The discovery of the dismembered bodies of Austin "Cash" Wenner and Jessica Lewis appeared in a video clip on the Chinese owned video app Tik Tok.
Teen agers at the beach near Duwamish Head in West Seattle located a suitcase which contained the couple’s limbs and other body parts, and phoned police. They had been shooting a video for TikTok, and had been mysteriously directed to the scene by an unidentified party.
The video now appears to be in violation of Tik Tok's stated policy to not maintain videos that are related to homicide. Despite that, and repeated attempts to get the video removed, Tik Tok has said nothing. Their site provides no direct way to contact the company which is owned by ByteDance.
Gina Jaschke, aunt of Jessica Lewis has attempted to get the video removed but there has been no response.
In a note to media outlets, Jaschke wrote:
Hello, I desperately need somebody’s help. I can’t get TikTok to remove the video from their website. I’ve flagged inappropriate content, tried to message the creators/ sound person, with no luck. Unless they follow me, a message is not sent.
It’s been a couple of days, and still no response.
We are getting ready to finally lay Austin & Jessica to rest. We would like the video removed from the website, as it’s already been up far too long. Out of the respect for the families & our loved ones, at this point it’s disrespectful, as everyone is aware of their identities.
I’ve reached out & told the media how much we appreciate the fact they were found so quickly with their help. And for them to not be haunted or scared, that to know Jessica & Austin were normal people just like us. And they were good hearted, and never deserved any of this.
NOBODY will respond back to the families from TIKTOK to have it removed immediately. Can somebody please help us? I don’t know what else to do. Thank you very much.
–Gina
Jaschke has started a GoFundMe page hoping to raise $10,000 for a reward leading to the conviction of the killer or killers.
The app or game the kids were playing, Randonautica, they were most gracious. They offered their condolences, and even contributed to the reward money being collected on their Go Fund Me Page. TikTok is the website that people use, as a platform, to show their video's. It's common people playing Randonautica will take video of their adventure. Then they upload to TikTok for people to view it.