A Washington state jury found a landlord guilty Thursday of killing two tenants and packing their bodies into suitcases.
The jury’s decision comes after 64-year-old Michael Dudley killed both Jessica Lewis and her boyfriend Austin Wenne. The couple’s bodies washed ashore inside suitcases at Alki Beach in Seattle in 2020, according to FOX 13.
A neighbor reported gunshots in Burien, Washington on June 9, 2020, as well as a man pleading for his life, but officers found no one at the home. When questioned by the police, Dudley could not explain why he did not open the door for the police.
Using cellphone data, officials learned that Lewis stopped texting the night of the alleged shooting. Also using cell phone data, the owner, Dudley, was found to have been near Alki Beach for just a day before officials discovered the suitcase with the bodies inside.
IDAHO MURDERS: BORDER AUTHORITIES SURVEILLANCE OF HYUNDAI ELANTRA THAT WAS NEAR SCENES OF QUADRULE MURDER
The jury’s decision comes after 64-year-old Michael Dudley killed both Jessica Lewis and her boyfriend Austin Wenne. The couple’s bodies washed ashore inside suitcases at Alki Beach in Seattle in 2020, according to FOX 13.
(FOX 13)
Prosecutors did not have eyewitnesses to directly link the owner to the murders, but they relied on evidence they said proved Dudley’s guilt and singled out the neighbor.
Lewis and Wenne were Dudley’s tenants.
PROSECUTORS IN ALEX MURDAUGH CASE ALLEGE MOTIVE FOR MURDERING WIFE AND SON
Prosecutors said Wenne was shot at least once and Lewis was shot at least twice before the pair were mutilated and packed into suitcases.
Lawyers for the owner argued that the 62-year-old was not capable of committing the crime.
Lewis’s aunt, Gina Jaschke, said she has trouble looking at Dudley.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“I am hopeful that his reign of terror will come to an end,” Jaschke said. “I just look at him and I can’t imagine what he’s done to them. It’s hard, very hard.”
