The Goddaughter's Party: The Unsolved Killing of Cassandra Rhines

On May 6, 2014, an off-duty employee of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office was working with dogs in Gooseberry Falls State Park, on Minnesota’s North Shore. In a part of the park few people reach, he and the dogs came upon what looked like a human skull and other bones.

That August, DNA matched them to Cassandra Rhines. She was 19 when she disappeared from Minneapolis in June 1985. Investigators say she was murdered. Her killer has not been identified.

Sources for this section: 1, 4, 8

Grand Avenue South

Cassandra lived in a multi-unit apartment complex at 2700 Grand Avenue South, near Whittier Park in Minneapolis. WCCO later described the building’s location as 27th Street and Grand Avenue South, and reported in 2015 that it looked much the same as it had in 1985.

She had a sister, Janie Morris. She had a goddaughter. Her surviving family members were scattered around the country, authorities said in 2015.

Little else about her life is in the public record. When the case was announced in 2015, BCA Assistant Superintendent Drew Evans said so at a news conference.

“We’re looking for any information about her disappearance, and who she may have been with, who she had contact with, who her friends may have been because we just don’t know a lot about her and her life at that time.”

Sources for this section: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6

The birthday party

In June 1985, Cassandra called a friend. She was confirming that she would be at her goddaughter’s birthday party in Minneapolis the next day. Lake County Sheriff Carey Johnson gave the rest in 2015.

“She never showed, and was never heard from again.”

The public record doesn’t give the day of that call, the friend’s name, or who reported her missing.

Sources for this section: 1, 5

A family in Texas

In May 2013, WCCO aired a story about the BCA’s DNA laboratory. A few days later, a family in Texas got in touch. They wanted to ask about Minnesota’s unsolved missing persons cases.

That year the BCA had begun asking relatives of long-missing Minnesotans for DNA samples. It had a grant from the National Institute of Justice to test remains against possible relatives. Late in 2013, Cassandra’s sister gave a sample.

Sources for this section: 3, 4

The dogs

Gooseberry Falls is about 200 miles from Minneapolis, northeast of Two Harbors on Lake Superior. The spot was secluded. “Her body wasn’t buried in the park, it was the years of debris since 1985 that covered up her remains,” Sheriff Johnson said. Apart from some brush, there didn’t appear to have been any serious attempt to hide her.

After nearly 30 years, what was left were scattered bones and some clothing material. The search was hard. The ground was still frozen and partly covered in snow after one of the harshest winters on record. The Duluth News Tribune later called the man who found her a deputy. Earlier reports and the BCA call him an off-duty employee.

At first, Johnson said, no one knew what they had.

“We didn’t know exactly what we were looking at. We didn’t know if we had found an old burial site that had been dug up or remains from earlier settlers or a logging camp.”

A filling in one tooth showed the remains were more recent than that.

Sources for this section: 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8

The skull

The St. Louis County Medical Examiner’s Office and a forensic anthropologist examined the remains. Investigators concluded that the woman had been the victim of a homicide. The skull showed blunt force trauma injuries. Johnson told the Star Tribune it appeared to have been damaged.

They still didn’t know who she was. “We knew we had human remains, but we didn’t have anything else to tell,” Johnson said.

Sources for this section: 1, 3, 6

The match

Scientists at the BCA lab in St. Paul pulled a DNA profile from the bones and entered it in a national missing persons database. Catherine Knutson, who directed the BCA’s forensic science services, described what came next.

“In August 2014, the BCA matched DNA from those remains to the DNA from one family member who provided a sample in late 2013. Further testing from an additional family member confirmed a match.”

“This one family’s decision to come forward was key to the identification of the remains,” Knutson said, in the Duluth News Tribune’s version. The Star Tribune quoted it as “the successful identification of these skeletal remains.”

Sources for this section: 3, 4, 6

May 20, 2015

On a Wednesday in May 2015, the BCA and the Lake County Sheriff’s Office announced that the remains were Cassandra’s, and that they were investigating her murder.

FOX 9 quoted her sister, Janie Morris.

“I miss my sister. I miss her with all my heart and soul. She was my angel. I’m thankful to God he answered my prayer to allow me to bring her back home. But to know that she’s no longer here is devastating.”

The BCA said investigators believed she was murdered near the time she disappeared. Johnson said it was unclear whether she had ever been in Lake County or the Twin Ports before her death. Investigators were speculating that she was already dead when her body was left in the park.

The BCA also said investigators believed that at the time she disappeared, she may have been involved in prostitution and may have worked as an exotic dancer. Evans said it wasn’t clear whether that played any part in her death.

“Investigators need the public’s help to better understand who Cassandra Rhines knew and who may have sought to harm her,” Evans said. “The clearer picture we have of the time when she disappeared, the better chance we have of finding out who killed her.”

Sources for this section: 1, 2, 3, 5

The photograph

Officials released a photograph of Cassandra with a man. They didn’t know who he was.

Investigators believed she may have been living with him, and they wanted to find him, because he might know something about the time she disappeared.

Tips came in. By May 2016, investigators had a name for the man in the photograph. They confirmed that he had been living with her when she disappeared. He had since died. The public record doesn’t call him a suspect.

The tips also led to a friend who had worked with Cassandra. Investigators tracked her down. She had died too.

“Once you start following up and finding that these persons of interest that you want to talk to to get the information you need to help solve the case are deceased, it just makes it that much more difficult.”

That was Johnson, in 2016. He said the sheriff’s office and the BCA would keep following up on tips. One had come in that week.

Sources for this section: 1, 3, 4, 7, 8

The case file

In 2021, the lead investigator on the case was Sgt. Tim Luoma of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. He said there had been many people he wanted to interview, and that they were now dead.

“Unfortunately, we’ve kind of hit a dead end with people that would still be alive from when the crime occurred back then. All those people who we would have liked to talk to were part of a partying lifestyle back then, which has kind of led to a shorter lifespan than anticipated.”

He kept the case file on his desk, he said, and looked at it every day. He hoped something would come up that would let him give her few remaining family members some closure.

“We just don’t really have any more leads to follow,” Luoma said.

The public record still doesn’t say where she died, or how she came to be 200 miles from home. Her killer has not been identified.

She had called to say she would be at the party.

Sources for this section: 1, 3, 7, 8

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