A Seattle landlord who murdered two of his tenants, dismembered them, and dumped their remains into the ocean, was sentenced to more than 46 years in prison, Fox 13 Seattle reported.
On June 19th, 2020, a group of teenagers noticed suitcases that had washed up on Alki Beach in Seattle, Washington. When the teens approached them, they were hit with the smell of decomposing bodies, and they immediately notified authorities. After deputies from the King County Sheriff’s Office arrived, the suitcases were opened, and human remains were discovered. Three days later, deputies found another suitcase in a nearby waterway containing more the same.
The remains were identified as that of 35-year-old Jessica Lewis and her partner 27-year-old Austin Wenner. According to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, the couple had died from multiple gunshot wounds June 9th, ten days before their remains were discovered.
A thorough investigation led detectives to 64-year-old Michael Dudley, the victims’ landlord. Though police never located the murder weapon, the suitcases containing the remains of Lewis and Wenner were later determined to have belonged to Dudley. His cell phone data also placed him near the vicinity of Alki Beach the day before the suitcases were discovered.
After being found guilty of two counts of second-degree murder in December of last year, Dudley has finally been sentenced to 560 months in prison.
“We will not let this monster take away our lives too,” Wenner’s mother said after learning Dudley’s fate. “We are going to go on in Austin’s memory and Jessica’s memory.”