[tense music]
- [Reporter] Cassandra Robinson was last seen
on February 1st at her daughter's first birthday party.
- We don't know what happened,
how it happened, when it happened.
[tense music]
- [Dennis] 126.
- [Officer] Station? [radio beeps]
- [Dennis] Quite the complicated situation
I got going.
This lady, she's 25 years old,
family said the last time they saw her
was four months ago.
- [Officer] What's her name?
- [Dennis] Cassandra Robinson.
On 8th Avenue, advised A or B.
- [Officer] She told us unit number...
- [Dennis] Ten four.
[knocking]
Hey, Ms. Robinson? - Yes, yes.
- [Dennis] Can you come out to the car
for a second?
Did you ever know her to live in an address
off Pine Forest Road?
- That's my dad, my dad's house.
- And... - She don't stay there.
She used to stay there with him.
- [Dennis] Okay, give me one second.
[radio chatter]
Your sister has a history of having mental health issues.
- [Tarlisa] Yes, yes, sir.
When our mom passed away, she went that route.
You know how certain people go a certain route,
she went that route.
But when she had a baby, it's like,
it was a whole 'nother her.
I'm glad she had a child 'cause it changed her.
She was good, like happy, everything was good.
So it's just all of a sudden, she's gone.
Like, it's not normal.
- [Dennis] Is she on Facebook and stuff like that?
- [Tarlisa] Her Facebook is still there.
Everything's still up,
she just hasn't been on it since February.
February 1st, my niece's first birthday,
she distresses that.
So that's why we wanna make sure she's okay.
- At the time of the report,
the family relayed that Cassandra was living
with her boyfriend and the father of the child.
And his name's Henry Steiger.
- [Tarlisa] This is the guy,
but my phone just looks jacked up.
He goes by Henry.
I know for a fact, he goes by Henry.
- [Dennis] And you said he might be living downtown?
- [Tarlisa] Yes, well, that's because of my sister said,
she was staying, so we assumed she was staying with him
'cause if he moved, she usually moves with him, so.
- So there was an address for Henry
that we sent officers to.
[knocking]
The officer went to that
Strong Street address to try to make contact
and he no longer lived at that address.
[radio beeps] 41-26.
Guy.
- [Officer] Ten four.
- [Dennis] Hang on, one second, let me look at one more thing.
There's something in my gut that tells me that, hey,
there's something not right about this.
- We learned that Henry was on federal probation
for some kind of money, fraud charges.
- [Dennis] I felt like the top person
we need to go find and talk to is Henry Steiger.
[tense music]
[phone ringing]
- I don't know of any mother who wants
to leave their child on their first birthday.
To me, that is very strange.
- That makes no sense.
Why would you pick out a house but never move in?
It's another red flag.
- Henry Steiger was definitely considered
a person of interest.
We felt like there was something else going on.
[tense music]
On February 1st, four months before she made a post
in reference to the baby's birthday,
and that, you know, the baby changed her life,
and she was so proud of her,
and they were gonna have a great birthday party,
and just enjoy the day.
After that, there were no social media posts, nothing.
And then her phone last pinged on February 2nd.
- We felt comfortable at the Pensacola Police Department
that we need to move this case
from a suspicious person's case
to a missing person case
and have Cassandra listed in the national database
for missing persons.
[tense music]
- He answered the door
and he has this baby strapped to him,
and he was caught off guard.
I want whoever I'm gonna talk to to be caught off guard.
- He did nothing to try to get in touch with her.
He didn't call her family.
He just, from the day of the birthday party, he moved on.
Moved into another house.
All of that is not right.
- I was very, very alarmed about the whole situation.
He didn't seem concerned one bit
that she was gone.
And so we were all in by then,
we were gonna find Cassandra.
[tense music]
- I found out Cassandra was dating Henry Steiger in 2013.
According to her, she was happy, so I was happy.
But as time went on, I knew that something's not right.
Cassandra not telling me where exactly she was staying
when I asked her, it was really odd.
She would just say downtown.
- She just would tell me Henry was very controlling.
She wanted to leave, but she said she was kind of scared
because she didn't know how he would react.
So she just stayed.
When my mom told me she was missing,
I knew something was wrong.
She wouldn't just up and leave her baby.
She loved her baby too much to do something like that.
[tense music]
- We served the search warrant on his house in Perdido Key
and didn't really find anything
that would lead to Cassandra.
But in the garage, there was a bunch of cash
and it was determined to be, like, $100,000.
I'm like, what the hell's going on here?
You know, who's got $100,000 in their garage?
There was not enough evidence at that time to arrest him
for the disappearance,
but he had violated his probation by having the money
and not telling his probation officer.
So he was taken into custody and taken to the jail.
- Once Henry Steiger was arrested,
the child was given over to Cassandra Robinson's family
for her wellbeing and to take care of the child.
- He was going where he belonged,
but I still did not know what happened to Cassandra.
[tense music]
He did not want to talk about that.
He did not want for me to interview him.
He's definitely not gonna tell me where she's at.
- At that point, law enforcement needed to find out more
about Henry Steiger, more about Cassandra,
and more about the lifestyles that they lived.
[tense music]
- My first impression of him was that he was a kid.
He was very nervous.
If you have nothing to hide,
you're not gonna be that nervous.
[intense music]
[tense music]
He was giving himself away just with the nonverbal cues.
We had to find out more information.
We felt like he was lying.
- He was flushed, he was sweaty,
he was obviously very nervous.
I felt like he was afraid.
He was afraid of what Steiger had gotten him involved in.
It was time now not to be so motherly.
At that time, we didn't have enough to hold him
and so, we let him go.
We felt like he knew more than what he had revealed
and I was gonna find out the truth.
[tense music]
Steiger had a friend named Shelby.
He answered our questions
and he said, "Steiger brought his trailer
and parked it at my house."
- He goes on to say
that it's in the middle of his honeybee farm
and that we're more than welcome to go out there
and check it anytime we want.
- [Lisa] So we get a search warrant
for the trailer.
- Lisa and I go out to the area of town
that he told us that the trailer was at
and indeed, it is in the middle of a honeybee farm.
- [Lisa] We saw Steiger's trailer
and it was backed into the bushes.
- Lisa gets outta the car,
she is working her way around the trailer.
- As I'm walking around, I smelled what I know to be
decomposition of a human body.
[tense music]
We opened the trailer up
and there was two green, 55 gallon drums.
The first drum, the crime scene officers opened it up
and there was nothing in there.
The second drum, they had to get tools, get it open,
and when they did,
it was Cassandra's body in the drum.
It was a very sad moment to me.
[somber music]
- They told me that they found my sister,
Cassandra's body in a drum.
It was terrible, like, like she was garbage.
Why would someone do that?
Like, I don't know why.
- The medical examiner's office determined
that the death of Cassandra was a homicide,
but it was undetermined exactly how she died
because of the decomposition of the body.
She had been there a long time
and it was a hot summer.
She was dressed in clothes to go out, to leave.
We had seen pictures of her at the birthday party
she had with Steiger and the baby
and she had on, like, a little nightgown.
So I knew that between that time,
she got dressed and was probably leaving with the baby.
- Our next step is, okay,
we need to go confront Henry with this.
[tense music]
Turn around.
- He looked tired, he looked worried,
and he said he was willing to talk.
He didn't know that we had found her body
and I wasn't gonna tell him at that time.
I did want him to feel comfortable.
I wanted him to feel
like he could freely discuss things with me.
[tense music]
When I went in the interview,
I tried to make him a little, maybe, at ease
and act like that I really cared.
At that point, I deliberately lowered my voice
because if you are talking low and slow,
then he's gotta listen to me.
It was time to move in and for him to be honest
and tell me what happened.
[tense music]
- His eyes did begin to water.
That's the only time he had really ever been emotional.
And I thought and I hoped that he was gonna let go
and let the water out of the dam.
- I did realize that he's speaking about an attorney
and I didn't want to jeopardize what I already had.
So I wasn't gonna ask him any more questions after that.
[tense music]
- And these records painted a different story
than what Julian Mesure had originally told law enforcement.
- They showed where he did not just drop off Mr. Steiger
and go home, but that he came back that same night.
- Why did he come back?
Did he come back to help Henry commit a murder?
Did he come back to help Henry dispose of the body?
There was several unanswered questions
that needed to be answered.
[tense music]
- When we interviewed Julian, I just did not have the energy
or the patience to try to dig it out of him.
This is it, you need to tell me what you know.
[tense music]
[Julian chuckles]
[tense music]
He was definitely more forthcoming than he had been,
but he was not telling the full truth.
I knew that, I felt that.
It was time for him to see what I had.
I'm gonna show him my hand.
- I thought this may have been the best chance we had
up to this point to potentially break him,
to get him to tell us what happened.
[tense music]
- Julian was afraid that Henry was gonna hurt his family.
I mean, he already knew what he was capable of
and he was scared.
You know, he was a kid.
- In the end, Julian told the truth.
Steiger was upset because she was going to leave him
and that fueled his flame.
It made him so angry that he killed her.
- Julian Mesure was charged with accessory after the fact,
to second degree murder of Cassandra Robinson.
Mr. Mesure's charges were based on his actions
in helping Mr. Steiger try to get away
with Ms. Robinson's murder.
- So we were able to get the arrest warrant
for Henry for the murder.
We get to tell him, you're being arrested and charged
with the murder of Cassandra.
It is, for me, one of the happiest moments of the case.
- It was a relief to me that I could now give the family
the information that, yes, he did kill her.
- Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth, so help you God, sir?
- I do. - Okay, you're under oath.
You may proceed. - Thank you.
[pensive music]
I've got the baby in the front and I'm cleaning up
the kitchen and the cake.
And then I go back to look for her.
I go to the laundry room and I push open the door
and she's lying sideways on the floor against the door.
And she has got a plastic bag over her,
over her face, over her whole head.
Her pulse is either threaded or non-existent.
- [Trey] You didn't do any compressions.
You thought about it, but you didn't do it.
- I did not do the compressions.
- [Trey] Didn't call 911. - Mm-hmm.
- [Trey] Just let her be, right?
- That's right.
- Call the police.
Call the police.
"My baby's mother just killed herself.
I walked in here, it's tragic, please come help."
That's not what he does.
That's not what he does because that story didn't happen.
That story is not in line with the evidence.
Ultimately, the jury found Mr. Steiger
guilty of second degree murder as charged.
[tense music]
- Henry Steiger will never get outta jail
and that's exactly where he needs to be.
- He was talking about how it happened so quickly.
He said that she didn't even fight back.
- Ultimately, Julian Mesure was sentenced
to 15 years of probation, and as a condition of that,
he had to serve two years in the county jail here locally.
- Julian was taken advantage of by Steiger.
He should have done the right thing
and the right thing would've been
to, that day, call the police.
[somber music]
- I just miss my sister.
I feel like the world lost a really good person,
a good mother.
- This one was one that really hurt my heart.
The tragedy here is the baby.
The baby now doesn't have her beautiful mother
and she doesn't have a father.
- My aunt is taking care of my niece.
She's doing good.
She looks like her, I see her.
I see younger Cassandra in her.