June 19, 2020. Three teenagers decide to have an adventure, end the routine and be surprised. open Randonautica, an app that was in vogue at the time, which generates random coordinates to encourage exploration of new corners. Perch is adventure; the claim is a mystery; aim: Become part of a search game where you are the hero. That was the day in Seattle (United States). three teenagers They reached the marked point and found a suitcase. When they opened the door, they were shocked: contains human remains. It wasn’t part of any game, it was real. The police investigation revealed that the victims were two teenagers who had been on the missing list for ten days. They discovered that the couple was late with their payments and that the killer was the landlord, who went to collect their rent and eventually killed their tenant.
“Where are we going?”, this is how the adventure of those who found their bodies on tiktokeada began. The application marked a point Seattleclose to the coastal area near the market Pike Place. The game starts and so does TikTok videos. The two apps are in perfect tandem, the second necessary to tell what’s going on in real time. Three young people are walking without fear, everything is going normally.
In the background, they see a suitcase on the rocks. They visualize the fist. Black, off. “Will there be money?” they wonder. They will look. They will jump towards the rocks. They try to open it with fear: “As soon as I opened it, the smell was very intense” Publish. There is a garbage bag.
Joking aside, they are putting a new video next to the suitcase. “We’re going to call the police, see if there’s a human body or if it’s food.”
They called, not really believing that their suspicions were true. They did it with a video, another one. The agents confirmed the horror: inside was a human body cut off. Game over, it became a real crime scene.
start the investigation
“After several bags containing human remains were found near 1100 Alki Avenue SW this afternoon, police launched an investigation. Our officers arrived on the scene. after receiving a call warning of a suspicious bag on the beach. A second bag was found in the water. Seattle police announced hours later that the investigation had begun after the remains were confirmed to be human. Three days later, investigators found another suitcase nearby.
By then, the teenager’s TikTok video had already gone viral. Total, before erasing so as not to hurt the sensibilities, It reached 30 million viewers.
eleven days later, Agents confirmed the identity of the two victims.: Jessica Lewis and Austin Wenner were 35 and 27 years old. Since June 9 (ten days before the discovery), she was reported to have disappeared.
Gunshot wounds and blows
Jessica is 35 years old, mother of four. He worked in a center that deals with the disabled. Austin, 27, loved nature, outdoor activities. They were together for almost nine years. they were moved to a room -before six- months, to spend the quarantine caused by the coronavirus together. They had no conflicts, zero records.
The police questioned his surroundings. A priori, everything was clear. There was no solid thread to pull. Many references from the beginning led to Michael Lee. In the investigation, it was stated that the young people told the people around that the owner of the house was “a little crazy”.
Meanwhile, coroner confirmed that he died of several causes shots; He had a fatal gunshot wound to his torso. Both had multiple strokes. They were later dismembered.
Rent controversy
Investigators went to the victims’ home. Michael opened the door for them. A 62-year-old man at the time had sweet features that reminded him of Santa Claus in a way. Michael had rented the room from them. Although he said he didn’t know anything about Jessica or Austin, he added: They argued because they were late in paying the rent.and he hadn’t seen them again since.
Michael had neatly tied everything up, looking calm. I thought there was nothing to blame him for. The nerves started as the agents walked through the room: It smelled clean, had bullet holes, had traces of blood, and had a fresh coat of paint on the wall.
Asked if he had anything to explain, he described the blood as a cut from him; He had nothing to say about bullets. He was arrested in August 2020 and went to prison to stand trial.
“Psychopath”
Far from his vulnerable side, Michael’s criminal background included different crimes. It was tough, violent and aggressive and, according to Jessica’s aunt, she tried to scare them more than once.
The woman reassured in front of foreign media that the man occasionally locked up the couple and even broke their car. “He killed a dog in front of their eyes and left his body outside for three days to scare them,” the woman said. “He hit this dog with a hammer even kills him for snatching one of his chickens… He’s a goddamn psycho.”
“Please, do not do that”
It’s circumstantial evidence, he assured. Police couldn’t find the murder weapon. Convinced that there would be no evidence to point to him, Michael denied the facts.
Investigators and the prosecutor were outspoken in court: The night Jessica’s phone rang (June 9), neighbors called the police after gunfire and a man shouted: “Please don’t do this let me go”at three of them.
“Defendant dismembered after killing two victims, presumably with the help of others”
The suitcase with the remains belonged to the murderer. and investigators believe he did not commit the crime alone. “The defendant dismembered two victims after killing them, presumably with the help of others,” the prosecutor’s indictment states. The forensic investigation revealed that, along this line, “several people may have been involved because of the way the victims were dismembered.” The cuts were “ragged” and seemed to have been made in different ways with different tools.
Jessica and Austin’s landlord were found guilty in the case against him and sentenced to jail time. 46 years and 8 months in prison. The King County Supreme Court (Washington) upheld the sentence. The sentence meant that Michael Lee took the lives of his tenants because, according to him, owed him a month’s rent. Later, lived with their corpses for nine days. He places his phone on the shore on June 18th, June 19th—a day later—when three teenagers play to investigate and discover the horror recorded in a TikTok video.