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Just hours after Cassy Farrington was found dead with bruises all over her body and fully clothed in an overflowing tub at her New Mexico home, investigators returned the home to her family.
But her parents were shocked to discover that essential evidence – including the broken glasses and hair tape of the 23-year-old in a guest bathroom – had been left behind and was not found. never been recovered by investigators.
The master bedroom tub, where Cassy’s body had been found, was still full of water, hiding a series of black marks on the side of the tub that suggested a possible struggle.
The Grant County Sheriff’s Office would even later confirm that no fingerprints or DNA samples were taken at the scene.
The day after Cassy, a nurse and mother of two, was found dead in the Silver City home, authorities discovered that owner Billy Lee had torn and removed the carpet there, eliminating it. as well as any evidence that might have been left behind.
“How can you complete your investigation so quickly?” Cassy’s father, Chuck Brooks, asked. “Dateline: Secrets discovered”, aeration Wednesdays To 8 / 7c to Oxygen.
Growing up, Cassy had excelled at almost everything she had tried. She earned A’s directly, was a member of the National Honor Society, and had a number of sporting activities including volleyball, basketball, softball, track and field, and poms.
“She never gave up. I should make him take time, ”recalls Brooks.
Cassy had dreamed of someday becoming a doctor, but her plans were derailed when at 16 she found out she was pregnant. Within a month, she had her baby, graduated from high school, married Brad Farrington, and left the family home.
Although she never attended medical school, Cassy became a nurse and had another child.
The marriage to Brad was not going to last and at the age of 23, Cassy was starting a new relationship.
Her new boyfriend, David Berry, had been great with her kids and the couple “were just building a life together,” friend Mary Flores told “Dateline: Secrets Uncovered”.
Cassy lived in a house she rented from one of her nursing teachers, Charnelle Lee, and life seemed to be going well for the new mom until the tragic events of March 24, 2014.
Cassy had finished her cemetery service at a Silver City hospital and told her mother, Darlene Brooks, over the phone that she was planning to bring her kids to school and then take a nap before needing to pick them up.
When her parents got a call saying she had never arrived to pick up the children, they asked Charnelle to go see Cassy at home.
When Charnelle got to the back door, she noticed that water was pouring into the kitchen from the hallway.
“It was very strange,” she recalls.
After obtaining the key to the property, Charnelle walked inside and made a gruesome discovery. Cassy was floating face down in an overflowing tub, wearing her nursing scrubs. Water continued to flow from the tap and onto the floor, soaking the house.
“And she’s been in the tub and she’s – I can’t even do CPR.” She’s stiff, ”Charnelle said on a frantic 911 call.
Charnelle discovered that there was also water running in the bathtub in the guest room at the other end of the house and discovered that the towel rack had been ripped from the wall in that room.
Senior Detective Jose Sanchez, from the Grant County Sheriff’s Office, arrived at the scene and began the investigation into Cassy’s death, noting that there had been no signs of the break-in and that Cassy’s backpack and lunchbox were still at the foot of her made bed.
Cassy’s parents rushed to the scene and investigators repeatedly asked if their daughter had been suicidal – a suggestion they bristled at.
But Lt. Ray Tavison – who had been Sanchez’s supervisor at the time – insisted he was just trying to gather information.
“A young woman doesn’t die, you know, out of the blue. We consider this a homicide until proven guilty, ”he told“ Dateline ”reporter Keith Morrison, noting that there were bruises on and around his arm. from his neck.
Investigators would only spend a few hours in the house before returning it to the family.
Sanchez would later tell Tavison that he had never dusted fingerprints on the property, as he assumed it would have been “too clean.”
His family asked if Berry, his new love, could have been involved.
“His behavior the first days after his death was very strange and peculiar to me,” Chuck said. “I myself never really saw her shed a tear, but I was suspicious of anyone who had contact with her.”
Without any physical evidence, the case quickly turned cold.
But Sanchez had never even spoken to the family’s primary suspect in this case, Cassy’s ex Brad, a former Silver City cop.
His family believed Sanchez might be trying to protect another law enforcement officer and decided to bring his concerns to the district attorney’s office. They met with the then Deputy Attorney General, George Zsoka.
“People got a little hot under the collar,” Zsoka recalled of the meeting which also included the sheriff, deputy sheriff and Tavison.
The group agreed that Sanchez made mistakes in the case.
“I had no reason to doubt him, but I should have. I should have micromanaged it, ”Tavison said, attributing the delay in the investigation to laziness.
Sanchez was removed from the case and veteran Detective Sgt. Jess Watkins took over, quickly turning his attention to Brad, who had been going through an ugly custody battle for Cassy at the time of her death.
Her family have portrayed a volatile relationship between the couple, claiming that Cassy once woke up to find her husband standing above her in the dark as she slept. On another occasion, Darlene saw Brad put his daughter in a headlock and push her against the wall.
“He convinced her he was going to kill her,” Chuck said.
Cassy has told others that Brad also abused their children, tying their hands and feet together and putting duct tape over the younger man’s mouth in what he claimed was a game.
Just weeks before she was killed, Cassy’s 5-year-old son returned from a visit with his father and told him Brad had told the child he was planning to kill Cassy and Berry.
“I don’t think a five-year-old is making this up,” Chuck said.
Watkins determined that Brad was the only person with a motive to kill Cassy and believed evidence uncovered in an autopsy determined that Cassy was killed by someone who had been trained in defensive tactics, such as the former police officer.
After evaluating all the evidence, Brad was arrested and charged with the murder.
“I think that was his way of taking what he could of her, of saying, ‘Hey look, these kids aren’t going to have you,'” Watkins said of the perceived motive.
Brad’s defense team argued there was no physical evidence placing him at the scene of the murder, but the judge in the case made the unusual decision to allow hearsay evidence and prosecutors paraded a series of witnesses before the jury who portrayed one and the abusive marriage.
It only took a few hours for the jury to convict Brad of first degree murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Brad tried to appeal the ruling, arguing that hearsay should not have been allowed at trial, but in 2020 the New Mexico Supreme Court upheld the conviction, according to local station KRWG.
Her two children are being raised by Brad’s family.
To learn more about this case and others like it, watch “Dateline: Secrets discovered”, aeration Wednesdays To 8 / 7c to Oxygen, or broadcast episodes here.
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