As an avid fan of true crime, I’ve often encountered discomfort from those who view my interest in the topic as creepy and macabre. And that’s fine. But when interest and fascination turn into dangerous action, then real concern is warranted.
Mackenzie Cowell was born on April 1st, 1992 in Wenatchee, Washington. Her parents divorced when she was young, but she maintained good relationships with both of them.
Mackenzie was known as a quintessential girly girl. She loved to put outfits together, and do her hair and makeup, even if it was just for school or hanging out with her friends at home.
She loved to dance, and was part of her high school’s dance team. She was known to start dancing wherever she was, no matter the situation, bringing happiness and joy wherever she went.
Mackenzie had a boyfriend, and valued her relationships with her friends and family, balancing her time between her social life, her responsibilities, and her obligations well.
She got along very well with her parents, and her step-mother, but she was not at all fond of her mother’s boyfriend, Joey Fisher. They were known to constantly get into fights, and absolutely did not get along.
On February 8th, 2010, Mackenzie got into a fight with Fisher. The fight was so severe, Mackenzie turned to her mother and stated: “It’s him or me”.
As a senior at Wenatchee High School, she was a responsible student. She was very dedicated to her goals, and attended the Wenatchee Academy of Hair Design, on top of keeping up with her regular school work, in order to pursue a career in the beauty industry.
Mackenzie kept to a very strict routine, and was a very structured, responsible person. On the morning of February 9th, 2010, Mackenzie’s father noted that she had gotten up at her usual time, and went to school. Once school was wrapped up, she was to attend the Wenatchee Academy of Hair Design, and then return home following her program there to have dinner with her father.
At around 3:00 PM, Mackenzie asked another student if she was required to sign out of the campus if she was only going to be gone for 15 minutes. Receiving the go-ahead to leave, Mackenzie was then captured on surveillance leaving the Academy, walking to her car, and then driving away. Her classmates figured she was heading out to grab a snack or a coffee, something they’d all done from time to time.
Her boyfriend, Joaquin Villasano, received a text from Mackenzie around the time she left the Academy that said: “Hey, what’s up”. This was the last time Mackenzie was known to communicate with anyone after leaving the Academy.
When 5:40 PM rolled around and he hadn’t heard from Mackenzie, her father grew concerned. His calls to her went straight to voicemail, and she wasn’t responding to texts. It was extremely out of character for Mackenzie to miss their scheduled dinner, and he was worried that something had happened to her.
When Mackenzie missed her 8:00 PM curfew, her family began calling anyone and everyone who knew Mackenzie, asking if they’d seen or heard from her.
In Chelan County, a homeowner called the police to report an abandoned car near their driveway. As the home was in a remote location, the presence of an abandoned car, with no driver in sight, was extremely odd.
The car was determined by police to be registered to Mackenzie’s father. When he got the call about the car, he asked about his daughter. Perplexed, the police had no idea what he was talking about. There was no indication that anyone had been with the car when it was found.
At that point, Mackenzie Cowell was officially declared a missing person.
Further inspection of the car found that her purse and some of her clothes were present, but her debit card and cell phone were missing. Police also found a single pair of footprints walking away from the car.
Police then canvassed the area, asking those in the remote community if they had seen Mackenzie. While no one had seen her, three separate witnesses had seen something.
They reported that they’d seen a man, wearing a dark coat, walking down the road and around the area between 4:30 PM and 5:30 PM. While the man could not immediately be connected to Mackenzie’s disappearance, notes were made in regards to the sightings.
Ground and helicopter searches were soon organized around the area. Police wasted no time trying to find the missing teenager, and soon they had warrants granting them access to her phone records, and social media activity. The FBI were also called in to assist in the search for Mackenzie.
On February 13th, 2010, a few days after her disappearance, a body was discovered near Quincy, Washington, on the banks of the Columbia River. The body was soon identified to be Mackenzie Cowell.
She was discovered with her feet in the water, and fully clothed, ruling out the potential for sexual assault.
Mackenzie had been strangled, suffered trauma to her head, and had also been stabbed in the neck. It also appeared as though the perpetrator had attempted to dismember her body, as there were cut marks to her arm, and a knife had been found stuck into her shoulder.
Multiple law enforcement agencies worked together to investigate the murder of Mackenzie Cowell. Between agents from Wenatchee, East Wenatchee, Chelan County, Douglas County, and the FBI, over 800 individuals were interviewed in the investigation.
Being the last person that Mackenzie had texted before she was murdered, police brought her boyfriend, Joaquin Villasano, in for questioning.
He consented to a polygraph test, and was told by police that he’d failed. Specifically, he had been told that he’d failed when asked if he had any knowledge about what had happened to Mackenzie. Joaquin denied any involvement with her murder, and maintained his innocence, even in the presence of police scrutiny.
Joey Fisher, Mackenzie’s mother’s boyfriend, was also brought in for questioning, as he’d argued with Mackenzie the night before she was murdered. He maintained his innocence, and stated that despite not getting along with Mackenzie, he would never harm her, and was not involved in her murder.
After questioning both men, police were able to fully clear them of any wrongdoing, clearing them of any involvement in Mackenzie’s murder.
As the investigation continued, a police informant, and former drug dealer, came forward with a harrowing tale.
Liz Reid informed police that Sam Cuevas and Emmanuel Cerros, drug dealers in the community, had murdered Mackenzie in a case of mistaken identity. Liz stated that the two men believed Mackenzie was a police informant herself, and murdered her in order to keep her quiet. Furthermore, Liz stated that she’d seen then do it – they had made a snuff film of the murder.
Liz accurately described the murder weapon to police, and also gave police a ring that she told them had belonged to Mackenzie. She stated that Emmanuel had told her to go to the murder site, and fetch the ring herself.
What made her story credible to police was that a description of the murder weapon had not been made public, yet Liz knew exactly what it was.
However, when Mackenzie’s parents were shown the ring, neither of them were able to identify it as having belonged to their daughter. They didn’t believe that Mackenzie had ever owned a piece of jewelry like that, and if Joaquin had gifted it to her, she would have told them.
Liz’s credibility began to crumble with police when she later retracted part of her statement. She still firmly believed that Sam and Emmanuel had murdered Mackenzie, but she retracted her claim to having seen a snuff film of the murder.
For their part, Sam and Emmanuel maintained their innocence. When they were separately questioned by police, they were able to produce separate alibis for the time the murder had occurred. They were also able to provide witness statements and phone records which placed them somewhere else at the time of Mackenzie’s disappearance and murder.
Both men were soon cleared of the murder.
In August of 2010, police received a letter from another informant. Wary of the source of the information, they took the letter with a grain of salt, but investigated the contents in an effort to extend due diligence to the investigation.
Theo Keyes was incarcerated for indecent exposure when she sent police a letter stating that they should look into a man her knew – 29-year-old Christopher Scott Wilson.
Keyes wrote that Wilson was a classmate of Mackenzie’s at the Wenatchee Academy of Hair Design. Keyes mentioned that Wilson had a fascination with death, serial killers, was a huge fan of the TV show Dexter, had a tattoo of Hannibal Lecter on his arm, and had even worked at a funeral home before being let go from his position.
As police began looking into Wilson, they heard a story that caught their attention.
A classmate of Wilson’s informed them that Wilson had exhibited extremely strange behaviour in the past. At a party, he’d walked up behind a friend of his, and choked her. He then released her, walked away, and acted as though nothing had happened.
While Wilson’s interests on their own wouldn’t warrant their suspicion – no matter how macabre those interests may be – it was the story of this incident that placed him at the top of their suspect list.
On October 6th, 2010, Christopher Scott Wilson was arrested on suspicion of the second-degree murder of Mackenzie Cowell.
Wilson volunteered his DNA for testing, stating to police that while he was familiar with Mackenzie as a classmate, he didn’t know her well, and was not involved in her murder.
His DNA was found to match DNA found on Mackenzie’s body, and at the scene where she was found.
While the DNA was a solid implication into Wilson’s involvement in the murder, some of his classmates had come forward and stated that he’d left the Academy shortly after Mackenzie had, as if he’d he followed her out of the building.
The DNA match was also enough for a search warrant of Wilson’s home. They found the presence of blood in his apartment. When the sample was tested, it came back as a match for Mackenzie’s blood.
The investigation into Wilson also produced another potential suspect – Tessa M. Shuyleman.
Photos of Shuyleman “posing as a dead person” were found on Wilson’s computer, as well as her posing over the spot on the floor where Mackenzie’s blood had been found.
In defence of herself, Shuyleman stated that she had no knowledge of Wilson ever having harmed Mackenzie, or anyone else, and she had no idea that the stain was there when she was asked to pose for photos.
Tessa Shuyleman was never charged with anything related to the murder of Mackenzie Cowell, though she was later charged with obstruction of justice in a completely unrelated case.
As the prosecution was preparing the case for trial, they upgraded Wilson’s second-degree murder charge to first-degree.
They presented Wilson and his team with a plea deal – if he pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter, he would only receive a six and a half year sentence.
The plea deal was rejected.
However, before the trial could begin, a new plea deal was offered and accepted.
Christopher Scott Wilson pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter, first-degree robbery for taking her cell phone, and second-degree assault in an unrelated case. In exchange for his guilty pleas, he was sentenced to 14 years and 3 months in prison.
Wilson maintained his innocence. He claimed that he’d only pleaded guilty out desperation, and that he firmly believed he would never have received a fair trial.
Wilson later filed a motion to withdraw is guilty plea, and start the process over with a new trial. The Washington Court of Appeals rejected the motion.
As of the time of this writing, Christopher Scott Wilson was released from prison on parole after 11 and a half years. He will be obligated to report to a community custody officer for the next 3 years.
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Sources:
Inside The Grisly Murder Of Mackenzie Cowell At The Hands Of Her Serial Killer-Obsessed Classmate – Neil Patmore, edited by Erik Hawkins – All That’s Interesting
Convict freed in 2010 Mackenzie Cowell murder case – Jefferson Robbins – NCW Life
The murder of MacKenzie Cowell: Has this dark crime finally been solved? – Areese Woodson – Film Daily
Morbid Podcast – Episode 263 – The Murder of Mackenzie Cowell
The Murder of Mackenzie Cowell Wikipedia page