Timothy Norton is a Missouri man who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on June 27, 2023, for his role in the killing of 33-year-old Cassidy Rainwater at a rural Dallas County property in the summer of 2021. Norton, 56 at sentencing, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He confessed to holding Rainwater’s legs while his longtime friend James Phelps strangled her with a bag over her head. The two men then hung her body on a gantry crane and dismembered it. Rainwater had been photographed alive inside a cage at the property before she was killed.
How the Case Came to Light
Rainwater was last seen in mid-July 2021. She had been staying at Phelps’s home on Moon Valley Road near Windyville while, as Phelps later told investigators, she tried to “get back on her feet.” On August 25, 2021, a relative named Cora Terry reported her missing to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies went to the property that day. Phelps told them Rainwater had left in the middle of the night about a month earlier to meet a vehicle at the end of his driveway, and he repeated that story to a detective on September 1.
The case turned on September 16, 2021, when the FBI’s Kansas City office forwarded an anonymous cyber tip to Dallas County detectives. The tip contained photographs labeled “Cassidy” showing a partially nude woman inside a cage, along with images of a body bound to a gantry crane, a device typically used for processing deer, and images of evisceration and dismemberment. A detective identified the woman as Cassidy Rainwater. Back at 386 Moon Valley Road, detectives recognized items in the backyard that matched the photographs. Phelps was arrested that day and invoked his right to an attorney the next.
Norton’s Confession
Four days later, on September 20, 2021, FBI agents interviewed Norton at the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office. He confessed. Norton said Phelps had asked him to help kill Rainwater, claiming she had stolen from them. According to Norton, the two men attacked her while she was sleeping on the floor of Phelps’s cabin. Norton held her legs. Phelps placed a bag over her head and strangled her. Afterward, Norton said, they hung the body on the gantry crane, dismembered it in a bathtub, and disposed of the remains. Chief Deputy Darren Cheek arrested him after the confession.
What Investigators Found
The search of the Moon Valley Road property required 168 continuous hours of work by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, the Greene County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Unit, and the FBI. More than 200 pieces of evidence were recovered. Among them were the gantry crane, the cage from the photographs, and human remains stored in a freezer marked “7-24,” consistent with July 24, 2021, the date digital evidence pointed to as the day of the killing. Additional skeletal remains were found on an adjacent property belonging to Rainwater’s grandfather, Bill Rainwater. DNA testing confirmed all recovered remains were Cassidy Rainwater’s. Investigators also recovered digital messages between Phelps and Norton showing the two had planned the murder, and seven photographs of Rainwater on Phelps’s phone.
Charges, Pleas, and Sentences
Both men were initially charged with felony kidnapping. On November 17, 2021, Dallas County Prosecutor Jonathan Barker filed upgraded charges of first-degree murder and abandonment of a corpse against Phelps and Norton.
Phelps resolved his case first. On April 28, 2023, he entered an Alford plea to first-degree murder, acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him without admitting guilt. He was 60. Judge Jill Porter sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of probation or parole.
Norton pleaded guilty two months later, on June 27, 2023. Under his plea agreement, the kidnapping and abandonment of a corpse charges were dismissed, and he received life without parole. In an interview with KY3 after the hearing, Norton described Phelps’s temper and said he had been afraid to cross him. He also told the station, “I deserve to die, and I am ready for that,” and called himself “a monster of a Monster Monster.”
How Norton Knew Phelps
Norton and Phelps were not casual acquaintances. Dallas County Sheriff Scott Rice said the two had known each other since high school, where they were classmates, and had stayed friends for decades. Norton lived in Lebanon, Missouri, and was a regular presence at Phelps’s property, which is how he came to be there while Rainwater was staying with Phelps.
The $30 Million Wrongful Death Judgment
In October 2023, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Phelps and Norton on behalf of Cassidy Rainwater’s children. Neither defendant responded. On January 25, 2024, Missouri 30th Judicial Circuit Judge Mike Hendrickson entered a default judgment of $30 million for the children. Springfield attorney Amanda Johnson, of Donelan Law, represented the plaintiffs.
Practically, neither defendant has significant assets, but the judgment is a prerequisite for the family to apply to Missouri’s tort victim compensation fund, which caps payouts at $300,000. Any assets Phelps or Norton acquire while incarcerated can be garnished. Under Missouri law, funds recovered for the children before they turn 18 would be handled through a conservatorship, annuity, or restricted account.
Related Matters
Two separate threads sometimes surface alongside this case and are worth naming so they aren’t confused with it. In early October 2021, while both men were in jail, the house at 386 Moon Valley Road burned down in what was classified as second-degree arson, with an estimated $40,000 in damage; the Springfield Fire Department bomb squad recovered two incendiary devices rigged to a tripwire, and no one had been publicly charged as of the last available reporting. Separately, Rainwater’s mother, Tracy Wahwassuck, disappeared in 2007, and her bones were found in a field near Lebanon, Missouri, in 2008; Laclede County Coroner Steve Murrell said in October 2021 that the case remained open but that he did not believe the two women’s deaths were connected.