evidence: In early 2021, a TikTok video exploded across social media. It showed a young girl sitting between two men in the back seat of a car, her two black eyes matching her dark hair. Without emotion, she looks at the camera. Soon, an Instagram made by the same girl appeared. Her name, she said, was Haley Grace; she was not Cassie Compton. The black eyes? Well, she had been mugged. Adamantly, she insisted she was just fine. Clearly she was not, but just as clearly came FBI confirmation that despite the incredible resemblance, she was not the missing hometown girl from Arkansas. According to the official report, 15-year-old Cassie Kay Compton left home late afternoon Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014, to get cigarettes — at least, that is what the Stuttgart Police Department was led to believe. The most credible information about Cassie’s movements that weekend came from Tracy Snyder, the mother of Cassie’s friend, Hunter. [...] In 2019, Kaila Lafferty, then a KATV reporter, created the podcast Timeline: The Disappearance of Cassie Compton. Working with her was Tina Storz, a private investigator at Halo Investigations, who has, since 2015, been on Cassie’s case. Detained at the Independence County Jail in Batesville, Rhodes told the women that his charges of being a hit man were a con of his own making. He had wanted to be imprisoned, he said, so he could work undercover on Cassie’s case.