A group of teenagers went to a Seattle beach during lockdown to film a TikTok adventure. What they found under a dock would soon become the start of a murder investigation.
Beyond Evil reported that the teens were at Alki Beach in West Seattle on June 19, 2020, after following random coordinates generated by an app called Randonautica. The idea was simple: go where the app sent them, film what they found, and post it online.
At first, the clip looked like another strange internet moment. The teens found a suitcase near the rocks and joked about opening it.
Then the smell hit them.
“We found a suitcase and it has a pretty bad smell,” one of the teens told 911.
A Suitcase Under The Dock
Beyond Evil’s host said the teenagers discovered the suitcase under the dock near Duwamish Head at Alki Beach.
The 911 dispatcher asked whether they were across the street on the water side, and the caller explained that the suitcase was on the rocks under the dock. At that point, no one knew whether it held trash, food, a dead animal, or something worse.
The call was initially treated as non-urgent. By the time officers arrived, the teens were gone.
So was the suitcase’s contents.
Bodycam footage showed officers finding the suitcase empty. For a moment, they appeared to consider whether the call had been a prank.
Then an officer noticed something floating nearby.
“You see that?” one officer asked, pointing toward the water. Another said it looked “kind of organic.”
What they found was not trash. Beyond Evil’s host said a black duffel bag contained part of a woman’s body.
More Remains Wash Ashore
The tide had risen during the roughly two hours between the 911 call and the officers’ arrival, and Beyond Evil’s host said the suitcase had begun washing out.
That raised a chilling problem for investigators. If one bag had opened, there was no telling how many other bags or remains could be drifting away from shore.
A second bag was soon found.
“Will, we’ve located a second bag consistent with human remains,” an officer said in the footage.
When an officer hauled the bag onto the rocks, a human foot fell out. Beachgoers were evacuated, and Seattle homicide detectives were called.
The scene only grew worse. Officers later recovered what Beyond Evil’s host described as a male torso, which meant investigators were no longer dealing with one victim, but two.
At that point, Alki Beach was not just the place where remains were found. It had become a dumping ground.
It is hard to overstate how strange and awful the beginning of this case was. A viral video, a suitcase, a beach full of people, and a tide carrying evidence away all collided before detectives even had names for the victims.
The Viral TikTok Costs Detectives Time
By that evening, the teens’ TikTok video was spreading across the internet.
Beyond Evil’s host said the video would eventually be viewed more than 30 million times. It did not show graphic images, but it made clear that the teens had stumbled onto something terrifying.
For investigators, that created a problem.
The host explained that in any homicide case, time is one of the most important advantages police have. Once the video went viral, whoever dumped the remains would likely know they had been found.
That meant the killer could start covering tracks before detectives had fully caught up.
Still, investigators soon got their first major break. Among the recovered remains were hands, and fingerprints identified the victims as 35-year-old Jessica Lewis and 27-year-old Austin Wenner.
The medical examiner determined that both had been killed by gunfire. Beyond Evil’s host said police records showed their families had reported them missing on June 10, after they disappeared and went offline.
Detectives Look Toward A Quiet Home
Detectives began interviewing friends and family members, then turned their attention to Michael Dudley, a 62-year-old landlord in Burien.
Beyond Evil reported that Lewis and Wenner had rented a room from Dudley at his home on Ambaum Boulevard South for about eight months before their disappearance. Dudley had a reputation as a helpful landlord and Airbnb host, someone who gave rides and looked after tenants’ pets.
But rumors suggested he knew more than he was saying.
On August 19, 2020, detectives brought Dudley in for questioning.
By then, investigators had built a rough timeline. Lewis and Wenner’s devices stopped transmitting or receiving data around 7:10 p.m. on June 9, with the last pings coming from a tower near Dudley’s home.
That same evening, before 7 p.m., a neighbor had called 911 after hearing gunshots from the house and a man begging for his life. Officers went to the house, but no one answered the door.
The case went cold before anyone even knew what had happened.
Dudley Blames The Victims’ Lifestyle
In the interrogation footage, detectives asked Dudley how much he knew about Austin and Jessica, since his house was the last place they were seen alive.
Dudley said he met Austin through a woman named Renee, who had been living on the property. He described Austin as someone with drug problems and said he let him stay because Austin needed a place to sleep.
Dudley told detectives that Austin and Jessica stayed at his home during quarantine and had used more than one room in the house.
Beyond Evil’s host said detectives already knew the couple had been paying Dudley about $1,500 a month for a room, while also doing chores around the property.
Dudley then began painting Austin as a thief and meth user who brought stolen cars and trouble to the home.
“He was a freaking prolific thief and a meth user,” Dudley told detectives.
He also suggested that many people may have wanted Austin dead, claiming Austin had stories about stolen tools, drugs, gangs, cartel-connected people, and other dangerous conflicts.
Those claims could have been useful leads if Dudley could support them. But as Beyond Evil’s host pointed out, Dudley had not reported those supposed threats to police, and he had not removed the couple from the home.
The Evidence Inside The House
While Dudley spoke with detectives, forensic teams were searching the house.
Beyond Evil’s host said investigators found bullet holes in the bed frame in the blue room where Austin and Jessica lived, along with traces of blood. Detectives also told Dudley that cadaver dogs had alerted in the basement, where there were stains and evidence consistent with human decomposition.
When a detective asked whether there was any reason a cadaver dog would alert in the basement, Dudley denied that any dead bodies had been there.
“No dead bodies in my basement,” Dudley said. “I’m sure of that.”
The detective later pressed Dudley on the shots-fired call from June 9. Dudley denied remembering police ever coming to the house that night.
Detectives also told him that Austin had warned his mother that if anything ever happened to him, people should look at “Mike,” meaning Dudley.
Dudley said he did not know why Austin would say that.
At that stage, his story seemed less like an explanation and more like denial layered over denial. He claimed he considered the couple friends, but he never called police after learning they were dead. He said he expected investigators to contact him, yet he did not reach out himself.
Phone Records And A Conviction
Beyond Evil’s host said detectives did not need a confession.
Phone records showed Dudley’s phone pinged near Alki Beach on June 17, the night before the remains were discovered. The host noted that it was the only time Dudley’s phone had ever pinged at that location.
Investigators theorized that Dudley shot Lewis and Wenner on June 9, dismembered their bodies in the basement, stored the remains for days, and later dumped them near Alki Beach.
The exact motive was never fully known. Beyond Evil’s host said Dudley claimed the couple owed rent, while Austin’s family believed he may have known something Dudley wanted hidden.
In December 2022, a King County jury found Dudley guilty of two counts of second-degree murder with a firearm.
Michael Dudley, then 65, was sentenced to 46 years in prison. Beyond Evil reported that he appealed his conviction, but the Washington Court of Appeals affirmed it in August 2025.
He will not be eligible for parole until age 104.
Remembering Jessica And Austin
The case became famous because of the TikTok video, but Beyond Evil ended by emphasizing that Jessica Lewis and Austin Wenner were not just names attached to a viral crime scene.
A loved one said they did not want the victims remembered as plastic bags.
“That’s not who they were,” the person said. “These were actual people.”
That is the part of the story that can get lost when a case begins with a shocking internet clip. The teens who made the video did not know they were standing near the remains of two people whose families were already looking for them.
What started as a strange suitcase under a dock became a murder case that led detectives back to a quiet house, a landlord’s shifting story, and forensic evidence hidden behind walls.
The video went viral because the discovery was horrifying. But the real story was Jessica and Austin, two people whose lives ended violently and whose families had to wait for strangers on a beach, a rising tide, and a police investigation to reveal what had happened.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
