Man accused in grisly Missouri murder makes surprise decision hours before hearing
A southwest Missouri man accused of a gruesome murder last year that drew nationwide attention decided late Wednesday to waive his right to a preliminary hearing.
James Phelps walked into a Dallas County courtroom Thursday morning in a blue shirt and tie, no shackles or handcuffs, and his long hair tied in a ponytail. The hearing, which was expected to last hours and include testimony from law enforcement who investigated the death of Cassidy Rainwater, lasted just a few minutes.
“Is it your intent to waive your preliminary hearing this morning?” asked Associate Circuit Judge John Porter.
“Yes,” Phelps said.
Thomas Jacquinot, Phelps’ public defender, filed his motion to waive the hearing at 9:43 Wednesday night — hours before the hearing was to take place — and requested his client be “bound over to answer the charge.” Timothy Norton, another man charged in Rainwater’s death, waived his preliminary hearing earlier this year.
Phelps also waived his formal arraignment and pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and two others filed against him.
The judge also heard and approved a prosecution motion to increase the security level of information filed with the court. Dallas County Prosecuting Attorney Jonathan Barker told Porter that was needed so the parties involved could see the witness list, “but no one else.”
After the brief hearing, Jacquinot said he planned to request a change of venue in the coming days. A trial date has not been set.
The Rainwater case dates back to September 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.
That tip led the FBI to Dallas County, about 160 miles southeast of Kansas City, and launched what became a secretive, weeks-long criminal investigation. The tip the FBI received was titled “Cassidy.”
Phelps and Norton, both of Dallas County, were charged in September 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 has ties to the Kansas City area. In a 2003 yearbook from Harrisonville High School in Cass County, she’s listed as a freshman.
She was reported missing in late August 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 was 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, 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 interviewed Norton in September at the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office. He 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 on July 24, 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.
Court records say Phelps had seven photos of Rainwater on his cellphone that showed her partially nude body inside the cage in the small, rundown home where he was living.
That home burned to the ground in early October and authorities ruled it arson.
This story was originally published July 14, 2022 at 12:39 PM.
