Kriti Mehrotra
When Rebecca “Becky” Murray Cawthon suddenly disappeared from her Westminster, South Carolina, home without a trace left behind in April 2017, it left her loved ones utterly perplexed. That’s because the 33-year-old was a caring, kind, family-oriented woman, so she wouldn’t have simply gone off the grid with no prior information, leading many to worry about her well-being. As explored in Investigation Discovery’s ‘Evil Lives Here: Ménage à Terror,’ an extensive search for her thus ensued, but it was sadly only her remains that were found less than a month later.
Rebecca Murray Died of Multiple Gunshot Wounds in Her Home
Rebecca “Becky” Allon Murray Cawthon was reportedly born on March 18, 1984, to Lutricia Murray as one of her two daughters, meaning she grew up with a built-in best friend in Serena Murray. The two girls loved growing up surrounded by the beauty of their cozy small town, yet the former in particular also had dreams of traveling so as to experience all that the world has to offer. Little did either of them know her future husband would share her wanderlust as a long-haul truck driver or that she’d first meet him at age 8, since he was her uncle’s stepson, Lee Cawthon.
According to the aforementioned original, Rebecca and Lee allegedly became romantically involved when she was just a teenager, and he often even asked her to accompany him on his routes. The couple ended up tying the knot when she was 17 years old, not long after his divorce from his high school sweetheart and the mother of his two kids, Genie Gagnon, after 3 years of marriage. As per records, they eventually decided to open their marriage to polyamory – in which they had one or more sexual partners join them – but they were still inseparable in every way that counts.
In fact, Rebecca and Lee often chose professions where they could work together to minimize time apart, resulting in their running a liquor store by the time the 2010s came around. Everything turned upside down in April 2017 as the 33-year-old suddenly went quiet after having last been seen on or around the 15th, driving her loved ones to panicly report her missing 3 days later. There was an extensive search for the young family woman, but alas, it took 16 days and a confession for her remains to be recovered from a barrel in an oil pit in the garage of the couple’s home. Her autopsy later confirmed her cause of death to be multiple gunshot wounds to her head and chest from a singular weapon.
Rebecca Murray Was a Victim of Domestic Violence
It was roughly 7 years into Rebecca and Lee’s marriage, in 2013, that they decided to step into the world of polyamory, which started out great for them. However, over time, according to the former’s family, he soon allegedly became jealous and controlling of his wife. He reportedly did not like how close she started getting to others and intervened whenever possible. In fact, according to Rebecca’s mother in an episode of ID’s ‘Fatal Vows,’ he kept constant tabs on her, asked her to send pictures to verify where she was and who she was with, and was just getting obsessive about her.
Rebecca tried her best to handle the situation despite the alleged mental and physical abuse, but things changed when a man named Thad Sosebee entered their equation. He was the first man they introduced into their union, and he genuinely cared for the couple, especially Rebecca. Therefore, when he heard that Lee had allegedly assaulted his wife following an argument after they had parted ways after an evening of drinking, he opened his house to her. According to records, Rebecca had to go to Oconee Memorial Hospital after the fight, where she got six stitches. She claimed she had fallen down the stairs, but later sent photos of her injuries to friends and Thad.
Thad comforted Rebecca, and as per his accounts, she returned home the next day only to collect her belongings and let Lee know that she wanted a divorce. She wasn’t seen or heard from alive again. It was her family who reported her missing on April 18 after not being able to contact her and not finding either her or her husband at their home at 496 Welcome Church Road. Despite the authorities’ best efforts, it was only when Lee returned home that her remains were found on May 3, 2017. Since the Oconee County Sheriff’s Office had already begun investigating Rebecca’s disappearance, Lee went to them and confessed before leading them to her remains and the murder weapon in his car.
Lee Cawthon Died While He Was Serving Time for Murder and Use of a Weapon
According to records, Lee confessed that he was enraged when he learned his wife planned on leaving him, so he grabbed his weapon and shot her multiple times. As per reports, he then placed coins on her eyes “for the boatman,” a death ritual from Greek mythology intended to ensure safe passage over the River Styx, the water body that divides the living and the dead. Then, he cleaned up the scene, drove to Clayton, Georgia, and used his late wife’s phone to contact loved ones in the hopes of covering up her disappearance. He returned, disposed of the remains in the 55-gallon drum, and placed it in the oil pit under a tractor.
Lee later added he had indeed subsequently traveled to Oklahoma to visit someone named “Hamster,” whom the couple had met in the online game, “World of Warcraft.” He spent a few days there before returning in early May, following which he realized there was an ongoing investigation and decided to confess. Although he was immediately arrested, it took some months for his case to go to court. He pleaded guilty to murder and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime on September 10, 2018, for which he was sentenced to 40 years plus five years. He was thus incarcerated in a state prison, in Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville, which is where he was found dead in his cell on the morning of October 12, 2021. The 45-year-old did not have a cellmate, and official records specified that his death was being treated as a suspected suicide. However, his autopsy report has never been made public.
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