The Scream Murder, Episode 1: The Crime

Hi, I'm Conor McCarthy. Today I'm here to share the first episode of a brand new podcast from ABC News studios and low-move media. The screen murder, a true teen horror story. This six-part series will unravel the shocking story behind the brutal murder of Cassie Stoddard, a 16-year-old from Idaho. It's an unprecedented deep dive into a story of how teenage insecurity and the love of horror movies twisted into something terrible. Today, you'll hear the first episode, but stick around, new episodes will be released right here on the 2020 podcast feed weekly on Wednesdays for the next few weeks. Or you can listen ahead and get the series early and ad-free on Apple podcasts when you subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus. Just click the link in the description to sign up, terms apply. Now, here's the first episode. Last October's brazen daytime heist at the Louvre was shocking. Now, nearly a year out, there are still critical questions to be answered. Where did they go? And second, where did they come from? In this series, I'll take you inside the events of that day, like you've never heard them before, through the eyes of the people who lived them. On the pavements, I saw something shiny. You did see the crown. Yes, exactly. Next at the Louvre, a new series from ABC Audio, available now, ad-free on Amazon Music. It's September 2006 in Pocotello, Idaho, quiet, isolated town surrounded by mountains. The kind of place where people feel safe. Sixteen-year-old Cassie Joe Stoddard is spending the weekend house sitting, caring for her aunt and uncle's pets while they're out of town. It should be an uneventful weekend, a few nights alone, homework, and TV. But when Cassie's aunt and uncle return home on Sunday, the house is silent. They call Cassie's name, but no one answers. And in an instant, everything changes. My name is Pat Rogers, and that's Conor McCarthy, and together with Loan Wolf Media, we produced a three-part documentary series on a true crime which took place in Idaho in 2006. And over the next six episodes, we're going to take a deep dive into that crime, meet all of the people involved in the investigation and the family members as well. Just on a purely personal note, I've been doing true crime 25 years or so, and I thought I had seen everything until I encountered this story. The time that we spent in Idaho making this documentary, I'm never going to forget it. And I think listeners will understand why this case is just one of one. This is The Scream Murder, a true teen horror story podcast. So this case as horrifying and strange, and as unusual as it was, it started in a very usual way with a call to 9-1-1. Before I play this, I just want to warn listeners. It's very disturbing in the description and the frenzy and panic of this caller. Learned at you 9-1-1? I didn't hear the ambulance, I didn't hear the ambulance. Okay, what's going on? I didn't hear the ambulance, I didn't hear the ambulance, I didn't hear the ambulance. So, somebody's there? I can't hear you when you do that. Let me get your order medical, stay on the line. The caller was a woman named Allison Contreras. She and her family had been on vacation in Wyoming and they came back and as you just heard they found a girl dead on their floor and that girl was Cassie just stuttered and she's a relative of the caller and she was house sitting for the family over the weekend. That came into Banock County, Idaho, 9-1-1, September 24, 2006. Police at this point, they don't have a lot of information, clearly this is probably an act of foul play, they don't know manner of death, why Cassie was, if she was targeted, there's very little to go on so obviously police have to get there as soon as possible to respond. Banock County, Sheriff's, Polka Telepolice, Idaho State Police all had out there. They start a search for evidence, they find Cassie dead, apparently stabbed to death. One of the lead detectives that we spoke to in Idaho detective John Gansky said when he received the call, he knew this one was different because of the nature of the crime and the age of the victim. So start off first though there's a crime scene video. The video begins, there's a basement entrance to the house and that's where they start recording basically and there's stairs that lead upstairs and at the base of the stairs there's some broken glass. Keep that in mind, that broken glass because why there's no window, there's nothing glass near where that glass is found. So right away they're like, what is this doing? People here are broken glass, they assume it's either from two things a window or a window within a door to break in to unlock the door to get in and this is the glass, but that's not the case and it figures later that tape continues up the stairs into the living room where Cassie was found and she's found next to the coffee table on the floor. She clearly was stabbed multiple times, mostly in the torso chest. Almost all of them. This single stab wound in their leg which there was a lot of blood meaning she was still alive when that was inflicted. They look further into the house, nothing's disturbed, nothing's taken, no sign of a forced entry anywhere, they checked the doors and windows obviously, they consult with the family, was anything stolen, no. So these are major clues. Being taken, no forced entry, glass at the bottom of the stairs, what's all this mean? And the scene basically contained to this one area. Was it a stranger who somehow found way in and was able to ambush her or was it someone that she knew that she led in? Both are two terrifying scenarios. I think we should take a minute to talk about this time period, this is 2006, 20 years ago. There's no digital trace that we rely on so often now. Not to mention just the advent of security cameras everywhere. Yeah, households will have 30 cameras on every corner of the eve, the ring cam, nanny cams, cat cams, people you name it, people have full coverage. That did not exist in 2006 and Pocotello Idaho. So there's two things, there's what they have and what they don't have. What they don't have is a witness, a murder weapon, a motive because nothing was taken. What they do have is a young girl stabbed to death many times all alone in this house. But before they left the scene, and this gets a little tough here, Cassie's mother Anna Stoddard was called to the scene. And this is what she said, this comes from KPVI television station in Pocotello. Because it's Anna Stoddard upon arrival at the house where Cassie was found. Pulled into the driveway and Frank come running out and says, I think Cassie's dead. And Victor jumped out of the car, ran into the house. I sat there for a minute, just in shock. And after Victor ran in, I ran in after Victor came out from the living room and pushed me into the kitchen and says, no, you can't go in there. You can't go in there. She's dead. And I started screaming, I want my daughter, I want my daughter. It's unfathomable to have something like that happen to you, to have your daughter just taken away from you in such a violent, unnecessary manner. Why would someone target a 16-year-old teenager who was attending Pocotello High School in Pocotello Idaho? You met with Anna, you sat down with her, this was several years ago, and walked me through what she told you about Cassie. Yeah, I met with Anna and she described Cassie. Anna said that she was a straight A student and had ambition at 16 years old to be a prosecutor. to go to law school and then become a prosecutor. She had plans and. Cassie had told Anna that she said, "Mom, I want to put away the bad guys as a prosecutor." Cassie, as a 16-year-old, already had her life mapped out and her life is taken away. On October 19th, 2025, the Louvre became the backdrop of something straight out of a heist movie. We're used to following heist in movies from the perspectives of the ever-so-glamorous and dangerous perpetrators. But when it happens in real life, the lines between good and bad guys aren't so clear. And even less clear is the fate of those French crown jewels. I'll follow the investigation into how this could have happened, who could have been behind it, and then, I'll join the international hunt for the Louvre Jewels. Heist at the Louvre, a new series from ABC Audio. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app, or subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts to listen ad-free. - The nature of this crime, the victim, you would say that in a town like Pocotello, a town of 50,000 people, this doesn't happen. This kind of crime doesn't happen. But, in fact, it has happened one other time. Tell me about Norse Jones, right? - So, you know, Pocotello, a very peaceful place, not a lot of murder, but two years almost to the day before Cassie was murdered. There was a very similar homicide. It was Norse Jones, a 25-year-old nurse who was home alone by Cassie, stabbed to death, and the wound pattern was very similar. - This was already a case. - Yeah, unsolved. - This was, the Norse Jones case was already a dark cloud. It was hovering over for the police department. This has gone unsolved. It was a shocking crime. It was a home invasion, woman home alone at night. Now they have a second one. - Yeah. - And Bill Collins with Pocotello Police was called to the crime scene specifically because he was working the Norse Jones case. - The similarities between these two cases, I mean, they're both females. They're both home alone at homes. Both of the females were killed in the same manner. That was one of the reasons why I got called there. We thought this could have been a serial event. I mean, both murders are in September. It's just not normal, and it's not normal for it to happen in our area like this. They have a problem on their hands. Not only is they have the murder of a teenager, but there are two unsolved cases and they got to move fast. - Yeah, very similar cases. Just a lot of coincidences that made us concerned as law enforcement. I mean, and who's next? And when is it gonna be next? I mean, those were fears that we had. So remember the name Norse Jones. That is a name you will hear again in subsequent episodes. That will come back we will talk about Norse Jones again. All right, so the two lead detectives on this case are Andy Thomas and John Gansky from the Idaho State Police and they have a true who done it on their hands. They have a ticking clock here. Every hour this goes unsolved, the killer could be that much farther away from the crime scene, from Pocotello, from Idaho. Every minute of every day is extremely important. But there's also another component. This is the murder of a child. - Yeah. - This is the most heinous that it can do. - Right. - And so clearly the people in that community said you need to solve this, you need to solve this fact. - Super high profile. Connor, talk a little about the town of Pocotello. - Pocotello is in Southeast Idaho. Idaho is a huge state. It's in the corner of it, basically all by itself. The landscape is gorgeous. We have mountains that basically circle the town, grass covered. The downtown area has this quirky art deco, but then you have the Mormon temple that's up on top, newly built. So there's a large Mormon population. It felt like it was a collision of different cultures in some degree. And when we were on the streets and talking to people who were affected by this case or were just residents, they all said the same thing. I live here because it's a good place to raise my kids. It's safe. And I think that's kind of part of what is charm is that people would be left alone to raise their kids, live in a town where bad things don't happen. - Safe place to raise a family, and now we have this. - Hours after Cassie was discovered, police need to build a timeline. When was the last time she was seen? Who was she last seen with? So the first person they go to is Cassie's mother because Cassie is a 16 year old teenager. When was the last time she saw Cassie? Who's in Cassie's life? They have to start there and work their way out. - She had dropped Cassie off on Friday night, along with her boyfriend Matt. She was gonna house it for the weekend. So Anna had brought them over there. Matt was not gonna stay overnight, but he was gonna kind of keep her company. So that's on Friday night. Her body's discovered Sunday. So they have between Friday night and Sunday when the contrarians has come back home to solve. They immediately go to Matt. Why? Because he's the last person that saw him, and the boyfriend's the boyfriend. So what did he see? What was happening? Detective Gansky says they need to speak to him right away, obviously. - He should go Matt. - He was an athlete. He was kind of, I wouldn't say he was described as a class clown, but good sense of humor kid. Got along with everybody. Kind of funny, goofy, regular kid, you know. He and Cassie had been dating less than a year. - That night, folks come and pick you up about 11, 30. And then you guys went directly back to your house on Eastridge and then kind of-- - Detective Gansky is interviewing Matt, and he's relating the events of Friday night. And he tells them we were gonna hang out, watch a movie, while he was there, two of their friends from Pokedelle High School, Brian Draper, at Tori Adam Check, both 16, came over. When there's an empty house where there's no parents around, sometimes the word gets out. And this might be a party, and that's what Matt said to police when he mentioned Tori and Brian. They came over, they thought there was gonna be a party. There was no party. And Matt was pretty clear. It was like, I told them there was no party here. - And she was like, I can't just be there all weekend by myself, and they were all like, oh, you're gonna have a party. And she's all like, no. It sounds gonna be up there by myself. And they're all like, oh, you're gonna have a party and so they went around and they were all like, I think I'm pretty sure they're just kidding. And they were all like, oh, yeah, party at Cassie, party at Cassie. - Show up and it's just Cassie and Matt. - Party at four, party at four. - Yeah. - So there are other two friends, Tori Adam Check and Brian Draper. They're 16, they come over. Four kids, Cassie, Matt and their two friends. Brian Draper, Tori Adam Check. All four of them knew each other from school. Tori and Brian, probably more friends with Matt than Cassie, but they all knew each other. Brian is kind of described as, you know, also not a class clown, but kind of like detention. He liked escape board, he played the drums, a little bit on the goofy side, I guess he would say. And Tori sort of, more than an introvert, quiet, artsy maybe had ambitions to be a filmmaker. So anyway, the four of them are over at this house where Cassie is and they watch a movie. - They like, Tori went back upstairs and he looked through all their movies and he was like, oh, this is a good movie. Oh, this is a good movie. Then he found Kill Bill. And he wanted to watch Kill Bill. So he put that on and Tori just sat there and just watched the movie. And then he was, you know, Tori did? - Yeah, Tori, he just sat there and he just, - So who found Kill Bill? - Tori, Tori, he just found in their little movie collection. - They watched part of a movie, Kill Bill. They play around on a weight machine. They kind of just hang around a little bit. Matt tells police at 9.30. Tori and Brian leave, there's not gonna be a party at this house, they leave, they tell Matt and Cassie that they're gonna go see a movie in town and the movie was called Pulse. It was a horror movie that was out at the time. So they leave and it's just Cassie and Matt now. - And this is when it takes a strange turn. - It gets weird right here, yeah. You know, the detective John Ganski, the lead investigator told us that Matt says that while they're alone on the couch watching a movie, the lights go out in the house. And the power goes out in the house. television shuts down. House goes dark. They are immediately, as you might imagine, a little bit alarmed by this, the dog that was at the contrarier's house, walks over to the top of the basement stairs and starts growling. And it's picking up something that's in the basement, something or someone. They didn't go down there to investigate it. I don't think anybody in the right mind, particularly like a 16-year-old kid is going to go down to the basement to see if someone's down there. But then suddenly, the lights come back on. So the lights come back on and that's when Matt called his mom. Because she's a little scared. I told him how she was kind of scared because the lights went out and she was a little freaked out. So Matt calls his mom and says, "Hey, the lights went out that came back on. Cassie's afraid. Can I stay here?" And mom says, "No." But Cassie is welcome to stay at our house. She can come stay with us if she's that scared. Cassie says, "I'm going to stay. I'm with the dog. Have to take care of the dog." And Matt gets in the car and they pull away. And that's the last time Cassie's seen a life. You know, so Detective Gansky is interviewing Matt. And he's telling this, you know, credible story piece by piece. It's making some kind of sense. He's, you know, relating the events of Friday night. But there's something off says Gansky. This was his experience interviewing Matt. Yeah, when we interviewed Matt, you know, one of the things that stood out to us was the fact that he was, you know, he was just a bit off on emotion. He didn't react to things like maybe we expected people to. And he just, he was emotionless and it was just it was quite odd to us. And it was out of the norm for someone to act like that when interviewer. Okay. So, I mean, I guess we just needed to ask, you know, go to the, go to the source. And I mean, so Saturday you didn't see Cassie, you know, no, I tried to call it all day long. So, why are you not with her when Saturday? Because I tried to call her all day and I couldn't get her right up there. And I'm like, my mom was at work that day. So, you don't have a car? No. And because there's been a day in the last five months that we had at least talked to each other, you know, so it was really strange. This is tricky for police is does this mean something out of the norm is how John Gansky describes his interaction with Matt. But in Matt's defense, how is a 16 year old supposed to show their emotion? What's the norm for 16 year old who doesn't understand the totality of what's happening? Matt had brought his mom to this interview, not a lawyer, but his mom. And his mom was listening to this sitting in the background. She's in there because she's in there. He is a six, he's a minor. Yeah. And they asked they would say, we can interview him by himself or you can be in the room. And she chose, I want to be in the room with my son. And towards the end of the conversation, they say to Matt, did you guys go in the kitchen? Did you eat anything? I'm going to play a little piece of the police interview with Matt and detectives Gansky and Thomas. So, there's the three of you that are involved in this thing. Okay, there's you. And then there's your two friends who come over. Did anybody try to eat? Did either one of them tore you, right? There are popsicles. We had popsicles. Of course, teenagers, watch and kill Bill too. Give me a popsicle. But it turns quickly because they open these popsicles with a knife. And Matt starts to go into great detail about this knife. I showed them like this huge knife that they've got. It's kind of like really sharp. And you have to like pinch this thing to pull it out of its own thing. And like I showed Brian that. Where was that knife in the kitchen? What did it look like? It was just like a knife like that long and what color was it? Black, kind of like silver, white, you know. I, Matthew, I just found out something that I didn't know. What you just told them, I, you didn't tell me this about any kind of, you showed them a knife. That was Matt's mother. Suddenly she enters, she intervenes. And because this is not something that she knew about these, she's not worried about her son. That would be a very important thing. I, you didn't tell me not a word about this. So this interview is over right now. And we will get in touch with you. I got to figure some things out. Okay. Okay. Well, Matt, this is an odd bit of information. And she, I would say smartly, says absolutely interview over. Yeah. Please be in touch with this whole past. Absolutely. But she does say at the end, we'll be in touch with you. Later, Matt and his mom, his parents, agree to take a polygraph. Not on this day, but they said they would come back and they would take a lie detector test. They wrap Matt's interview. It's Sunday night. Cassie was found about 1/30 Sunday afternoon. Most of Pocotello has no idea that something had happened. I would say majority of the high school students at Pocotello High, classmates of Cassies, has no idea what they're walking into Monday morning. We spoke to several former classmates, friends of Cassies, friends of Matt's, and most of them all found out that Monday morning. They go to school in September. It's football season. Homecoming is around the corner. They've been in school for a few weeks and then bam. They're hit with news that not only did they lose one of their classmates, they lost one of their classmates to a homicide. Amber is one of those students that we talk to and here's how she described that Monday morning that she will never forget. I remember getting to school and I went straight to the cafeteria to get breakfast and my cousin was sitting at the table crying hysterically and I asked her what was wrong. She told me about Cassie and it was like a scene in a movie. Nobody was, you didn't hear any laughter. Everybody was just whispering, crying. I just wanted to go home. I mean it's just heartbreaking. I was with her when she talked about that and it felt like this was the first time she'd ever openly talked about that moment. I mean obviously the formative years of high school, traumatic in so many ways. Obviously Amber was right back in that moment 20 years ago. You could tell she was struggling with that and there was not only deep sadness and bewilderment but there was still some fear. This killer is still on the loose. No one's been caught. A high school kid has been targeted. Who's to say? Another one isn't next. It's not far-fetched. We still have the Norie Jones case unsolved. This is unsolved. There is a certain amount of fear bouncing around the halls of Pocatalla High School too. Okay Pat, so there's a big turn in this case early on. The autopsy report comes in. Cassie had been stabbed multiple times. 31 times. What surprised detectives in this report was medical examiner believed that it wasn't one knife that was used. There were actually two knives used in this. Which says to them that there are probably possibly two killers. So immediately they start to think differently about this case. This is a huge, huge moment in this case. It opens up a huge number of possibilities here. Okay, so now they've got this new information that two knives, maybe two killers, changes the complexion of this case. They turn back to Matt Cassie's boyfriend who had left police headquarters abruptly after mentioning a knife that he and Tori and Brian, his two friends, had handled. His mom had said interview over, but they had promised to come back and talk to police again. They come back into police headquarters to take a polygraph test. So Matt comes in, takes the polygraph, passes. Once Matt passes this polygraph, they don't move him off, but they move him way down on the suspect list. There is nothing. There was no hard evidence, physical evidence, even circumstantial evidence to indicate that he had anything to do with this crime. There's no real reason to keep pursuing him as a suspect. So they move on to the other two kids that came there that night, Ryan Draper and Tori Adam Check, both 16, both Pocatello High classmates and friends of Cassie and Matt. and Brian Draper comes in first. Here's another scrawny kid who is maybe 130 pounds wet. Unlike Matt, Matt's a football player. Brian is more the musician skater. Greasy hair, he's got the t-shirt, the jeans, the converse. When he arrives to speak to his executives at the police station, he's escorted by his mother, Pam. When they ask Pam if she would like to be in the room with him because he's a minor, she says, "No. My kid had nothing to do with this. I'm confident in my belief. I know my son and I'm happy for you to speak to him alone." No lawyer. No adult in the room. Two detectives and Brian Draper. So a little bit of Brian Draper is, you know, Brian came from. His parents are still together. He lives in upper middle-class house on the edge of town. He has a little sister. He came from a good home. And he's allowed to interview with detectives alone. And I sat down with Pam Draper and she explained her reasoning behind that. And I think this is important to listen from her. I remember the sergeant asking me if I thought my son could be involved. And I said, "No way. There's no way. If Brian saw somebody hurting his friend, he would have died trying to stop it." That's my son. And I told him that night. I said, "Son, if you know anything about this, you have to tell it. No matter who's involved, you have to tell them because if this was your sister, you would want us to have closure." Thanks, man. What was interesting when you see the first shot when you watch the police interview, Brian is in the room by himself and he's tapping. He's a drummer. He seems comfortable. He's cool. He knows why he's there. But there are no signs that he has anything to do with it. He doesn't look uncomfortable. The body language is scratching, the pacing. None of that is happening. He seems like this. He's in his element in a sense that he's just in his own world and he's practicing his rhythms for his drumming. He seems at ease. So here's Brian Draper 16, regular kid, never been in trouble. In a room alone with two homicide detectives. Not where most 16-year-old kids would ever find themselves. So Brian essentially tells the same story that Matt had told police earlier that he and Tori Adam check had heard there was going to be a party at Cassie's house where she was house sitting, no parents. This is how the word gets out and then they had showed up and there was no party. It was just Cassie and Matt there. And he goes through all of the events of that night. And they match exactly what Matt said. And then I do know that we went downstairs to give our popsicles and I saw the gym. Okay. So we looked at weights for like maybe 20 minutes. So I just sit on them, do you? Yeah. White with a little bit. Your parents might be on those. We have a contest. We played on the weight machine. We watched a movie. We had some popsicles. And then at 930, we left to go see a movie in town because we figured nothing was happening here. We're going to go see a movie. We're going to go see Pulse. So we went to check on movies. We're going to start at 945. And we watched movies a lot. And we like to see a whole movie. So I can go on playing with this because it was Pulse. And that was at 10 o'clock. Okay. And you're absolutely unequivocally positive that you two went into Pulse. You two bought tickets for Pulse. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Pulse is a movie that came out in July of that year. We're in September. It's a remake of a popular Japanese film. This Tori and Brian were known set of files. They're film geeks. So this is what they do. They get bored. They go to the movies. But this is where something odd happens. When Detective Gansky says, well, tell me about this movie. You're a movie buff. What was it about? What's the movie about? I mean, you're a movie buff. These are things that you pay attention to, right? There's so many characters you can hook yourself with. You describe somebody in the movie. You describe what happened. Anything, what's the whole premise or the plot of the movie? What's it all about? And Brian and a vowed horror movie fan says this about the movie he had just seen a couple days earlier. I can't really explain it. I'm paying attention to it. I remember being really, really bored. So you go into movie and you pay that money to go into movie. You get to pick up at least one image off the screen that you saw. Tell us about one person, describe one person you saw in the movie. What they look like. I'm saying a man, and he looked at a tea screen. And white noise. That's all you saw the whole movie. So how long do you think you were inside that movie theater? We're there for maybe two hours. Two hours? You're inside that movie theater? And you don't remember one detail to help us out. They're lobbying it down the middle for him. We need to know exactly what movie theater did you went to? Did anybody see you? Most importantly, what's the movie about? And he can't give one single detail. Not early on they asked him what kind of movies you like. And he specifically mentioned horror movies. They went on to say, how about a character? How about a plot point? How about anything? Anything. Anything about this movie. And so this is what we say. This is a tell for police. This is what they call a clue in the business. I think this is important to hear from Detective John Gansky, who was in the room with Brian Draper when they caught him and not necessarily a lie, but there was definitely a wrinkle in his story. Andy and I asked him some questions about what was the movie about? And this was a point in the interview that kind of stumped him a bit and kind of shocked us because he didn't actually know what the movie was about. And so this was clearly a red flag. And this was kind of a turning point in the interview where Brian then admitted that, yeah, we didn't go to the movie. We lied about going to the movie. And the reason why they lied about going to the movie is because they were doing something else. At this point in watching the police video, you see the dynamic change between the two detectives. Something just fell out of place for Brian. And they don't know why. They're closing in on a blip. What is this? What does it mean? And this is his approach. And this is what he said to Brian. I think it's very important for us to listen to what he says to him. Don't waste any more of our time. Okay, don't underestimate what we know. You didn't go to the movie because that's fine. Well, you're gonna have to tell us where you went so that we can put you there. I can tell you what we're doing. I'm trying to hide this, but I guess I'll tell you. I guess I have to tell you now. And what Brian says next, what he tells detectives is not what they or probably anybody listening to this, we're expecting to hear. So we're gonna get into what he told police and the rest of this investigation as it unfolds in the next episode.