie's husband, Rodney.

Cassie --

Cassie was the best cook ever. Let me tell you what.

You always got a real thrill when she was cooking

cause the fire alarm would go off every time.

We had several good microwaved meals.

We really -- we really did.

Cassie was not a good cook at all.

But she tried. She -- it was fun.

All four of them live together

and get on like a house on fire.

They were a little bit wild.

Cassie worked nights, so they stayed up a little bit later.

Whoa!

Yeah, Rodney's just full of surprises.

He needs to make somebody laugh all the time.

This is our ghost-hunt video.

I think this was the same night

that Cassie burned the burger, actually.

It was just something we would do, you know,

after a few beers or quite a few beers.

Paul had this app that he had downloaded

that we all got this kick out of.

It was a whole ghost-hunting app

where you're walking around the house, you know,

and it pings if there's a ghost in the room or whatnot.

Yeah.

I know. I --

they were -- they were both goofy.

They -- they --

I think that's what she loved about him,

is that he was about as goofy as she was.

They just -- they were just both silly,

and his behavior --

they just fed off each other like that,

just being goofy and off the wall

and spontaneous,

and that's -- that's -- yeah. That's just both of them.

They're just --

but they found each other,

and then they kind of --

you know, it's like gasoline and fire sometimes.

They were really -- they were good at times,

and then they were bad at times.

Aaaah!

Aaah! Aaah! Aaaaaaaah!

She is hyper and -- and so sweet.

A little bit mean, too.

She would say whatever she wanted to say.

She didn't care what anybody thought.

But everybody loved her.

Everybody loved that about her.

We could really make anything fun,

and that was what was brilliant about that group of friends.

Rodney has another love in his life --

his band, the super smashed brothers.

We're the super smashed brothers.

Let me tell you what.

They're a surprise hit

on the local underground music scene.

Going nowhere fast

I think my music is... man: Yeah, yeah!

With super smashed brothers,

that whole thing --

actually, the band started as a joke.

We literally made three songs

that, to US, were very, very funny.

You know, it was very offensive.

It was very loud. It was very rude.

Grizzly Adams is amazing

grizzly Adams is amazing

we played our gig.

Didn't expect to ever play again.

In fact, we expected to be booed off the stage.

We were ready for it, you know?

And the funny thing was everybody loved it.

Yes, I am to keep your baby ha ha ha

of course, that's Rodney at the mic.

He was very talented. I know she would just sit

and listen to him go back and forth with his lyrics.

She was very proud of him.

Ha ha ha we were fans of the band,

and all of our friends were, too.

They were definitely different but they were funny,

not just musicwise. It was entertaining.

So we were big fans of them.

They weren't for some people but they were funny.

I think all of them are pretty talented

but especially Rodney. He just really is.

He's an entertainer.

By mid-2010, Rodney's band has taken off.

He's able to make something of a living from it.

We had people calling US, asking US if we wanted

to play gigs at their little bars there,

and we never expected it.

We went on to make --

went on to make two pretty good albums, I think,

and it was a -- it was a very, very, very fun time,

you know, just being offensive, being kids,

and being loud and rude,

and, at the time, it's what we needed, I guess.

Cassie, seen here in the audience,

helps with promoting the band and finding them gigs.

Cassie was always very, very supportive,

and she was always working on new ways to promote US.

She was always working on US working on t-shirt ideas

and merchandise ideas.

Cassie was the behind-the-scenes

that was helping everything run smoothly.

Otherwise, we would have tanked right off the bat.

Smoke that grass!

Cassie and Rodney are enjoying themselves.

It looks like they're becoming a success story.

But success comes at a price.

Your face off

hey I'm gonna your face off

your face off your face off

Rodney's band is touring

more and more out of state,

often leaving Cassie at home.

When I got out on the road, you know, things were --

things were pretty crazy.

I wasn't checking in on Cassie like I should have been.

I wasn't --

you know, basically, I'd left everyone behind in fort Smith,

you know, and I was kind of doing my thing.

Cassie's spending more and more time

without her soulmate

and worries what he's getting up to on tour.

She just didn't deal with it very well.

I mean, she came to me and she cried.

She did what she always did

and just, you know, put it in a little box

and just tucked it away in her heart.

When Rodney is back from tour, things are difficult.

Cassie wanted children, but Rodney --

I think he was probably the voice of reason,

and he felt that they were too young to at that time.

It's an unexpected stress on their marriage,

but they're determined to find a way through it.

In June 2010, Rodney makes a rare visit home.

Cassie had started telling me that she was getting unhappy

with me being gone.

She really missed me, you know?

Things were kind of falling apart.

So they hit upon an idea.

Me and Cassie decided that we would try

the whole open-relationship scenario.

It was something that was very popular,

especially among people in the rock scene

and the punk-rock scene at the time.

It may sound unusual,

but to them, nothing's more important

than recapturing their magic and staying together.

It will be a decision with consequences.

Cassie and Rodney Hardy

are made for each other.

But Rodney's unexpected musical success

has meant their marriage is facing a challenge.

And they've decided to try an open relationship

to ease the tension.

At a party, Rodney and Cassie are introduced to a new guy...

...recently divorced single dad Brent cotta.

He's eager to make a good impression.

Brent had had some some bad luck, some hard luck, and...

...our friends felt sorry for him.

I felt a little sorry for him. He was a nice guy

so he was welcome to hang out with US, you know?

Brent tries to fit in,

and the others encourage him to let go.

If that means chain-sawing a couch, so be it.

Brent hangs out with them regularly,

and Rodney's away a lot.

It's not long before Cassie realizes

she has an admirer close to home.

This is for you.

Brent knew about their agreement,

so it was -- Brent was there.

Brent wasn't going anywhere from that point.

He would take her out on dates

and, you know, spoil her,

show her a lot of attention.

She really just needed, you know, a guy

that was always there for her.

Rodney and Cassie's open relationship

has blown up in their faces.

It only took two months

from the time I hit the road on tour

for our relationship to completely fall apart.

I said, you know what? I don't want this anymore.

Let's just get a divorced.

Cassie moves in with Brent

and his three young children from his previous marriage

and gets the ready-made family

she's always wanted.

Awesome! A car.

It's early Christmas morning 2010,

and Brent is filming his kids opening their presents.

Yes.

Princess stuff.

The youngest would call her mom.

And she just thought that was the sweetest thing, you know?

Ooh, look at that.

Yeah.

I guess so.

Her main priority was the children.

She treated his kids like they were her children.

They got along great, you know?

Thanks!

Then Cassie and Brent get some good news.

Hey.

Well, cass...

...i don't know what to think.

What? Mwah!

What?! It came through.

My...

He was about to get millions of dollars

for a wrongful death regarding his mom.

Cassie said that she'd seen paperwork.

And there's only one person

he wants to spend his windfall on.

When Brent was getting ready for it to come through,

he was telling Cassie -- he was promising her

lots of things -- a laptop, an iPhone.

Shut that door?

Brent captures the moment

he gives this family a cute surprise.

She had been wanting a puppy.

I remember when she brought him home

and she brought him over

and why she called him Mr. Socks.

He was pure black, but his little feet were white.

So that's where the name came -- is Mr. Socks.

Brent takes Cassie on their first vacation --

a trip to Vegas.

Cassie always wanted to go to Las Vegas,

so Brent booked them a trip

and rented a Hummer limousine

to go around Las Vegas --

you know, take her shopping.

Alright.

This is some footage of where they had stayed in the hotel.

This is the Vegas suite in the bellagio, was it? Yeah.

Sparing no expense,

Brent books a palatial suite.

I remember she had texted me from there.

She was so excited. She was having fun.

They was just constantly talking about

how much they loved each other

and that they wanted to get married.

So they went to the jewelry store and got her a ring.

It's recording.

This video was taken

on the first day of their engagement.

This beautiful woman is -- hold on.

I can't go in and out.

This is the ring.

Finally, Cassie's found the thing she's wanted the most --

a family of her own.

In the background,

Cassie is burning memories

of her time with Rodney.

It's 2011, fort Smith Arkansas.

Brent cotta and Cassie Hardy are deep in a whirlwind romance.

This is the ring.

The couple has been expecting a huge insurance payout,

and Brent's already been lavishing cash on Cassie.

But then Brent is hit with a bombshell.

I can't believe this.

His settlement has fallen through.

The money he has spent already is everything he'll receive.

There'll be no further payout.

What's up?

It's gone. It's all gone.

Cassie had expected

to be living a life of luxury with Brent, but now...

They're broke.

To help keep the family afloat,

Brent gets a job in Oklahoma

working in an oilfield.

Yet again, Cassie has a partner

who leaves her alone for long periods.

Cassie goes out and gets a bartending job at a local bar.

She's working double shifts, working two jobs sometimes,

and it was weighing on her,

and I do believe everything that he bought her

they ended up having to pawn just to pay bills.

Brent, back from work,

films Cassie and her friend Mandy

having fun pampering themselves.

Booga, booga, booga, booga!

But money is constantly on their minds.

Did you get your bag you wanted?

She did tell me, you know, that they were broke,

that they were struggling.

They was really struggling to make ends meet.

On march 6, 2011, Mandy gets a call.

It's Cassie.

I heard her screaming,

and, she was, screaming for my help.

And the next thing I heard was,

you know, the phone sliding underneath the couch.

A fight between Brent and Cassie

has boiled over.

It takes a visit from the police to calm things down,

and Cassie decides to get some breathing space

by moving out.

But she's determined not to end another relationship,

and on June 12th, she moves back in.

She did love him.

She was just saying, it will get better.

A few days later, they make it official

and tie the knot.

It was a really nice day,

and it was all just a lighthearted thing.

They were going to do it.

I went with them and was the witness.

And after that, we just went

and had a few drinks, and then I think we ended up

going back to their apartment complex

and grilling at the pool a little bit.

Then, a few months after they marry,

there's a problem with Brent's job.

He ended up getting laid off

because he was missing too much days.

He was saying that he couldn't stand to be away

from her that long, so he stopped working there.

All the responsibilities of the bills

and everything was on Cassie at this point.

Despite being married for only six months,

Cassie decides it's not working

and kicks Brent out.

Cassie is determined to recapture the fun times

and goes back to living a single life.

She didn't care about what everybody else thought,

so she did whatever made her happy,

and it was just really enjoyable to be around somebody

that, you know, is stress-free.

So, yeah, she was -- she was a party animal, too.

But Cassie still cares about Brent.

He called and was crying to Cassie

and saying that he was cold, had no place to stay.

He wasn't able to see his kids

cause he didn't have a home.

Played Cassie soft side,

and so she allowed him to come back and stay with her

on the understanding that they was not together.

It's the afternoon of new year's Eve.

Cassie's mom, Pearl, gets a call.

I get a phone call about 4:00,

and it's Brent asking me if I have seen Cassie.

And I said, well, she should be at work.

And he said, no she never showed up.

I got on her Facebook.

I started putting out there, has anybody seen Cassie?

Has anybody heard from Cassie since last night?

And then Facebook started blowing up

cause they started realizing she's not been on Facebook.

Nobody's heard from her.

I got a phone call from a friend and --

and said, do you know where's Cassie at?

People are looking for Cassie.

And I said, no.

I was like, what's going on? I just talked to her yesterday.

Cassie's mom pays Brent a visit.

I looked at him, and I said, I need you to tell me

what happened that night.

It's so strange. Nobody's heard a thing.

And he said, I don't know.

She said she was going to a party,

grabbed her bottle of Tequila, and left.

Brent knows she didn't drive anywhere

because her car is still parked outside the apartment.

And nobody knew anything after that.

I went to the police.

Police were like, no. She's of age.

It's new year's Eve. She's out getting drunk.

Cassie's not been seen for more than 18 hours.

Her friends go around to see Brent.

Brent looked really distraught.

He had bags underneath his eyes.

He looked like he hadn't slept in days.

He was telling me that he just wanted his wife back.

By sunday, we're now on day two of silence.

No text messaging, no phone calls,

no facebooking, no Twitter, no nothing.

My daughter's a social butterfly.

She would not just go silent.

So we knew -- we knew -- we knew something was wrong.

24-year-old Cassie cotta has gone missing.

She went out on December 30th

and hasn't been seen for nearly two days.

On January 1st,

friends and family decide to search the neighborhood.

We started searching the land next to the apartment.

There was a whole bunch of pastures and trees and stuff.

Maybe she took off walking

and fell, you know, somewhere around the land.

Then just out the back of Cassie's apartment,

Mandy find some disturbed soil.

Really did think that she might be buried there.

Just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach

that -- that she -- that she was dead.

Officers carefully excavate the spot...

...and inside they find a corpse...

...of a dog.

What do you think?

It's Mr. Socks, the puppy Brent had given

to Cassie on Valentine's day.

Police establish the dog has been dead for about a month.

They accelerate their investigation.

We begin to get information,

and what I remember is friends

that were very familiar with her patterns,

her daily routines.

Her not showing up for work -- that is something

that was completely out of the ordinary for her.

So we begin to escalate our resources into this.

Brent is one of the last people to see Cassie.

Police bring him in to be interviewed.

He describes the last time he saw his wife.

What, you -- you going somewhere, or...?

Out.

Where?

Just out.

When we were trying to figure out his whereabouts,

tell US your last 24 hours, he claimed to be home all night.

Brent shows officers text messages

between him and Cassie that night.

The sense of the messages we saw from his phone

was she's on a lam, running and party.

She is doing what she wants to do.

She's out having a good time.

She'll be home when she basically wants to be home.

The messages back up Brent's account

of being home all night,

and Cassie's whereabouts remain a mystery.

People started coming in in droves to help US search.

Cassie's disappearance has attracted media attention.

Pearl gives Brent a supportive hug.

And the news people were there at the time,

and they were interviewing everybody.

News cameras follow Brent

as he leads the search.

Brent went from house to house,

passing out flyers.

It's alright. I'm good.

Okay. Thank you.

But when police speak to neighbors...

They get a lead.

I remember a neighbor telling US, you know, oddly,

that remembered their s.U.V.

Being backed up to their apartment.

And the time of the day --

it was late at night, which was odd.

The placement was odd.

And reporting to US that it left,

and then, at some point, he came back.

There's no surveillance camera

and no witnesses,

so police can't identify who moved the vehicle.

But shortly afterwards, they finally get a lead

from a trace on Cassie's phone.

It took a couple days,

but once the cellphone data began to come back,

it opened a brand-new chapter in this case.

The phone's last signal pinged from a remote area

a 20 minutes' drive from her apartment.

But they also receive Brent's phone-location data.

It started out seeming his story was somewhat accurate,

the accuracy being the two being together

on that particular night that he's saying.

Cassie and her phone left the apartment,

as Brent told police.

So did he.

And as you continue looking at the data,

they both ended up in a rural area

that was actually even at a different county

from where we are.

The surreal moment was that Cassie's phone

stayed in this rural area.

Brent cotta's phone did not. It came back home.

Brent cotta is now the prime suspect.

We had clear, concrete information

that he was being untruthful with US.

There was no debate. There was no dispute. We need this story.

We need the true story of what really happened.

Fun-loving, popular 24-year-old Cassie cotta

has gone missing.

The police have pinpointed Cassie's cellphone

to a rural area.

Her husband, Brent's, phone data also shows

he was in the same place

the night she disappeared.

We had the cellphone data.

We presented him with the information

that, listen, it's clear you're being untruthful.

Detectives drive Brent to the area,

hoping he might break.

We had several investigators in a car.

Put him in the backseat

and begin driving.

And we knew where we needed to go.

We kind of veered off onto a desolate road.

As they approach a field,

Brent's mood changes.

He began to get a little bit emotional,

and he basically, once we got to this spot,

he directed US exactly where we needed to go.

This the spot?

It wasn't very far.

You couldn't see it from the road, from where we stopped.

Cassie's mom, Pearl, is at the police station,

waiting for news.

The detective came out, and he -- he said,

can I talk to you? And I said, yes.

So we walked down this long corridor.

He took me to his office,

and he sat me down.

He said, um...

You remember I told you...

You would be the first person to know

when we found something out?

And I said, yes.

We basically confirmed our worst suspicions at that time.

And he said...

Pearl, we found your daughter's body.

And I had asked them where -- where was Brent,

that Brent needed to be with US

because they just found his wife's body

and we need to be together as a family.

And he said, Pearl, Brent took US to where Cassie was.

And he looked at me, and he said, Pearl, Brent killed her.

I immediately fell to my knees

cause I-I knew.

You know, I had asked, you know, to see her,

and they told me that I couldn't

because she had been exposed for so many days.

I remember whenever I got the call

and that, they had found Cassie's body.

I... I remember falling to the floor...

And... just not being able to move.

Back at the police station,

officers pressure Brent for the truth,

and he changes his story.

I believe he mentioned her having a knife

and threatening him

and him making some type of punch

somewhere near her throat

and that she collapsed

and that she just...Passed away,

that he couldn't save her.

Um, we didn't believe that.

They did a full autopsy.

It clearly showed that she died from strangulation.

Brent never fully admits to what happened,

but officers build a picture based on the evidence.

At some point on the evening of December 30th,

Cassie and Brent argue.

Things turn violent,

and in a fit of rage,

Brett strangles Cassie and kills her.

Then he picks up her cellphone and types text messages

to his own phone to give himself an alibi.

Brent loads Cassie's body into the trunk of their s.U.V...

...drives 20 minutes out of town...

And dumps her body in a field.

I mean, that's evil.

You know, something in that house, it...

This is the ring.

Let me see that ring. Hold on. Let me get that --

ooh, look at that!

Loving someone so much to the borderline of obsession,

and when you're turned down or you're not receiving

the same love and attention, he -- he flipped,

to me, and clearly something evil in that house that night.

Then, to throw police off his scent,

Brent leads a search to find Cassie.

I mean, him giving the interview,

knowing the whole time where she was...

...knowing that...

He was just playing a part as a grieving husband

or the, um, husband who's looking for his wife...

Kind of makes you sick to your stomach.

Brent cotta is charged with first-degree murder,

and on August 2, 2012,

he's convicted and sentenced

to 30 years in prison.

At Cassie's funeral, there was so many people.

Cassie was one of a kind, a true character,

a tough exterior but a huge softie.

I was so lucky to have her in my life,

and it will not be the same without her.

Every memory makes me smile.

Cassie definitely touched a lot of people's lives

and -- and became friends with so many

in her short lifespan.

Thank you. Yeah.

She was definitely very compassionate

to the ones that she loved. She loved with her whole heart.

Aaaah!

That child of mine.

She was vibrant, outgoing, big-hearted,

free-spirited...

Just loved life to the fullest.

She had everything going for her.

She had -- she was a beautiful woman

that -- that had a whole

lifetime ahead of her.

That was my baby.