Show Notes
There is a village in the apple country of western New York called Sodus, up in Wayne County near the south shore of Lake Ontario, about thirty miles east of Rochester. This is fruit-belt land, orchard and muck field running back from the lake, roadside stands selling cider in the fall, the big cold lake holding the frost off the trees in spring. In October the orchards go heavy and the light comes in low and gold across the drumlins, the long humped hills the glaciers left behind. A few thousand people, one central school the whole area feeds into, the worst trouble in a given year usually a bad wreck out on Route 14. The kind of place where a double murder in a driveway on a sunny Monday afternoon does not just grieve people, it cracks the basic understanding they have about where they live.
On the twenty-second of October, 2018, a Monday, that understanding broke. It broke on a short residential street called Carlton Street, a block of modest houses near the Sodus Central School, the kind of street where people leave the doors unlocked and the kids ride bikes in the road. At a little after three in the afternoon, in full daylight, with neighbors home and children about, a young couple was shot to death in the driveway of their own home. By the time the first deputy arrived, the shooter was gone and the street had become a crime scene that the people who saw it would carry for the rest of their lives.
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More from Obscura: A True Crime Podcast
SOURCES : COURT RECORDS • State v. Draper, Idaho Supreme Court, September 2011 • State v. Adamcik, Idaho Supreme Court, January 2012 • Adamcik v. State, Idaho Supreme Court, December 2017 • Adamcik v. Ramirez, U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, November 2019 • Adamcik v. Ramirez, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, March 2022 • Stoddart v. Pocatello School District No. 25, Idaho Supreme Court, 2010 • Miller v. Alabama (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016), U.S. Supreme Court • Appellate briefs, Idaho Supreme Court Records and Briefs, University of Idaho College of Law Digital Commons • Bannock County trial exhibits (videotape recordings and transcript), released February 2023 under the Idaho Public Records Act NEWS • Idaho State Journal, "Murdered girl's funeral draws 500: Family, friends remember Stoddart," October 2006 • Idaho State Journal, "Tapes shown at murder trial," April 2007 • KBOI 2 News, "Draper convicted in teen's death," April 2007 • Idaho State Journal, "Adamcik guilty of murder," June 2007 • Idaho State Journal, "Draper, Adamcik get life," August 2007 • The Spokesman-Review, "Teenage killers chatty on ride to prison," August 2007 • The Spokesman-Review, "Judge refuses to reduce life term for teen killer," March 2008 • KXLY, "Supreme Court tosses civil case in student slaying," 2010 • Idaho State Journal, "Adamcik: 'I want to apologize to Cassie's family,'" July 2015 • Idaho State Journal, "Remembering Cassie Jo: Brother opens up on 10th anniversary of grisly murder," September 2016 • Oxygen, "Brian Draper, Torey Adamcik Kill Teen Cassie Jo Stoddart," Dateline: Secrets Uncovered • Biography.com, "Where Are Torey Adamcik and Brian Draper Now? All About Cassie Jo Stoddart's 'Scream Murder' Killers," February 2026 • Obituary of Anna Maria Price, April 2022 TELEVISION, VIDEO AND PODCASTS • It Is What It Is! (YouTube channel), "The other side of a killer. My interview with Brian Draper"
The murder of Cassie Jo Stoddart occurred on September 22, 2006, in Pocatello, Idaho.
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