Viral TikTok Case: The Murders of Austin Wenner & Jessica Lewis
19:17 Share

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. So the case that we're going to be talking about today is a pretty recent one. It happened in the last six months. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of this case. Actually, it went pretty viral on the internet, but you may not know a lot of the details behind it and the final outcome of everything.

Also, I wanted to remind you guys that if you ever do want to see me cover a specific case, you can request it in my Google form. There's a link below. So a few months ago, Josh and I were just laying in bed watching TikToks. I was scrolling my TikTok and he was just watching. And I came across one

from Seattle of these teenagers who had discovered this suitcase on the beach. And it looked like there was possibly something really sketchy in this suitcase. Right off the bat, I could tell just by the way it looked. And I remember at first Josh was like, this is probably fake. There's so much fake stuff on TikTok. And of course there is.

I don't know, I just had a feeling about it. Just, it seemed really real. And it turned out that it was real. So let me back up and explain this a little more for those of you who haven't seen the video. So there is this app called Randonautica. It's an app that's advertised as the world's first quantumly generated choose your own adventure game. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of geocaching.

which is kind of like treasure hunting in a way. You're out looking for a certain thing and there's normally a puzzle to complete and it's kind of like a scavenger hunt that's set up as a game for people to play. This is really different though. This is all done with manifestation. And if you haven't heard of manifestation, it's the idea that if you think of something strongly enough,

and really believe that it will happen or that it will come true. The idea is that energy attracts like-minded energy, essentially. So you can attract good things into your life by manifesting them. So how it works with this app is you're supposed to imagine something that you wanna see. Maybe that's answers to something going on in your love life, or you wanna find something paranormal. You wanna be creeped out. Whatever it is that you wanna come across, you're supposed to try to manifest it, and then this app

tells you a location to go to. And sometimes when people go, they have actually come across things that I don't know if they're coincidences or, you know, it is staged or if it actually does work and they're manifesting these things.

things. It's kind of one of those things where it works a very small percentage of the time and when it does, it's kind of like, wow, but most of the time nothing really happens with it. So once they give you the coordinates, people go and then look at the coordinates. And then the thing to do has been to film yourself going to these coordinates for TikTok. So this app is apparently programmed with quantum physics and spirituality in mind, which I don't know how you can program with spirituality, but...

Interesting. For example, some people have manifested things such as something unexplainable and have come across an armchair just sitting alone in a field. Another girl, I guess, had asked for guidance and she ended up coming across a mirror that said, "It's your time." So I don't know. Of course, we have no way to verify that those things are true.

But what happened with this app in this case is just wild and it could have solved a true crime case. So this happened back in Seattle, Washington on June 19th. There was a group of teenagers that were randonauting and filming it for TikTok. So the app ended up taking them to the 1100 block of Alki Ave.

along Elliott Bay. And this is a point across from the main waterfront and Pike's Place Market, which I'm sure if you've been to Seattle, you know what that is. It's very famous there. This is a very popular area. There's a lot of people here at a time. And I'm surprised they were the first to come across this, honestly. So at one point they go down by the water and they realize that they have found a suitcase up on all these rocks. This video, I believe, is still in some places around the internet. I think it's been removed off TikTok.

due to the family's request. So I'm definitely not gonna be playing it in this video, but they came across this suitcase propped up on a bunch of rocks. And at first they were really excited that they had found something. That's the whole point with this app is to kind of go viral by having a cool experience and being able to share it on TikTok. But when they went up closer to the suitcase and started to try to unzip it, they could smell that

that there was something decaying inside so they ended up using a stick to kind of poke at the suitcase and flip it open and when they did it was filled with garbage bags gray garbage bags and it was filled and it was kind of all separated and lumpy kind of packed into the suitcase of course when they saw that they were pretty freaked out you could hear them in the video being like oh my god what is this and like i said right away i thought it was a dead body and i just thought

It's possible that they're faking this, but what someone really go to that extent? And it looked so real. Their reactions were so real as well. And I wasn't surprised when later on we found out that there were two bodies.

In that suitcase. So luckily they didn't mess with the suitcase any further because that would have been really bad And they called the police right away and police actually took a couple hours to get there There's been some criticism at them for that But of course they didn't know what was in the suitcase all their hearings that there's a suitcase washed up on the beach So they didn't necessarily get a report that there was a dead body found but the police finally did get there and found out that their

were indeed two bodies found in the suitcase. Now it is back there across this popular recreation path on those rocks where police recovered human remains on Friday. And because it had gone so viral on TikTok and people wondering if it was real, they had to make a statement about it and they confirmed that there were two bodies found in there and that a group of teenagers playing

on a phone app had actuall accident. Seattle police are investigating several remains. And I guess this before it was actually po waited a day to post it. that they even ended up po

that they made that decision and that the police didn't ask them not to post it, but they did. And I guess this is somewhat of a good thing because I'm sure not as many people would have heard of this case if it wasn't for that, because it did help the case get a lot of eyes on it. But a lot of people didn't look more into the case after that. They just know that there were these bodies found. And since then we have found out a lot of information. So first of all, obviously these remains were taken in for identification and they were able to identify them.

The remains belong to two people. One of them is named Austin Wenner, and he was 27 years old. And the other was a woman who's named Jessica Lewis, who's 35 years old. And this is very scary and sad, but it was discovered that they were both shot and dismembered before being put into the suitcases.

So let me go over what information is available on Austin and Jessica. So Austin went by the name Cash or Cash Money, according to his social media, and he went to Kent Washington High School. Now these two had been in a relationship for eight years, which is a really long time. And their family members said that they had been through a lot of shit in that last eight years and have had a lot of tough times together, but have stuck together through it all and that they had a really strong relationship. They are just inseparable.

You know, through the good times and the hard times, if you got one, you got the other. And they were just in sync with each other like that. I want people to know who they were, who they were. And they were good-hearted people.

Those who knew Jessica said that she was a beautiful person inside and out. She was described as being a ray of sunshine, just very friendly, smiled a lot. Her friends and family said that she was very caring and loving towards other people. Also, she was a mother to four children and I wasn't able to figure out their exact ages, but they are all on the older side. Two of them have already graduated high school. One's in middle school and one of them is old enough to know

what's going on with this whole thing. At the time, Jessica was working at a place called Laura's Adult Family Home and it's an assisted living facility for adults with disabilities. And I just have so much respect for anyone who works with people with disabilities. You have to have so much patience and be such a special person. Austin's mom described him as a wonderful person as well. She said he was

a faithful person, he was very loving. Apparently he loved the outdoors, he loved to camp, he loved trucks, he loved dogs. He was a big music fan and of course was hugely into Jessica and loved her and his family. There are a few articles that said that he was a father. I'm not sure how in the child's life he was.

People who knew Austin and Jessica said they were super fun-loving and friendly. I'm sure a lot of you will end up looking up Austin Wenner, and if you do, you will see that there was someone named Austin Wenner in that area who had a drug possession charge at some point, but we can't confirm that this was Austin Wenner.

from this crime. There has been some chat about Austin's history online though. The West Seattle blog actually specifically commented on it and said that he had a couple of misdemeanor charges, but they were all really minor things. For example, at one point he was walking and he crossed during a red light, crossed the street and a cop stopped him

for doing that. Another time a cop found that he had a shaved key and a shaved key can be used for carjacking. So he was arrested for that as well. I don't know why there's been so much talk about all of this online. I don't see really how it has anything to do with his murder, but the King County medical examiner said that they had been shot a few days before the bodies were found. So it was a pretty recent death. And what's really weird is Jessica was actually found with pieces of grass in her mouth.

Which we have no idea how she ended up with that. It's possible that when she was shot at, she was running away and maybe fell into the grass when she was shot. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I think that's really odd. Also, it's been pointed out how it was kind of surprising how these remains were found. Like they really weren't hidden very well. It didn't seem like the person who hid them really wanted them to stay hidden too long.

So it's been brought up that maybe they wanted the suitcase to be found by somebody that they wanted to make a statement or the killer wanted the family members to know that Their loved one had been killed their families are absolutely devastated about what has happened at one point They were running a GoFundMe hoping to raise enough to investigate this further and figure out who did it and recently we have gotten a big update that

the killer has been found. And I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about that in a second. But if you do wanna donate to their family, I'm sure they could still use the funds. Jessica left behind four kids and I'm sure their family could use the extra help with funeral expenses and everything like that.

I will be donating all of the ad revenue from this video if it's monetized, but I'll make a donation anyway if it's not. But I will donate that directly to their family. So obviously having all of this go viral because of TikTok is kind of bittersweet for the family. Of course, they are grateful, first of all, that these people found the suitcase so that the case was able to be solved and also grateful for the attention and public support that they have received because this went viral. That video went viral.

And there's nothing we could do to change that. I mean, nobody knew that was going to happen. Those kids didn't know. Nobody knew. I wanted to thank those kids because there could have been a possibility that nobody found those suitcases.

and we would never know what happened to them. - However, this is a very upsetting video to have of a family member online. I mean, Jessica has kids and Austin apparently has a child too. So you don't want them to have to live forever with that on the internet. So their families have begged the people who have uploaded the original TikTok to take it down. And I believe that they did. - I would have thought by then that they would know better to put it down that these,

Bodies that were found in these bags and these suitcases smell awful. That they had faces now that they could see and they were people. And I would just had thought they would have known too that they were people and they would have taken it down out of respect for that. You know, these people have families. These people have children. Jesse and Austin are gonna be laid to rest soon.

I think that video needs to be, they dressed too. About a month ago, it was still up. So it was up for a while, but I think they finally did take it down after the family begged them to. Let me know if I'm wrong about that though. I'm pretty sure that it's down. I wasn't able to find it, but I could be wrong. So let me know. It's kind of foggy on exactly when the two of them passed. Some articles say June 16th is what medical examiners think. Some articles are saying as far back as June 10th.

So we're not exactly sure but it makes no sense to me that they were killed on the 16th because the medical examiner did say that they had probably been shot just a few days before they were found and that would be three days before they were found. So obviously when they were trying to solve this case police first looked into the uploaders of this TikTok. Were they possibly involved in it? Did they know that

these remains were there and they quickly cleared them and said the kids had nothing to do with this. Then of course people were wondering about the creators of the app. Did they somehow know that the remains were there and led people to them? However, police looked into this further and actually talked to the developers of the app and determined that this was in no way connected. It was a complete coincidence, I guess you could say, or some people would say that that's the app working and that's manifestation in action.

But I don't know. Everyone has their own personal opinions about that. Another thing that they were curious about is Jessica was shot seven times and Austin was only shot once, which is really odd. You think, you know, Austin may have been a casualty to Jessica. Maybe this person was going after Jessica and he had just witnessed it and they didn't want to have a witness.

To shoot someone seven times shows a lot of anger and passion. Is this person an ex-boyfriend? Is it someone who she was fighting with? But very recently, on August 19th, we found out that it was actually their landlord that

killed them. His name is Michael Lee Dudley, and he was charged on August 24th with two counts of second degree murder in connection with the deaths. And they definitely have strong evidence on him, and his bail is set at $5 million. So all the information isn't completely out yet,

And we don't for sure know the motive, like I said earlier, but it's likely that it was a possible rent dispute. Apparently they were living in a house that Michael owned and they couldn't afford their rent, which was $1,500 a month, and they kept struggling to pay it and were often fighting with him over it. Also, Michael is claiming that they were stealing from him and that they had locked him out of the house in the past.

Unfortunately for him though, those are not good reasons to kill somebody or two people and then try to get away with it. So Michael ended up explaining to police that on June 9th, the three of them got in a really big argument over him saying that they needed to move out.

He was not happy with Jessica and Austin as tenants, and he told them that they needed to leave, and they got in a big fight. But on that day that they were fighting, a neighbor actually overheard Austin say, please don't do this, just let me leave.

And when they searched the house, they actually found blood and bullets in the couple's room that they had stayed in, which is kind of confusing since Jessica was found with the grass in her mouth. We still have no idea how that happened. And now we know that the crime took place inside. Now, like I said, we can't confirm 100% that this is the actual motive for killing them. There might be more to the story than we are hearing. This is very early on in the case. So far, there haven't been any other suspects named.

but it's possible that Michael had help and they are considering that he could have had help at least with disposing the bodies. And when it comes to Michael, he has a really shady past. It's not like he was a nice guy and then just did this out of nowhere. A woman named Marlise Gordon has come forward to say some things about Michael. She was in a relationship with him

from 2012 to 2016. She said that Michael is extremely smart, he's very well connected in social circles, and that he has a very intense personality. No shit. She also said that he had been abusive to her in the past. So clearly, he can be an aggressive person. I was shocked at what he did to me and can still see...

And...

did that with one hand and he was holding a gun in his other hand. Also in 2016, Michael was arrested and charged with assault. Now what's interesting is even though Michael's bail is set at $5 million, apparently this guy knows a lot of people and has a bunch of connections and

Marlies is worried that he has enough connections that he might get some donations and could possibly round up $5 million and be bailed out. But hopefully we do see justice for Austin and Jessica eventually. Of course, this is really early on and the trial hasn't even started. We'll never be the same. I'm devastated. I'm heartbroken. It comes to show you that there's a lot of evil in the world and we need a lot.

of people to be praying for lost souls out here the whole thing went down really really bad this has really shook the neighborhood we're all just shocked but as of right now that's all we know it sounds like they were killed over a rent dispute and if that's the case that's just crazy to me to have that type of anger in you where you would be willing to murder two innocent young people

over something like that, no matter what they were doing, is so amazing to me. And it makes you wonder, has he snapped before? Has he killed anyone else in the past?

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.