A second man has been sentenced to life in prison for the death of a woman who was kept in a cage and dismembered in southwest Missouri in 2021.
Timothy Norton was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty in Dallas County court to first-degree murder in the death of 33-year-old Cassie Rainwater. As part of his plea agreement, charges of kidnapping and abandonment of a corpse were dropped.
Another man, James Phelps, entered an Alford plea earlier this year in the same case and was also sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The two men were arrested in September 2021 after the FBI received a tip about photos showing Rainwater in a cage on Phelps’ property near Lebanon, Missouri. Additional photos showed Rainwater dismembered and disembowelled. Some of her remains were found in a deep freezer, authorities said.