Three years after Cassidy Rainwater’s grisly death, her family plans memorial service

Her 2021 death captured headlines across the nation and pockets outside for its brutality and the shock that it sent through southwest Missouri.

Authorities say Cassidy Rainwater was kept in a cage and investigators found her remains in a rural area of Dallas County about 160 miles southeast of Kansas City.

Now, three years later and after two men have been sentenced to life in prison for killing her, Rainwater’s family wants to remember her life. They’ve planned a memorial service for the mother of six on Friday Aug. 16.

In an obituary posted on Holman-Howe Funeral Homes website, she’s described as a loving woman who had a “very outgoing and large personality.” She was raised in the Lebanon, Missouri area.

“She was a fun person to be with and she enjoyed having a good time and going to the river,” her obituary said. “She also enjoyed hunting for arrowheads.

“Her loss is deeply felt by her family, and she will be so missed. Yet, we know that she lives on in them, in their memories, in their love for each other.”

Cassidy was baptized as an adult, her obituary said.

“She loved God and she loved her family,” it said. “Her children were very special to her and she did the best she could in showing them love. Cassidy also enjoyed writing poetry and singing, which she began at an early age.”

The Rainwater case dates back to September 2021 after the Kansas City office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation received an anonymous tip with photos of Rainwater’s partially nude body inside a cage.

Some photos showed the woman’s body “bound to a gantry crane, commonly used for deer processing, and her evisceration and dismemberment,” the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department posted on its Facebook page back then.

That tip led the FBI to Dallas County and launched a weeks-long criminal investigation. The tip the FBI received was titled “Cassidy.” James Phelps and Timothy Norton, both of Dallas County, soon were charged with kidnapping the 33-year-old woman and facilitating a felony, inflicting injury and terrorizing.

After tests confirmed that the labeled remains found in a freezer inside Phelps’ rented home were Rainwater’s, the charges were upgraded to murder several weeks later. The men also were charged with abandonment of a corpse.

Deputies searched the property for seven days, according to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department. Skeletal remains believed to be Rainwater’s were located on the adjacent property.

Rainwater had ties to the Kansas City area. In a 2003 yearbook from Harrisonville High School in Cass County, she was listed as a freshman.

She was reported missing in late August 2021 by a woman named Cora Terry. She told authorities that the last time Rainwater was seen was about six weeks earlier and she believed that a “James Rainwater” was the last person to see her.

Authorities later learned that she was talking about James Phelps. Deputies went to Phelps’ home at 386 Moon Valley Road near Windyville and asked if he knew Rainwater. Sheriff’s officials have said that Phelps said he did but that he hadn’t spoken to her in roughly a month. He said that Rainwater was talking about going to Colorado.

About a week later, a Dallas County detective went to Moon Valley Road and spoke to Phelps about the missing person case. Phelps then said that Rainwater had been staying with him “until she could get back on her feet,” according to the probable cause statement related to the initial charges filed against Phelps.

He also told the deputy that at the end of July 2021, Rainwater had left in the middle of the night and met with someone in a vehicle at the end of the driveway and he had not seen or heard from her since.

After receiving the information from the FBI, deputies went back out to Moon Valley Road and “recognized items in Phelps’ back yard that coincided with the photos.”

Authorities said Norton told them that he knew that Rainwater was being held at the home of Phelps and that she had been kept in a cage, court records show. Norton further said that Phelps had contacted Norton to come to Phelps’ home, an affidavit said.

“Norton then admitted that after arriving at Phelps’ home he did physically confine CR by holding her down for a substantial period of time, for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a felony, or inflicting physical injury on, or terrorizing CR,” the document said.

The Dallas County Sheriff has said that neither man showed remorse.