Please be advised. The following article contains depictions of violence and crime.
On Sunday, September 24, 2006, the Contreras family was coming home from a weekend getaway. Cassie Jo Stoddart’s cousin was the first one through the door. She was horrified to find the girl lying on the floor, in a pool of her own blood.
Cassie’s aunt, Allison Contreras, was next in. She frantically took the phone and dialled 911. On the call, she reportedly stated, “There’s a girl dead on my floor. She is missing a finger.”
Lieutenant Robert Rausch from the Idaho State Police was the first officer at the scene, and he confirmed that Cassie was dead and that there was blood everywhere. Emergency services were next at the scene. They immediately noted Cassie had stab wounds and lacerations, not to mention the fact that she had been dead for days.
This was out of the ordinary for a place like Pocatello, Idaho. Initial observations showed this was not a robbery. All high-value items that a thief would look for to steal were present.
The windows and doors did not exhibit any sign of forced entry either. That meant Cassie had possibly let in her killers, or the attackers used stealth to get in.
Medical examiners ruled that she may have died two days prior to the family finding her, which was sometime during Friday night.
The Contreras had hired Cassie to babysit their pets over the weekend. Three cats and two dogs needed to be fed and cared for.
Cassie also appeared to want a quiet night in the company of her boyfriend Matt. Unfortunately, this was not the case, as it turned out to be her last night alive, at the hands of people she considered friends.
The Night of the Murder
Cassie invited her boyfriend, Matt Beckham, over as she babysat the Contreras’s pets that fateful Friday. Two classmates from Pocatello High School, Brian Draper and Torey Adamcik, stopped by at 8.20 pm.
They watched ‘Kill Bill: Volume 2‘ together and left at around 9.30 pm.
Unknown to Matt and Cassie, Draper and Adamcik left the door unlocked so they could come back, unnoticed. 15 minutes later, they snuck into the house’s basement. They cut the power by flipping off the master switch on the circuit breaker.
This caused the lights in the living room to go off. Draper and Adamcik did this to gauge Matt and Cassie’s reactions in the living room. Eventually, they turned the lights back on, but the flickering lights unnerved the couple above.
Matt called his mother to ask if he could stay the night, but she declined and came to pick him up.
When his mother arrived, she offered to take Cassie back with them, but she opted to stay behind. Matt later remembered that as he was leaving, he called Adamcik.
Adamcik was whispering on the call and claimed to be at the movies. He was actually waiting outside at the other side of the house.
Draper and Adamcik snuck back into the basement and cut the power again. This caused Cassie to panic. The boys came up behind her in the dark, attacking her with knives. They stabbed her 29 times.
The knife wounds were concentrated on her chest, abdomen, back and neck. By all standards, it was a vicious assault. The scene also showed evidence of self-defence wounds with blood spatter everywhere.
After they left the house, Draper recorded a video where he said, “I just killed Cassie. We’ve just left her house. I stabbed her in the throat, and I saw her lifeless body just… disappear… Dude, I just killed Cassie.”
The Investigation Unravels a Movie Alibi
At first, police did not have immediate suspects for the murder. The front and back doors were also locked.
Considering the scene did not have signs of forced entry, the police surmised that the killer was someone known to Cassie. She may have willingly let them into the house.
Investigators also focused on her boyfriend as a possible suspect because he was the last person to see her alive. However, the alibi was solid. His mother picked him up at 10 pm, and that was before the estimated time of death.
However, the fact that the lights were flickering that night was a curious detail. Matt also indicated that the dogs in the house were growling at something in the basement.
He also mentioned his friends Draper and Adamcik had stopped by at his invitation for a bit, but they left the house after a movie.
Matt confirmed to the police that he called Adamcik at 10.35 pm to check on them. Adamcik was whispering when he answered the phone, claiming that they had both gone to see a local movie called ‘Pulse‘.
Detectives redirected their attention to Adamcik and Draper. They asked both of the boys to describe the plot of the movie they saw, and they gave highly inaccurate accounts.
Police also checked with the theatre to verify the timeline the boys provided. No employees recalled ever seeing them.
Under significant interrogation on Tuesday, Draper began to crack and finally broke down in tears. Draper eventually confessed that they were at the house even after Matt left.
However, he began to try and minimize his role in the murder, saying it began as a prank on Cassie.
Draper said Torey went rogue and did all of the stabbing. Following this confession, Draper led the police to a remote place in Black Rock Canyon. This was where they had buried the evidence.
At the site, the investigators dug up a garbage bag that contained a digital camcorder. It also had the knives they used to kill Cassie, along with face coverings.
When they played the tape, the video showed the teens bragging about killing Cassie. This also blew Draper’s story about a prank gone wrong. This video showed the planning phases for the murders at school, and them on camera just minutes after they killed her.
The police also discovered a kill list with the names of a dozen other students. Investigators stated their objective was to eventually do a Columbine-style school shooting.
While Draper seemed to be inspired by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the ones who committed the Columbine High School Massacre, Adamcik was inspired by the Scream horror movie series.
The media would later call them ‘The Scream Killers.’ Both Draper and Adamcik were taken into custody, where they immediately started pointing fingers at each other.
Draper eventually told the police that he was in the same room, but was forced by Adamcik to participate. He admitted taking part in the killing because he was afraid that Adamcik would turn on him. However, the tape seemed to illustrate that both were complicit.
Prosecutors showed that Adamcik was seen planning their alibis and assigning Draper responsibility for getting rid of the evidence.
The Trial
Due to immense public interest, the legal proceedings were moved to Boise.
Draper and Adamcik’s trials began within three months of each other in April and June 2007. They were tried as adults.
The prosecution presented the tape recovered by the police to the jury. Draper’s defence focused on admitting he was in the room, but claimed he was just a reluctant participant.
Adamcik’s defence approach was more brazen. Taking an acquittal or nothing strategy, the attorneys claimed Brian Draper was the sole killer.
He was very disturbed and was the one who began stabbing Cassie. They claimed that Adamcik was present, but he intended for it to be a prank and was shocked when Draper began attacking Cassie and killing her.
In the video, filmed hours earlier, Draper spoke into the camera, saying, “We’re going to make history.” The jury was presented with the video of Brian leaving the house. He was screaming, “We just killed Cassie!”
It took two and a half months for the jury to arrive at a verdict. During this time, psychological investigations and a push by the defence for a reduced sentence were conducted.
According to the Idaho penal code, first-degree murder convictions attract the death penalty or life in prison. As Draper and Adamcik were under the age of 18, they could not be executed, but life in prison was on the table.
Both were given an opportunity to speak in public for the first time. Draper cried publicly and then turned to the victim’s family and apologised for what he had done. Torey Adamcik, though, gave a brief and composed statement. He gave condolences but with a cold demeanour.
Sentencing and Aftermath
Judge William Woodson issued a life sentence without parole for Brian Draper and Torey Adamcik. This was justified by the perpetrators’ intent and the brutality of the crime.
This included the pre-planning of the tape and the psychological torture that they implemented on Cassie before she died.
On the count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, Woodson was sentenced to a Unified Life imprisonment with 30 years, fixed. This was to be served concurrently with the life sentences.
While they were in the transport to the State Correctional Institution near Boise, the two sat beside each other. They chatted up, Lieutenant K.G. Fonnesbeck of the county sheriff’s office telling him, “We are just stupid kids. Can’t you let us go?”
Neither of the boys accepted their fate. They appealed to the Idaho Supreme Court in 2010 and in 2011. The basis was challenging jury instructions, along with the sentences. All appeals were denied.
Following a 2016 Supreme Court ruling that, in certain cases, a person convicted as a minor can challenge their sentence, Adamcik’s legal representative, Dennis Benjamin, filed a request for the court to reconsider the conviction.
Benjamin then argued that Adamcik’s Eighth Amendment rights had been violated. He claimed, “You can only impose a fixed life sentence on a juvenile in exceptionally rare cases. Torey just doesn’t fall into that exceptionally rare category.”
A US District Court rejected Adamcik’s request that the conviction be vacated. U.S Magistrate Judge Candy Dale determined the evidence supports the murder conviction, and the Supreme Court did not make a mistake in affirming the life sentence without parole.
Adamcik maintained the incident was not premeditated. At a court appearance in 2015, He claimed, “I never wanted it to happen, and I want to apologise to Cassie’s family.”
Brian Draper and Torey Adamcik are still serving their sentences at the Idaho State Correctional Institution. They were separated early on, however, for security reasons.
In a 2026 documentary interview, Draper noted that, though they occasionally see each other in the prison corridors, they do not speak. At the time he committed the crime, he felt like a nobody. He claimed, “I felt like I’d be somebody if I did something, you know, big and bad.”
If you’re interested in more eerie or unusual stories, explore our articles on the 2016 Creepy Clown phenomenon and Kim Ung-Yong.