Serial Killer Andrew Urdiales

   

In describing what McGrath and Krakausky would conclude was their serial killer's eighth and final victim, Urdiales said that he had known Cassandra Corum for about two years before killing her on the night of July 13, 1996. After meeting each other at a bar in Hammond, Ind., the couple had driven to Wolf Lake to have sex. Her body had been found the next day floating in the lake.

At one point that evening, Urdiales said, Corum had said something that angered him—he couldn't remember what—resulting in him striking Corum in the face several times with his hand and fist. Urdiales' anger, the cops noted, seemed to be a recurring theme. Frightened by his violence, Corum panicked and had begun to fight back, which is what had prompted him to handcuff her hands behind her back. Urdiales had then removed her clothing, and described Corum as seeming "numb with anxiety and fear" and "passive and submissive." He had then bound her feet with duct tape and placed duct tape over her mouth. He said that he had been "still pissed off" about whatever Corum had said that had angered him as he was driving south on Interstate 55, with a terrified, bound and gagged naked woman lying on the front seat who was about to be killed.

After driving for about two hours, Urdiales recalled, he had begun to get tired and decided to exit the interstate. He had continued driving, however, and eventually crossed a bridge that led to a small park where he had stopped and shut off the truck's engine. He said that he and Corum had gotten out of the truck and that he had grabbed his gun from beneath the seat on the way out. After walking to the back of the truck Corum, still naked, had turned to face Urdiales, as if she had planned to say something, when Urdiales shot her, according to court documents. After she had fallen to the ground, Urdiales said, he, still angry with Corum for the earlier altercation, had taken out his knife and stabbed her "a few times." Afterward, he had dropped her body into the river from the nearby bridge, and threw her clothing out of the window as he had driven toward home. As he explained, he had been "trained to kill in the Marine Corps," he claimed that he had not felt any sympathy for Cassie.

"She was just a whore," he said.