Why This “Worst Roommate Ever” Episode Totally Freaked Me Out

Do you remember the TikTokers who found a suitcase that turned out to have body parts inside? The second I saw it, I instantly recognized the cell phone video of the people discovering a suitcase on a rocky beach in Seattle.

However, I’d forgotten they had initially posted it on TikTok because it was soon shared across every social media platform. But I will never forget what they found inside. Their discovery blew up the Internet back in 2020 and was among that year’s weirdest stories. (Which is saying a lot because 2020 was jam-packed with cuckoo crazy happenings.)

Another reason why I’ll never forget the story—and have thought about it from time to time since—is because they found it while randonauting, which is what people do when they use the Randonautica app to explore the world around them.

Wonder Wandering and Randonautica

Randonautica is such an interesting concept. It uses a random number generator that converts a number into a set of coordinates for you to follow. You choose several factors to determine this coordinate, including how far you want the radius to be, and whether you want one coordinate or multiple.

You also pick between three types of “quantum” points, which include:

1. Attractor – Center of the highest cluster of quantum dots
2. Void – Center of the least cluster of quantum dots
3. Anamoly – Will deliver the strongest of either the attractor or the void option.

But here’s the part that always tripped me out the most about all this. Before you generate the coordinates to explore, you’re supposed to set an intention that will allegedly “give you a path to meaningful, personalized patterns and experiences.”

Basically, it’s a blend of synchronicity and technology that sounded even really woo-woo out there to someone like me. I feel I have a pretty open mind, but I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around this one. Although I of course had to try it. Nothing much happened, but I also sort of failed at the intention-setting part.

I don’t know if helping to solve a missing persons case was the intention the TikTokers who found the suitcase set, but that’s what happened.

FYI: If you’re interested in learning more, the creators of the Randautica app published a book to explain how it works. The Official Guide to Randonautica: Everything You Need to Know about Creating Your Random Adventure Story is available on Amazon. It’s also a Kindle Unlimited title if you have that.

Randonauting and the Worst Roommate Ever Episode

The official title of the fourth episode of Worst Roommate Ever season 2 is “The Lethal Landlord,” but I will always consider it the randonauting episode. If not for the discovery the randonauters had that day at Alki Beach in 2020, friends and family of Jessica Lewis and Austin Wenner would never know what had happened to them.

Instead, that helped investigators solve the case. The man Lewis and Wenner had been renting a room from, Michael Lee Dudley, shot and killed them. Then he cut their bodies up and tried to dispose of them in two separate locations. (A person walking a dog found the other bag of body parts at Duwamish Head, which is about seven and a half miles from Alki Beach.)

That’s the main reason this episode will forever haunt me. But it’s how detectives specifically tied Dudley to the dump sites that really gives me pause. Plain and simple, his cell phone busted him. Thanks to that, they knew he was at both places.

That made me wonder if Randonautica is less “random” than its name might suggest. Can it tap into cell phone data coordinates where we’ve been and then redistribute them to others to follow?

The only trouble is that you have to choose your quantum point. How do you account for that component of chance? Or was it simply the Universe finding a way to intervene because Lewis and Wenner were meant to be found and Dudley brought to justice?

Missing Parts

But the episode also contained a horrific revelation.

“After the detectives located the body, we still don’t know where they were killed and how they were killed,” Deputy Prosecutor Ray Lee said. “And we were still missing a significant number of body parts.”

“Austin, we’ve never recovered his torso or lower half of his body,” Detective James Cooper of the Seattle PD’s Homicide Unit said.

What did Dudley do with them? Are they still out there somewhere at one of the sites?

A Mother’s Grief and Real People

Perhaps the most heartbreaking moment of this episode was also the most poignant. I’m glad the producers included it. It involved something Wenner’s mom, Charlene Kriens, said.

“With having my son and Jessica being found in such a populated area, a popular area, this being on the news, and then it also going on social media, just compounded our grief, our fears. Those weren’t suitcases that washed up. Those were human beings. That was my son, and that was Jessica. They were real people.”

As sensational as the randonauting aspect of this case was, it was a good reminder about the need for sensitivity and respect when it comes to the true crime genre. I’m so sorry she had to lose her son in such a manner, and I’m in awe of her for sharing her side of the story like she did in Worst Roommate Ever.

Check-In

Have you ever randonauted?