Fifteen-year-old Cassie Kay Compton returned home from an overnight stay at a friend's house on September 14, 2014 after attending a demolition derby in the Arkansas County community of Dewitt the previous day.
According to her mother, Judy Compton Kimsey, Cassie texted her intention to run an errand in her hometown pf Stuttgart at about the same time Kimsey's live-in lover (at the time) says he "went to buy cigarettes".
Cassie Compt0n has not been seen since.
Cassie was born on December 4, 1998 to and Roy Compton.
At the time of her disappearance, she was living with her mother and Kimsey’s then-fiancé, Brandon Lee Rhodes, in Stuttgart. Rhodes was seventeen years younger than Kimsey.
According to some reports Roy Compton is a registered sex offender, having been charged with lewd or indecent proposals/acts on a child. According to Kimsey, she too was placed on the sex offender registry because Compton assaulted her oldest daughter which led to her being charged with failure to protect a child. She was then forced into a plea deal, which involved her being named a sex offender.
Cassie had other issues as well. She suffered from bipolar disorder, having been diagnosed at 13. She’d been prescribed antidepressants, but didn’t like taking them and would flush them down the toilet. She visited the doctor a few days before her disappearance.
According to Kimsey, Cassie and Brandon Lee Rhodes didn’t get along, but other than that, she was like any other teenager. She was home-schooled and working toward her GED.
On the morning of September 15, Kimsey, who had sick in be the day Cassie went missing, discovered her daughter still hadn’t returned home. She contacted Cassie’s friends and grew concerned when none of them had seen her.
In the days following her disappearance, the Stuttgart Police Department worked on the theory that Cassie was a runaway. As such, no AMBER Alert was issued. They filed a report with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and followed up with family in Kingston, Oklahoma where her siblings lived with her father.
When they realized Cassie likely wasn’t a runaway, they requested the assistance of the Arkansas State Police and the FBI.
Numerous volunteer and police searches occurred during October 2014. These included a search of the Stuttgart Airport, which was reportedly based on cellphone pings; areas within a one block radius of the family home; and the town cemetery. This came after rumors arose that Rhodes was loitering in the area and asking about the traffic that drove by on a daily basis. The banks of nearby reservoirs, as well as local dumpsites, were also searched.
The FBI, the Stuttgart Police Department, and Fish and Game combed the railroad tracks behind R.W. Manufacturing and a wooded area two blocks from 15th Street.
More than one person has accessed Cassie’s Facebook account since she went missing. It’s currently unknown if this was done by someone related to the case or investigators.
In September 2019,a Little Rock television station reported Rhodes had sent them a letter, in which he wrote that he wanted to bring an end to the case and provide closure to Kimsey. However, he later denied playing a role in Cassie’s disappearance.
Rhodes, who’s been named a person of interest. In the years since Cassie went missing, Rh0odes has been jailed numerous times, including in 2015 on drug charges and in 2019 for theft, firearms possession and for driving while suspended. He remains a "person of interest" in the case.
Rhodes’ relationship with Kimsey ended in the weeks following Cassie’s disappearance, and Kimsey has since married another man. In an interview shortly after their breakup, she called Rhodes “controlling”.
Anyone with information about the disappearance of Cassie Compton is asked t0 contact the Stuttgart Police Department at 870–673–1414.
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