October 28, 2025 • 23 mins
Cassie Jo Stoddart was housesitting in Pocatello, Idaho, just days before Halloween — when a quiet weekend took a deadly turn.
In this Halloween episode of Murder U, we revisit the 2006 killing that turned a suburban home into a scene straight out of a horror film. What began as an ordinary weekend quickly spiraled into one of the most unsettling true-crime cases of the decade. As investigators traced Cassie’s final hours, they uncovered evidence of a carefully orchestrated plan — and a chilling fascination that blurred the line between fiction and reality.
It’s the story of a bright, responsible teenager whose trust was betrayed, and of a community left haunted by a crime that felt ripped from the movies.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/murder-u--6152042/support.
In this Halloween episode of Murder U, we revisit the 2006 killing that turned a suburban home into a scene straight out of a horror film. What began as an ordinary weekend quickly spiraled into one of the most unsettling true-crime cases of the decade. As investigators traced Cassie’s final hours, they uncovered evidence of a carefully orchestrated plan — and a chilling fascination that blurred the line between fiction and reality.
It’s the story of a bright, responsible teenager whose trust was betrayed, and of a community left haunted by a crime that felt ripped from the movies.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/murder-u--6152042/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh my gosh. I can't thank you all enough for listening.
We've had thousands of downloads already and we're just getting started. Anyway,
can I ask you a huge favor. If you're loving
murder You, could you give us a five star review?
It really helps us out and ensures we can keep
bringing you great true crime stories thanks a bunch Abnordia.
(00:25):
From high school hallways to expansive college campuses and the
sanctity of their homes, these once secure spaces have transformed
into hunting grounds for sinister individuals seeking to inflict harm
on the unsuspecting. I'm your host, Mattie. Join me here
each week as we investigate the bone chilling stories of
senseless murders occurring in and around our centers of education.
(00:48):
Welcome to Murder You, an Abnormia original. Okay, welcome back
(01:19):
to Murder You. I'm your host, Mattie, and this week's
case is very appropriate for the season we're in. As
the leaves change and the air becomes crisper, you might
add pumpkins to your home decor you might even watch
some of your favorite scary movies to get yourself in
a spooky mood. A film at the top of many
people's horror movie rankings is Wes Craven's Scream. It came
(01:43):
out in nineteen ninety six and was an instant hit,
grossing over one hundred million dollars at the box office,
and it's still the second highest grossing slasher film of
all time, second only to a movie that inspired it,
nineteen seventy eight's Halloween. That's what's great at the Scream
franchise and a large part of its success. The movies
(02:04):
draw inspiration from horror movies that came before them, and
even blatantly reference them. Screampoke's fun at the idea that
movies can influence reality, Like, if someone with violent tendencies
sees a killer in a film, they'd want to recreate
what they saw in real life. But that's just a
silly storytelling device, right. Wes Craven put that in Scream
(02:27):
to laugh off the idea that anyone would want to
do that. But that message went right over the heads
of some teens in two thousand and six who saw
Scream and decided to recreate its iconic home invasion murder
with Idaho high schooler Cassie Joe Stoddart in the starring role.
This case is a wild ride, Let's get started. Cassie
(02:49):
Joe Stoddart was born on December twenty one, nineteen eighty nine.
She was a middle child with an older sister named
Christy and a younger brother named Andrew. Her mother, Anna,
was a wonderful and loving mom, and their family was
very close. They loved spending time together and prioritized being
kind to others. Cassie was an artist who often spent
(03:11):
hours drawing and listening to music in her room. Her
brother Andrew recalled being very close to Cassie as they
were close in age. He looked up to his sister
for being a kind and responsible, straight a student. The
adults in her life praised her for being someone they
could depend on. Her aunt and uncle Alison and Frank Contreras,
(03:32):
saw this in her as well, so on September twenty second,
two thousand and six, they asked Cassie to house sit
for them while they were out of town. The house
was a large, two story suburban home, large enough for
the Contreras's They're three cats and two dogs. Cassie was
expected to sit for all the animals that night. She
(03:52):
eagerly took on the task and invited her boyfriend Matt
Beckham to keep her company. Her aunt and uncle allowed
the guests since she was so responsible. Besides, being a
young girl alone in a large house could be unnerving,
Cassie felt safer with someone there for the weekend. However,
on Sunday, September twenty fourth, the Contrarists returned from their
(04:15):
vacation to a horrific scene, one that proved that Cassie
was right to fear being alone there. Alison and Frank
discovered their niece on the floor, having been stabbed twenty
nine times and covered in blood. My heart goes out
to them. I just know that sight must have haunted
their nightmares for years. They frantically called the police, who
(04:37):
came to investigate the horrific scene. The details of what
led to a grizzly murder in the house on Whispering
Cliff's Drive over those forty eight hours were a complete mystery.
The authorities tried to piece it together. In an interview
with Dateline, Cassie's mother Anne stated that Cassie had stopped
answering her phone that weekend. She didn't think much of it,
(05:00):
as Pocatella was generally considered a safe town. Anne considered
going up to the house, but got sidetracked with other things,
so she just went to bed and figured she'd pick
up Cassie when she was done house sitting, just as
they'd planned. But little did Anne know that her beloved
daughter was already lying dead on the floor of the
whispering Cliff's drive home. Cassie's body would be discovered before
(05:24):
she'd get the chance to follow through on that plan,
how heartbreaking. When investigators examined the crime scene, they noticed
that the power had been cut from the Contrera's home. This,
of course, raised some red flags. They started to think
that maybe whoever cut the power crept up on Cassie
in the darkness and killed her. Investigators dusted the breaker
(05:46):
switch and found an interesting set of fingerprints Prince that
belonged to Cassie's mother's boyfriend. Maybe the man had something
to do with the crime. After taking him in for questioning,
they found he could explain the prince and had a
rock solid alibi. He sometimes did housework for the Contrarasses
that involved shutting off the power. This made sense to investigators,
(06:10):
and they confirmed that at the time of the murder
Friday night, he had been at his neighbor's house playing
video games, so he was no longer a suspect. Meanwhile,
once the news of Cassie's murder broke at Pocatello High School,
the rumor around the halls was that it had to
have been Cassie's boyfriend, Matt Beckham. He was there with
(06:30):
her while she house sat and was the last known
person to see her alive. The police were one step
ahead of the rumor mill, though, and brought Matt in
for questioning early on Monday, before news was even out
about her murder. They told him Cassie was dead before
asking what he knew of the events of that weekend.
Matt appeared distraught and did his best to recount what
(06:52):
happened before he left Cassie on Friday. Matt said they'd
stayed in and watched movies, and then the power began
turning on and off. He recalled that it unsettled Cassie
and they checked in the basement to see if anything
was happening, but they didn't go down. They just looked
from the top of the stairs. Later, the power went
out and plunged the house into complete darkness. This frightened
(07:16):
the couple more, especially when some of the lights came
back on and they saw one of the Contraras's dogs
staring down the basement steps as if someone was down there.
It barked and growled, but Cassie and Matt saw nothing.
They let it go and decided not to investigate. Matt
had a curfew at home and his mom would be
(07:37):
over to pick him up later that night. He didn't
want to leave Cassie alone, so he asked his mom
if she would let him stay over to be with Cassie.
Matt's mother insisted he come home, but she did offer
Cassie a place to stay that night. However, Cassie, ever loyal,
had promised her aunt and uncle she'd watch their house.
(07:58):
She turned down the offer and decided to brave out
the night alone. Matt's mother picked him up at eleven
thirty PM. Leaving Cassie alone that night would prove to
be one of the biggest regrets of Matt's life, but
that wasn't the whole story. Matt was so hung up
on the details of his last few hours of house
sitting with Cassie that he forgot to mention an integral
(08:20):
part of the story to the police. Earlier that Friday night,
they'd invited some friends over, two boys from school, Brian
Draper and Tory Adam Chick. They weren't close friends of Cassie,
but she was welcoming towards everyone. Earlier that day, they'd
even taken a video of her at her locker in
the hallway, so when Matt invited them over, he and
(08:42):
Cassie thought they might have a good time with Brian
and Tory. As far as Matt was concerned, by the
time his mom picked him up that night, they had
had an enjoyable evening. They watched Kill Bill two and
Cassie gave them a tour of the house. Then at
nine point thirty they left. Matt didn't think they had
anything to do with Cassie's murder at all. When the
(09:04):
police caught up with Draper and Adam Chick, the boys
had an alibi. After leaving Cassie and Matt at the
Contreras home, they went to see Pulse at the local
movie theater. However, investigators found it odd that neither could
tell them what the movie was about, so they decided
to ask a movie theater employee if she could validate
(09:25):
they were there that night. And here's where living in
a small town really comes in handy, folks. The employee
was a schoolmate from Pocatello High School who knew Tory
and Brian personally, and she could say with one hundred
percent certainty that neither of them had been in the
movie theater that night. So at the very least, the
police had caught the boys in a lie. The police wondered,
(09:48):
if the boys had nothing to do with this brutal attack,
why they would lie about where they were that night.
When they brought Draper and Adam Chick back for more questioning,
investigators reveal that they knew the sixteen year old boys
had lied. They were then given a chance to tell
the truth. Brian was the first to confess. He admitted
(10:10):
to the police that they lied about being at the
movie theater because they had been out burglarizing cars and
didn't want to get caught for that crime. The authorities
were skeptical and scheduled Brian to have a polygraph test
the following day. However, right when it was about to begin,
Brian had a breakdown. He began crying and appeared visibly
(10:30):
distraught at the location the polygraph test was being held.
The polygraph examiner contacted the police to come talk to
him right away. I can imagine Brian had already felt
the sinking pit of getting caught in a lie the
first time and couldn't bear to go through it again. Instead,
he wanted to come clean himself. He sat down with
(10:50):
the police and told his version of what happened the
night Cassie died. Brian claimed that he and Tory had
planned to play a prank on Cassie. They came over
a movie toward the house and pretended to leave, but
really they put on scary masks and wielded weapons to
sneak back into the house and scare her by making
her think she was the target of some nightmarish home invasion,
(11:14):
just like in the horror movies. But Brian claimed the
prank went horribly wrong. He said they snuck back in
through the basement, an entrance they'd made sure was unlocked
when Cassie gave them a tour of the house earlier
that night. The audio of his confession is public, and
he sounds really frantic in it. It's hard to even
make out what he's saying at times, but Brian stated
(11:37):
they shut the door behind them loudly to spook her.
Brian said Cassie came out with the landline phone in
her hand, and Tory walked ahead to scare her, but
by the time Brian caught up, he claimed, Cassie was
already on the floor and Tory was standing over her,
exclaiming I had to kill her. I had to kill her,
and started stabbing Cassie in the chest. Brian claimed he
(11:59):
was appalled by what he witnessed and begged his friend
to stop, but it was too late. The damage had
been done. Cassie was dead, he said. He and Tory
fled the scene and disposed of incriminating evidence, including clothes
and weapons, in the nearby black Rock Canyon. Brian even
took the police to the exact location. Wow, Brian, Draper
(12:22):
was behaving like such a helpful accessory to murder. It's
almost like he was trying to appear as the lesser
of two evils between him and Tory. He claimed that
Tory did all of the stabbing and he was just
a witness, and now he was even leading the police
to evidence with this confession. The police knew they had
their guys, even if they didn't have the full story.
(12:45):
They arrested both Brian Draper and Tory Adamchick for first
degree murder and recovered as much as they could of
the burned items they disposed of in the canyon, including
a Sony VHS tape. And once again, this tape raised
some red flags. Police Captain John Ganski worried it may
have been a recording of the murder itself and feared
(13:06):
what they might see once they watched it, But the
tape was so badly burned they didn't think they'd recover
what was on it. Thankfully they could fix the tape
because it contained the most shocking and incriminating evidence of
this entire case. The first scene on the tape was
that aforementioned shot of Cassie at her locker, you know,
(13:27):
the one Brian and Tory took of her at school
that Friday. In the clip, they asked her to say
hi to the camera before class, and she obliged turns
out and this is where it gets really disturbing. Brian
and Tory didn't take that video to make memories of
their junior year. They intended to have it as the
opening scene of their own personal horror movie. Tory Adamchik
(13:50):
was a big movie buff who got Brian Draper into
horror movies when they met in high school. One of
their favorite franchises was the Scream franchise, which by two
two thousand and six had three blockbuster movies under its belt.
The first movie is probably the most recognizable, though, because
it subverted horror movie tropes and shocked its viewers with
(14:10):
the reveal of not one killer, but two. And the
killers were two teenage boys who were best friends. Sorry
spoiler alert. Draper and Adam Chick saw themselves as the
film's antagonists and bonded over their desire to instill fear
in others. Brian idolized mass murderers and even participated in
(14:32):
online chat rooms discussing school shootings. One day, both boys
skipped a school assembly and hung out in the boy's bathroom. There,
they bonded over their love of the Scream movies. Then
Tory asked Brian if he'd ever considered doing something like
that to someone. Together, they dreamed up a horrifying, toxic
(14:54):
combination of their sick desires, a real life horror movie
with a real life murder. From my knowledge, producing a
horror movie should involve writers, directors, and actors. A so
called film where its star really gets killed would be
considered a snuff film. But luckily for everyone who had
to watch the evidence, this film didn't go that far. Instead,
(15:19):
it depicted Draper and Adamchik in the planning stages before
the murder and the aftermath. The second shot in the film,
after the one of Cassie at her locker, was of
the two boys in the school library formulating a death
list of people they wanted to kill, composed entirely of
kids from their school. Tory even said in the clip
(15:40):
there should be no law against killing people. Can you
imagine finding out after the fact that you or your
friends were on that list? Such a terrifying thought. They
wanted to murder all of the students on that list,
culminating in a mass shooting at the school, Columbine style.
Draper and Adamchik decided to target Cassie and Matt that
(16:01):
night simply because they knew they would be house sitting.
They'd be sitting ducks. And if you know anything about
the screen franchise, the event that acts as the catalyst
to the entire movie is a murder where the victim
is a teenage girl alone in a big house with
her boyfriend. After they watched Kill Bill two with Cassie
and Matt, they said goodbye to their friends and pretended
(16:22):
to leave, but really they went to their car and
recorded another scene of their movie. Here is a quote
from the video. Unfortunately, we have the task of killing
our two friends, and they are right in the house
down the street. We just talked to them. We were
there for an hour. Yeah, somehow I have a hard
(16:43):
time believing the words unfortunately and friends in that sentence,
given what I know will happen next. They visited the
couple at the Contrera's home on Friday night and toured
the house. Once they got a good feel for the
homes layout, they made sure the basement entrance was unlocked
so that after they pretended to leave, they could come
(17:04):
back in through the basement. They then planned to lure
Cassie and Matt down to the basement and kill them there.
Remember when we mentioned that the lights kept flickering, making
Cassie and Matt too afraid to go down to the
basement and check out the circuit breaker remember how the
dog was staring down the basement stairs, growling and barking
as if someone was down there. Yeah, that was Draper
(17:27):
and Adam Chick trying to lure the two teenagers down
to their deaths. But they didn't go down to the trap,
and Matt was picked up by his parents soon after.
Leaving Cassie alone in the house, Tory cut the power
one last time. He and Brian climbed the stairs wearing
frightening masks, came up out of the basement and attacked
Cassie with the two large hunting knives they'd brought with them.
(17:51):
They stabbed her repeatedly as she pleaded for her life.
I can only imagine how terrified Cassie must have been
once they'd killed her. The two boys went back to
the car and get this recorded another video. In it,
they breathe heavily and talk so fast you can hear
the adrenaline in their voices. They said things like, we
(18:14):
just killed Cassie, We just left her house. This is
not a joke. It happened so fast. Brian sounded especially frantic.
But there's a point in the video where Tory tells
him to and I'm paraphrasing, since there were expletives used,
shut up so they can get their shit together and
their story straight. They then bought matches and hydrogen peroxide
(18:37):
and drove to Black Rock Canyon, where they attempted to
burn all the evidence, including the tape. It's crazy that
filming it was such a huge part of their motive
and planning, but they wanted to dispose of the footage.
Maybe they only realized after committing the horrific crime that
keeping such an incriminating piece of evidence was a bad idea.
(18:59):
But his fate would have it. They didn't fully destroy
the tape, which was used as a reason to try
them as adults and put them away for life without parole.
The trial was fairly cut and dry since the authorities
had the damning evidence of the tapes. But one interesting
thing about the trial was that both boys defense teams
blamed the other boy. Tory's lawyer claimed Brian was the mastermind,
(19:24):
and Brian's claimed it was Tory, even though both boys
admitted to stabbing Cassie and the tapes. It's always so
ironic to me how in these cases where two killers
worked together, they quickly turn on each other once they
get caught. It just shows how selfishly these killers think.
Brian and Tory weren't thinking of Cassie when they did this.
(19:45):
They weren't even thinking about each other. They were only
thinking of themselves and the thrill they got from being
the killers in their own real life horror movie. Brian
was interviewed by Dateline nearly twenty years later and expressed
extreme guilt for what he is Tory did. When asked
why he wanted to harm people in his youth, he answered,
(20:05):
I felt like I'd be somebody if I did something
big and bad. I felt like I was a loser.
I felt like I didn't matter. It's so disturbing how
many outcasts and victims of bullying think the way to
be recognized is to harm people, Like why not want
to make something of yourself by doing something positive instead
of living in infamy. This quote from the interview truly
(20:29):
sent a chill down my spine. Brian was asked if
he knew how cruel they were being when he and
Tory taunted Cassie by repeatedly turning out the lights and
terrifying her. He responded, I felt like I was being
watched by an audience. I felt like I was there
to be in the movie screen so disturbing. There is
(20:49):
a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread by someone who claims
to have been in the Pocatello High School junior class
at the time of Cassie's murder. They said that Brian
and Tory didn't raise any flags and weren't each other's
only friends. After Cassie's murder, students were on edge. They
were nervous around anyone who was once close to the
two murderers. Those poor kids, they probably had no clue
(21:13):
how disturbed their friends were, and now they were paying
a price for it too. According to the Reddit user,
the case was front page news in Pocatello for months,
resulting in a collective depression among the student body and
staff alike. They stated that students and teachers would be
seen crying across campus whenever a development in the case
(21:33):
would become a headline. Pocatello High School brought in counselors
that students could see at any point throughout the day.
Another interesting thing said in the Reddit thread was that
the students watched the arraignment live in class. How surreal
that must have been to watch two of your classmates
kids you had English or math with, maybe you ate
(21:54):
lunch next to them, and now they were being imprisoned
for life right in front of your homeroom class. And
just for the sake of the spooky season, I thought
I might tack on this little bit of information. Frank
contraras Cassie's uncle, was interviewed by Idaho State Journal and
stated that his family's Whispering Cliffs Drive home where Cassie
(22:15):
was murdered, has proven hard to sell. This is typical
for houses where murders have taken place, partly because of superstition,
but also because of the unwonted attention it might provide.
Many people won't want to buy a house with bad
energy attached to it. But Frank also alludes to the
house potentially being haunted. He stated that his and Allison's
(22:37):
daughter saw Cassie in the house sometime after the murder,
which led to her having a mental breakdown during which
she attempted suicide. Frank also claimed that every family member
has had an unexplained supernatural encounter in the house. Looks
like the slasher film that Draper and Adamchick tried to
make could have turned into a ghost story. But regardless
(22:58):
of whether or not you believe in the supernatural, the
facts are that Brian Draper and Tory Adamchick thought they
could live a horror movie without any consequences. But when
you look at how the teen boy killers in Scream
ended up dead at the end of their killing spree,
Draper and Adamchick got off pretty easily by receiving life
without parole, because reality is not like the movies. If
(23:25):
you or anyone you know is struggling with mental illness,
you can contact the Samsay National Helpline at one eight
hundred six six' two. Help that's one eight hundred sixty
six y two four three five. Seven be sure to
like and subscribe To Murder you On, Spotify Apple, Music Amazon,
music or wherever you get your. Podcasts
Oh my gosh. I can't thank you all enough for listening.
We've had thousands of downloads already and we're just getting started. Anyway,
can I ask you a huge favor. If you're loving
murder You, could you give us a five star review?
It really helps us out and ensures we can keep
bringing you great true crime stories thanks a bunch Abnordia.
(00:25):
From high school hallways to expansive college campuses and the
sanctity of their homes, these once secure spaces have transformed
into hunting grounds for sinister individuals seeking to inflict harm
on the unsuspecting. I'm your host, Mattie. Join me here
each week as we investigate the bone chilling stories of
senseless murders occurring in and around our centers of education.
(00:48):
Welcome to Murder You, an Abnormia original. Okay, welcome back
(01:19):
to Murder You. I'm your host, Mattie, and this week's
case is very appropriate for the season we're in. As
the leaves change and the air becomes crisper, you might
add pumpkins to your home decor you might even watch
some of your favorite scary movies to get yourself in
a spooky mood. A film at the top of many
people's horror movie rankings is Wes Craven's Scream. It came
(01:43):
out in nineteen ninety six and was an instant hit,
grossing over one hundred million dollars at the box office,
and it's still the second highest grossing slasher film of
all time, second only to a movie that inspired it,
nineteen seventy eight's Halloween. That's what's great at the Scream
franchise and a large part of its success. The movies
(02:04):
draw inspiration from horror movies that came before them, and
even blatantly reference them. Screampoke's fun at the idea that
movies can influence reality, Like, if someone with violent tendencies
sees a killer in a film, they'd want to recreate
what they saw in real life. But that's just a
silly storytelling device, right. Wes Craven put that in Scream
(02:27):
to laugh off the idea that anyone would want to
do that. But that message went right over the heads
of some teens in two thousand and six who saw
Scream and decided to recreate its iconic home invasion murder
with Idaho high schooler Cassie Joe Stoddart in the starring role.
This case is a wild ride, Let's get started. Cassie
(02:49):
Joe Stoddart was born on December twenty one, nineteen eighty nine.
She was a middle child with an older sister named
Christy and a younger brother named Andrew. Her mother, Anna,
was a wonderful and loving mom, and their family was
very close. They loved spending time together and prioritized being
kind to others. Cassie was an artist who often spent
(03:11):
hours drawing and listening to music in her room. Her
brother Andrew recalled being very close to Cassie as they
were close in age. He looked up to his sister
for being a kind and responsible, straight a student. The
adults in her life praised her for being someone they
could depend on. Her aunt and uncle Alison and Frank Contreras,
(03:32):
saw this in her as well, so on September twenty second,
two thousand and six, they asked Cassie to house sit
for them while they were out of town. The house
was a large, two story suburban home, large enough for
the Contreras's They're three cats and two dogs. Cassie was
expected to sit for all the animals that night. She
(03:52):
eagerly took on the task and invited her boyfriend Matt
Beckham to keep her company. Her aunt and uncle allowed
the guests since she was so responsible. Besides, being a
young girl alone in a large house could be unnerving,
Cassie felt safer with someone there for the weekend. However,
on Sunday, September twenty fourth, the Contrarists returned from their
(04:15):
vacation to a horrific scene, one that proved that Cassie
was right to fear being alone there. Alison and Frank
discovered their niece on the floor, having been stabbed twenty
nine times and covered in blood. My heart goes out
to them. I just know that sight must have haunted
their nightmares for years. They frantically called the police, who
(04:37):
came to investigate the horrific scene. The details of what
led to a grizzly murder in the house on Whispering
Cliff's Drive over those forty eight hours were a complete mystery.
The authorities tried to piece it together. In an interview
with Dateline, Cassie's mother Anne stated that Cassie had stopped
answering her phone that weekend. She didn't think much of it,
(05:00):
as Pocatella was generally considered a safe town. Anne considered
going up to the house, but got sidetracked with other things,
so she just went to bed and figured she'd pick
up Cassie when she was done house sitting, just as
they'd planned. But little did Anne know that her beloved
daughter was already lying dead on the floor of the
whispering Cliff's drive home. Cassie's body would be discovered before
(05:24):
she'd get the chance to follow through on that plan,
how heartbreaking. When investigators examined the crime scene, they noticed
that the power had been cut from the Contrera's home. This,
of course, raised some red flags. They started to think
that maybe whoever cut the power crept up on Cassie
in the darkness and killed her. Investigators dusted the breaker
(05:46):
switch and found an interesting set of fingerprints Prince that
belonged to Cassie's mother's boyfriend. Maybe the man had something
to do with the crime. After taking him in for questioning,
they found he could explain the prince and had a
rock solid alibi. He sometimes did housework for the Contrarasses
that involved shutting off the power. This made sense to investigators,
(06:10):
and they confirmed that at the time of the murder
Friday night, he had been at his neighbor's house playing
video games, so he was no longer a suspect. Meanwhile,
once the news of Cassie's murder broke at Pocatello High School,
the rumor around the halls was that it had to
have been Cassie's boyfriend, Matt Beckham. He was there with
(06:30):
her while she house sat and was the last known
person to see her alive. The police were one step
ahead of the rumor mill, though, and brought Matt in
for questioning early on Monday, before news was even out
about her murder. They told him Cassie was dead before
asking what he knew of the events of that weekend.
Matt appeared distraught and did his best to recount what
(06:52):
happened before he left Cassie on Friday. Matt said they'd
stayed in and watched movies, and then the power began
turning on and off. He recalled that it unsettled Cassie
and they checked in the basement to see if anything
was happening, but they didn't go down. They just looked
from the top of the stairs. Later, the power went
out and plunged the house into complete darkness. This frightened
(07:16):
the couple more, especially when some of the lights came
back on and they saw one of the Contraras's dogs
staring down the basement steps as if someone was down there.
It barked and growled, but Cassie and Matt saw nothing.
They let it go and decided not to investigate. Matt
had a curfew at home and his mom would be
(07:37):
over to pick him up later that night. He didn't
want to leave Cassie alone, so he asked his mom
if she would let him stay over to be with Cassie.
Matt's mother insisted he come home, but she did offer
Cassie a place to stay that night. However, Cassie, ever loyal,
had promised her aunt and uncle she'd watch their house.
(07:58):
She turned down the offer and decided to brave out
the night alone. Matt's mother picked him up at eleven
thirty PM. Leaving Cassie alone that night would prove to
be one of the biggest regrets of Matt's life, but
that wasn't the whole story. Matt was so hung up
on the details of his last few hours of house
sitting with Cassie that he forgot to mention an integral
(08:20):
part of the story to the police. Earlier that Friday night,
they'd invited some friends over, two boys from school, Brian
Draper and Tory Adam Chick. They weren't close friends of Cassie,
but she was welcoming towards everyone. Earlier that day, they'd
even taken a video of her at her locker in
the hallway, so when Matt invited them over, he and
(08:42):
Cassie thought they might have a good time with Brian
and Tory. As far as Matt was concerned, by the
time his mom picked him up that night, they had
had an enjoyable evening. They watched Kill Bill two and
Cassie gave them a tour of the house. Then at
nine point thirty they left. Matt didn't think they had
anything to do with Cassie's murder at all. When the
(09:04):
police caught up with Draper and Adam Chick, the boys
had an alibi. After leaving Cassie and Matt at the
Contreras home, they went to see Pulse at the local
movie theater. However, investigators found it odd that neither could
tell them what the movie was about, so they decided
to ask a movie theater employee if she could validate
(09:25):
they were there that night. And here's where living in
a small town really comes in handy, folks. The employee
was a schoolmate from Pocatello High School who knew Tory
and Brian personally, and she could say with one hundred
percent certainty that neither of them had been in the
movie theater that night. So at the very least, the
police had caught the boys in a lie. The police wondered,
(09:48):
if the boys had nothing to do with this brutal attack,
why they would lie about where they were that night.
When they brought Draper and Adam Chick back for more questioning,
investigators reveal that they knew the sixteen year old boys
had lied. They were then given a chance to tell
the truth. Brian was the first to confess. He admitted
(10:10):
to the police that they lied about being at the
movie theater because they had been out burglarizing cars and
didn't want to get caught for that crime. The authorities
were skeptical and scheduled Brian to have a polygraph test
the following day. However, right when it was about to begin,
Brian had a breakdown. He began crying and appeared visibly
(10:30):
distraught at the location the polygraph test was being held.
The polygraph examiner contacted the police to come talk to
him right away. I can imagine Brian had already felt
the sinking pit of getting caught in a lie the
first time and couldn't bear to go through it again. Instead,
he wanted to come clean himself. He sat down with
(10:50):
the police and told his version of what happened the
night Cassie died. Brian claimed that he and Tory had
planned to play a prank on Cassie. They came over
a movie toward the house and pretended to leave, but
really they put on scary masks and wielded weapons to
sneak back into the house and scare her by making
her think she was the target of some nightmarish home invasion,
(11:14):
just like in the horror movies. But Brian claimed the
prank went horribly wrong. He said they snuck back in
through the basement, an entrance they'd made sure was unlocked
when Cassie gave them a tour of the house earlier
that night. The audio of his confession is public, and
he sounds really frantic in it. It's hard to even
make out what he's saying at times, but Brian stated
(11:37):
they shut the door behind them loudly to spook her.
Brian said Cassie came out with the landline phone in
her hand, and Tory walked ahead to scare her, but
by the time Brian caught up, he claimed, Cassie was
already on the floor and Tory was standing over her,
exclaiming I had to kill her. I had to kill her,
and started stabbing Cassie in the chest. Brian claimed he
(11:59):
was appalled by what he witnessed and begged his friend
to stop, but it was too late. The damage had
been done. Cassie was dead, he said. He and Tory
fled the scene and disposed of incriminating evidence, including clothes
and weapons, in the nearby black Rock Canyon. Brian even
took the police to the exact location. Wow, Brian, Draper
(12:22):
was behaving like such a helpful accessory to murder. It's
almost like he was trying to appear as the lesser
of two evils between him and Tory. He claimed that
Tory did all of the stabbing and he was just
a witness, and now he was even leading the police
to evidence with this confession. The police knew they had
their guys, even if they didn't have the full story.
(12:45):
They arrested both Brian Draper and Tory Adamchick for first
degree murder and recovered as much as they could of
the burned items they disposed of in the canyon, including
a Sony VHS tape. And once again, this tape raised
some red flags. Police Captain John Ganski worried it may
have been a recording of the murder itself and feared
(13:06):
what they might see once they watched it, But the
tape was so badly burned they didn't think they'd recover
what was on it. Thankfully they could fix the tape
because it contained the most shocking and incriminating evidence of
this entire case. The first scene on the tape was
that aforementioned shot of Cassie at her locker, you know,
(13:27):
the one Brian and Tory took of her at school
that Friday. In the clip, they asked her to say
hi to the camera before class, and she obliged turns
out and this is where it gets really disturbing. Brian
and Tory didn't take that video to make memories of
their junior year. They intended to have it as the
opening scene of their own personal horror movie. Tory Adamchik
(13:50):
was a big movie buff who got Brian Draper into
horror movies when they met in high school. One of
their favorite franchises was the Scream franchise, which by two
two thousand and six had three blockbuster movies under its belt.
The first movie is probably the most recognizable, though, because
it subverted horror movie tropes and shocked its viewers with
(14:10):
the reveal of not one killer, but two. And the
killers were two teenage boys who were best friends. Sorry
spoiler alert. Draper and Adam Chick saw themselves as the
film's antagonists and bonded over their desire to instill fear
in others. Brian idolized mass murderers and even participated in
(14:32):
online chat rooms discussing school shootings. One day, both boys
skipped a school assembly and hung out in the boy's bathroom. There,
they bonded over their love of the Scream movies. Then
Tory asked Brian if he'd ever considered doing something like
that to someone. Together, they dreamed up a horrifying, toxic
(14:54):
combination of their sick desires, a real life horror movie
with a real life murder. From my knowledge, producing a
horror movie should involve writers, directors, and actors. A so
called film where its star really gets killed would be
considered a snuff film. But luckily for everyone who had
to watch the evidence, this film didn't go that far. Instead,
(15:19):
it depicted Draper and Adamchik in the planning stages before
the murder and the aftermath. The second shot in the film,
after the one of Cassie at her locker, was of
the two boys in the school library formulating a death
list of people they wanted to kill, composed entirely of
kids from their school. Tory even said in the clip
(15:40):
there should be no law against killing people. Can you
imagine finding out after the fact that you or your
friends were on that list? Such a terrifying thought. They
wanted to murder all of the students on that list,
culminating in a mass shooting at the school, Columbine style.
Draper and Adamchik decided to target Cassie and Matt that
(16:01):
night simply because they knew they would be house sitting.
They'd be sitting ducks. And if you know anything about
the screen franchise, the event that acts as the catalyst
to the entire movie is a murder where the victim
is a teenage girl alone in a big house with
her boyfriend. After they watched Kill Bill two with Cassie
and Matt, they said goodbye to their friends and pretended
(16:22):
to leave, but really they went to their car and
recorded another scene of their movie. Here is a quote
from the video. Unfortunately, we have the task of killing
our two friends, and they are right in the house
down the street. We just talked to them. We were
there for an hour. Yeah, somehow I have a hard
(16:43):
time believing the words unfortunately and friends in that sentence,
given what I know will happen next. They visited the
couple at the Contrera's home on Friday night and toured
the house. Once they got a good feel for the
homes layout, they made sure the basement entrance was unlocked
so that after they pretended to leave, they could come
(17:04):
back in through the basement. They then planned to lure
Cassie and Matt down to the basement and kill them there.
Remember when we mentioned that the lights kept flickering, making
Cassie and Matt too afraid to go down to the
basement and check out the circuit breaker remember how the
dog was staring down the basement stairs, growling and barking
as if someone was down there. Yeah, that was Draper
(17:27):
and Adam Chick trying to lure the two teenagers down
to their deaths. But they didn't go down to the trap,
and Matt was picked up by his parents soon after.
Leaving Cassie alone in the house, Tory cut the power
one last time. He and Brian climbed the stairs wearing
frightening masks, came up out of the basement and attacked
Cassie with the two large hunting knives they'd brought with them.
(17:51):
They stabbed her repeatedly as she pleaded for her life.
I can only imagine how terrified Cassie must have been
once they'd killed her. The two boys went back to
the car and get this recorded another video. In it,
they breathe heavily and talk so fast you can hear
the adrenaline in their voices. They said things like, we
(18:14):
just killed Cassie, We just left her house. This is
not a joke. It happened so fast. Brian sounded especially frantic.
But there's a point in the video where Tory tells
him to and I'm paraphrasing, since there were expletives used,
shut up so they can get their shit together and
their story straight. They then bought matches and hydrogen peroxide
(18:37):
and drove to Black Rock Canyon, where they attempted to
burn all the evidence, including the tape. It's crazy that
filming it was such a huge part of their motive
and planning, but they wanted to dispose of the footage.
Maybe they only realized after committing the horrific crime that
keeping such an incriminating piece of evidence was a bad idea.
(18:59):
But his fate would have it. They didn't fully destroy
the tape, which was used as a reason to try
them as adults and put them away for life without parole.
The trial was fairly cut and dry since the authorities
had the damning evidence of the tapes. But one interesting
thing about the trial was that both boys defense teams
blamed the other boy. Tory's lawyer claimed Brian was the mastermind,
(19:24):
and Brian's claimed it was Tory, even though both boys
admitted to stabbing Cassie and the tapes. It's always so
ironic to me how in these cases where two killers
worked together, they quickly turn on each other once they
get caught. It just shows how selfishly these killers think.
Brian and Tory weren't thinking of Cassie when they did this.
(19:45):
They weren't even thinking about each other. They were only
thinking of themselves and the thrill they got from being
the killers in their own real life horror movie. Brian
was interviewed by Dateline nearly twenty years later and expressed
extreme guilt for what he is Tory did. When asked
why he wanted to harm people in his youth, he answered,
(20:05):
I felt like I'd be somebody if I did something
big and bad. I felt like I was a loser.
I felt like I didn't matter. It's so disturbing how
many outcasts and victims of bullying think the way to
be recognized is to harm people, Like why not want
to make something of yourself by doing something positive instead
of living in infamy. This quote from the interview truly
(20:29):
sent a chill down my spine. Brian was asked if
he knew how cruel they were being when he and
Tory taunted Cassie by repeatedly turning out the lights and
terrifying her. He responded, I felt like I was being
watched by an audience. I felt like I was there
to be in the movie screen so disturbing. There is
(20:49):
a Reddit Ask Me Anything thread by someone who claims
to have been in the Pocatello High School junior class
at the time of Cassie's murder. They said that Brian
and Tory didn't raise any flags and weren't each other's
only friends. After Cassie's murder, students were on edge. They
were nervous around anyone who was once close to the
two murderers. Those poor kids, they probably had no clue
(21:13):
how disturbed their friends were, and now they were paying
a price for it too. According to the Reddit user,
the case was front page news in Pocatello for months,
resulting in a collective depression among the student body and
staff alike. They stated that students and teachers would be
seen crying across campus whenever a development in the case
(21:33):
would become a headline. Pocatello High School brought in counselors
that students could see at any point throughout the day.
Another interesting thing said in the Reddit thread was that
the students watched the arraignment live in class. How surreal
that must have been to watch two of your classmates
kids you had English or math with, maybe you ate
(21:54):
lunch next to them, and now they were being imprisoned
for life right in front of your homeroom class. And
just for the sake of the spooky season, I thought
I might tack on this little bit of information. Frank
contraras Cassie's uncle, was interviewed by Idaho State Journal and
stated that his family's Whispering Cliffs Drive home where Cassie
(22:15):
was murdered, has proven hard to sell. This is typical
for houses where murders have taken place, partly because of superstition,
but also because of the unwonted attention it might provide.
Many people won't want to buy a house with bad
energy attached to it. But Frank also alludes to the
house potentially being haunted. He stated that his and Allison's
(22:37):
daughter saw Cassie in the house sometime after the murder,
which led to her having a mental breakdown during which
she attempted suicide. Frank also claimed that every family member
has had an unexplained supernatural encounter in the house. Looks
like the slasher film that Draper and Adamchick tried to
make could have turned into a ghost story. But regardless
(22:58):
of whether or not you believe in the supernatural, the
facts are that Brian Draper and Tory Adamchick thought they
could live a horror movie without any consequences. But when
you look at how the teen boy killers in Scream
ended up dead at the end of their killing spree,
Draper and Adamchick got off pretty easily by receiving life
without parole, because reality is not like the movies. If
(23:25):
you or anyone you know is struggling with mental illness,
you can contact the Samsay National Helpline at one eight
hundred six six' two. Help that's one eight hundred sixty
six y two four three five. Seven be sure to
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