One of two southwest Missouri men charged in the gruesome killing of a woman who authorities say was kept in a cage entered a plea on Friday.

In a hearing in Dallas County, James Phelps — who was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Cassidy Rainwater — entered an Alford plea in the case. An Alford plea does not admit guilt but acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict if the case had gone to trial.

Also on Friday, according to online court records, Judge Jill Porter sentenced Phelps to life in prison with no chance for parole.

The plea came several days after Phelps was granted a change of venue with parties agreeing to move his trial to Jasper County because of extensive media coverage in Dallas County. A trial date had not been set.

The Rainwater case dates back to September 2021 after the Kansas City office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation received an anonymous tip with photos of Rainwater’s partially nude body inside a cage.

Some photos showed the woman’s body “bound to a gantry crane, commonly used for deer processing, and her evisceration and dismemberment,” the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department posted on its Facebook page back then.

That tip led the FBI to Dallas County, about 160 miles southeast of Kansas City, and launched what became a secretive, weeks-long criminal investigation. The tip the FBI received was titled “Cassidy.” Phelps and Timothy Norton, both of Dallas County, were charged in September 2021 with kidnapping the 33-year-old woman and facilitating a felony, inflicting injury and terrorizing.

After tests confirmed that the labeled remains found in a freezer inside Phelps’ rented home were Rainwater’s, the charges were upgraded to murder several weeks later. The men also were charged with abandonment of a corpse. Deputies searched the property for seven days, according to the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department.

Skeletal remains believed to be Rainwater’s were located on the adjacent property.

Rainwater has ties to the Kansas City area. In a 2003 yearbook from Harrisonville High School in Cass County, she’s listed as a freshman.

She was reported missing in late August 2021 by a woman named Cora Terry. Terry told authorities that the last time Rainwater was seen was about six weeks earlier and she believed that a “James Rainwater” was the last person to see her.

Authorities later learned that she was talking about James Phelps.

Deputies went to Phelps’ home at 386 Moon Valley Road near Windyville and asked if he knew Rainwater. Sheriff’s officials have said that Phelps said he did but that he hadn’t spoken to her in roughly a month. He said that Rainwater had been talking about going to Colorado.

About a week later, a Dallas County detective went to Moon Valley Road and spoke to Phelps about the missing-person case. Phelps then said that Rainwater had been staying with him “until she could get back on her feet,” according to the probable-cause statement related to the initial charges filed against Phelps.

He also told the deputy that at the end of July 2021, Rainwater had left in the middle of the night and met with someone in a vehicle at the end of the driveway and he had not seen or heard from her since.

After receiving the information from the FBI, deputies went back out to Moon Valley Road and “recognized items in Phelps’ backyard that coincided with the photos.”

Authorities said Norton told them that he knew that Rainwater was being held at the home of Phelps and that she had been kept in a cage, court records show. Norton further said that Phelps had contacted Norton to come to Phelps’ home, an affidavit said.

“Norton then admitted that after arriving at Phelps’ home he did physically confine CR by holding her down for a substantial period of time, for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a felony, or inflicting physical injury on, or terrorizing CR,” the document said.

Court records say Phelps had seven photos of Rainwater on his cellphone that showed her partially nude body inside the cage in the small, rundown home where he was living. That home burned to the ground in early October 2021 and authorities ruled it arson.

Norton is scheduled to appear in Dallas County for a hearing May 2.