A young woman disappears and her remains are found almost 30 years later In June of 1985, a 19-year-old African-American/Black female named Cassandra Rhines made a phone call to a friend, confirming she would be at her goddaughter's birthday party in Minneapolis the following day. However, Cassandra never arrived at the party and was not heard from again. For decades, her disappearance remained a mystery, a cold case filed away with unanswered questions. It wasn't until May of 2014 that a significant breakthrough occurred.
An off-duty Lake County Sheriff's Office employee, training his dog in a secluded area of Gooseberry Falls State Park, stumbled upon skeletal remains. The location was approximately 200 miles from where Cassandra was last known to be.
The remains were transported to the St. Louis County Medical Examiner's Office, where a forensic anthropologist determined that the individual had been the victim of a homicide. Investigators believed the person had been killed elsewhere and their body left in the remote section of the park. The process of identifying the remains began, and in 2013, Cassandra's sister had provided a DNA sample to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. This sample proved to be the key. In August 2014, through DNA analysis, the remains were positively identified as those of Cassandra Rhines, finally providing her family with a partial answer to their long-held questions.
With the identification confirmed, investigators delved deeper into Cassandra's life at the time of her disappearance. They learned she had been living in an apartment complex at 2700 Grand Avenue South in Minneapolis. There were indications that she may have been involved in prostitution and worked as an exotic dancer. A photograph of Cassandra with an unidentified man led investigators to believe he had been living with her around the time she vanished. This man was later identified as Donald McSwain. Unfortunately, McSwain had passed away before he could be questioned, leaving a potential void in the investigation. As of now, no arrests have been made in Cassandra Rhines's murder, and the case officially remains unsolved. The Lake County Sheriff's Office and the BCA continue to seek any information that could lead to the person or persons responsible for her death.
