Who was convicted in the TikTok suitcase murders case? Seattle landlord found guilty of killing 2 tenants 

Michael Dudley, a landlord in Seattle, was convicted on charges of murder in the famously known ‘TikTok suitcase murders’ back in 2020. On Thursday, December 8, he was found guilty of the crime by a Washington jury.

In June 2020, Dudley shot his tenants – 27-year-old Austin Wenner and his girlfriend, 35-year-old Jessica Lewis. He mutilated their bodies and disposed of the body parts in large suitcases.

When a group of teenagers was making videos for TikTok on Alki Beach later that month, they found a mysterious suitcase. They opened it with a stick and saw a black plastic bag filled with something. A foul smell was coming out of it, so they immediately called the police.

The cops discovered that the plastic bags contained remains of human bodies that belonged to a man and a woman. They were later identified as Jessica and Austin. Jessica was reportedly shot twice, while Austin was shot once before their bodies were dismembered.

The teenagers recorded the video right from opening the suitcase to calling the cops and uploaded it on TikTok. It gained more than 30 million views. However, TikTok didn’t take down the video, clarifying that it didn’t violate their terms of service since the disfigured human body parts weren’t actually shown in it.

The video was later deleted, either by the owner or by TikTok itself, when the company was being pressurized by the victims’ relatives.

A neighbor gave their testimony in the Seattle court where the case was first filed. They claimed to have heard gunshots on the day of the murder, and a man begging for his life.

Dudley’s upstairs bedroom was rented by the couple, according to legal documents. Reportedly, the landlord believed that they were stealing from him and also weren’t paying rent. He grew frustrated with them, which led to a heated argument between the three before the couple’s murder.

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Blood was found in Lewis and Wenner's room in the TikTok suitcase murder case

In August 2020, detectives got a search warrant for Dudley’s residence, where they found bullet holes. The team discovered a gun from Dudley which had spent rounds of bullets. They also found blood in the room where Lewis and Wenner stayed. Dudley was arrested on the same day.

Although there was no eyewitness to the incident or any forensic confirmation directly connecting Dudley with the crime, a strong case was put up by the state.

Prosecutors continued with the case based on evidence pointing toward the landlord’s involvement in the suitcase murder case. The attorney presented more than 20 evidential facts, which, if Dudley was innocent, would have been a coincidence.

The state fetched cell phone data from which they got to know that Jessica’s number stopped sending texts on the night of the murder. The day before the suitcase with mutilated human bodies was located on Alki Beach, Dudley’s location was also found to be in its vicinity.

Dudley sat with little movement throughout the closing argument. His attorneys pointed to his age and said that he didn’t have the capability to pull off the crime.

Finally, after almost three years, Michael Dudley was found guilty of second-degree murder on Thursday, in a King County courtroom. His sentence is due in March of next year. He will face a maximum sentence without the possibility of parole.