Sheriff says the wife was killed first and her husband was slain when he came home from work.
MICO, Texas — A woman and the father of one of her children are accused of killing her mother and stepfather at the couple’s home in Medina County, then dumping their bodies in a steep ravine near Medina Lake, authorities said.
Investigators identified the dead as Cherry Rehbein, 54, and Stephen Rehbein, 58. The suspects, Cassandra Lange, 29, and Joby Williams, 30, were charged with capital murder after deputies traced one of the victims’ vehicles to Corpus Christi, interviewed the pair and recovered the bodies hours later. Sheriff Randy Brown said the case moved quickly from a welfare check to a double-homicide investigation, but key questions about motive and planning remained open as of Sunday.
Authorities say the killings began Monday evening, April 6, at the Rehbeins’ home in the 3300 block of County Road 265 in Mico, a rural area northwest of San Antonio. Brown said investigators believe Cherry Rehbein was killed first inside the home. Stephen Rehbein, who had been at work, was then killed after he returned home later that day. Public reporting has not described the exact sequence inside the house beyond that outline, and the medical examiner had not publicly released final causes of death by Sunday. Brown said investigators recovered multiple weapons and that the evidence pointed to strangulation and a knife. That early description gave the case an especially violent frame, but deputies have not publicly said which suspect is accused of using which weapon or whether one person played the larger role. What is clear from the sheriff’s account is that the two deaths were being treated as part of one connected act, not separate confrontations hours apart.
The investigation did not begin until two days later. On Wednesday, April 8, a co-worker reported that Stephen Rehbein had failed to show up for work, prompting a welfare check at the couple’s home. Deputies arrived around 1 p.m. and could not reach anyone inside, Brown said, but one deputy spotted bloody items in a trash can at the curb. That discovery shifted the visit from a routine check to a possible crime scene. Investigators secured a search warrant and began working through evidence at the property while also trying to locate vehicles connected to the couple. Using tracking technology, authorities traced one of those vehicles to the Corpus Christi area. The Corpus Christi Police Department’s gang unit stopped it Wednesday afternoon. Inside were Lange, Williams, a 6-year-old girl and a 1-month-old infant, according to the sheriff. Brown said Lange is the biological mother of both children, while Williams is the biological father of the infant. The girl was turned over to her father, and the baby was placed in Child Protective Services custody.
What happened next turned the case. A Medina County chief deputy and a Texas Ranger traveled to Corpus Christi to interview the suspects. Brown said Lange confessed during questioning and told investigators that she and Williams had killed her mother and stepfather and disposed of the bodies in a ravine. The sheriff said Williams at first gave an inconsistent account. Authorities also said Williams had a fresh hand wound that required stitches at a San Antonio medical facility, though they have not publicly explained when or how the injury happened. By about 7 p.m. Wednesday, Brown said, both suspects were in custody, roughly six hours after the original welfare call. Investigators then shifted again, this time from the home and the traffic stop to the search for the victims’ remains. Deputies began checking ravines and dry creek beds near Medina Lake, an area of rough Hill Country terrain where brush, rock and elevation changes can make night searches slow and dangerous.
Early Thursday, April 9, a deputy searching along FM 1283 near Medina Lake noticed what looked like trash off the roadway. Brown said deputies pushed through cedar brush and descended about 73 feet into a deep ravine that could not be seen from the road. There they found two large black garbage bags containing the bodies of Cherry and Stephen Rehbein, officials said. Fire personnel helped recover the remains and take them to the medical examiner’s office for autopsy. The setting added a grim detail to a case that was already drawing attention because of the family relationship between one suspect and one victim. Brown said items were also missing from the home, including guns, money, tools and the couple’s vehicle. Investigators were working to trace stolen firearms and check pawn shops for other missing property. Even with those details, authorities have not publicly settled on a motive. Brown said he would not speculate, and the available records do not show whether prosecutors believe robbery, family conflict or some other factor drove the killings.
The charges place both defendants at the most serious end of the Texas criminal system. They were booked on allegations of capital murder of multiple persons, a charge tied to the deaths of both victims in the same criminal episode. Public reporting indicates their bond amounts were initially lower, then raised to $1 million surety for each defendant as the scope of the case became clearer. As of the Friday briefing summarized in local coverage, Lange had already been returned to Medina County, while Williams remained in Nueces County awaiting transfer. No indictment had been publicly reported, and no defense response appeared in the coverage reviewed for this article. That leaves the case in an early stage: the sheriff’s office is still collecting evidence, autopsy findings are still important to the final theory, and prosecutors have not yet laid out in court how they intend to present each suspect’s role. The children found with the suspects remain another major part of the aftermath, though officials have released only limited information about their condition.
Beyond the charging documents and sheriff’s briefing, the story has a stark human outline. Stephen Rehbein was missed because he did not arrive for work, a small break in routine that led a co-worker to call for help. Deputies then found signs of blood outside a house in a quiet rural stretch of Medina County. By nightfall, investigators were interviewing suspects nearly 150 miles away in Corpus Christi. Before dawn, they were climbing into a ravine near the lake to recover bodies hidden in garbage bags. Brown said the investigation moved with unusual speed because agencies shared information quickly across county lines. The known facts still leave painful blanks: authorities have not said whether the victims had reported trouble before, whether the children saw any part of the violence, or what evidence first tied the missing property to the suspects. For now, the public case rests on the confession described by authorities, the physical evidence at the house, the recovery scene near FM 1283 and the vehicle stop that ended the suspects’ flight.
As of Sunday, the case remained in its first public phase, with both suspects jailed, autopsies pending and investigators still tracing missing property and weapons. The next milestone is expected to come when Williams is transferred to Medina County and both cases move deeper into formal court proceedings.