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In Clackamas County, Oregon, a night of heavy drinking left behind more questions than answers. As suspicion and jealousy began to take hold, tensions escalated between two former coworkers. Five days later, one of them was shot to death, and the truth about what started it all remains a mystery.
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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. Justin, are you there yet? He said, yep, I got him in the car. And you told him, okay, baby, be safe.
At the very least, based off of everything we know now, you're a co-conspirator in his emerge.
Oh, God.
If not the originator of the idea of his murder.
No, no, no.
Welcome back to season 13, the final season of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. It's late April of 2024, and a young man named Nathan Dean Anderson is going through a difficult time in his life. Nathan is 25 years old and lives in Oregon City, just southeast of Portland. He has struggled with addiction in the past. But for several years, he'd managed to get his life back on track. He worked hard to maintain his sobriety and rebuild relationships with his friends and family. Nathan was passionate about music. He wrote and recorded his own songs and often collaborated with other local artists who recognized his talent. But in early 2024, something about Nathan started to change. And his friend Brian...
noticed it.
And when did you meet him?
Maybe August of 2021.
Okay, so you guys have known each other quite well.
Yes.
So I had kind of distanced myself from him.
Since he was in a relapse mode. Yeah.
So in any conversation I would have with him after he had relapsed, it was like on some really weird stuff, like sleep deprived, he would say weird shit, like I.
Try to tell him to go to CSAP.
He's like, you're just trying to tell me to go to CSAP because the human centipede hasn't.
Went around the world.
And, you know, I don't think you noticed that the time is right.
He was just on a really weird, he was being really weird.
Do you know what kind of drugs he was using? I imagine fentanyl.
Brian met Nathan through recovery. And according to him, Nathan had been clean for years. But after breaking up with his girlfriend, Nathan relapsed.
Brian started putting some distance between himself and Nathan.
Not because he stopped caring, but because Brian was also in recovery. He knew that being there for Nathan couldn't come at the expense of his own sobriety.
I don't know if he was with anybody.
I don't know.
I try to call Matt back through his roommate and find out.
My brain just wants to know what happened to my fucking friend, you know?
Because he was a real lovable person and he was a real generous friend.
You already kind of touched on this, but you said Nate was nice. You can't think of anybody who would want to hurt him?
No, man.
Nate is a good friend, a lovable friend.
He's a little emotional sometimes, but he's innocent, man.
He wouldn't hurt a fly.
Brian described Nathan as a genuinely good person. But by April of 2024, Nathan's life had started to unravel. His relationship had ended. He had relapsed. According to Brian, Nathan also started calling friends to ask to borrow money, or to sell his belongings.
Brian didn't know what Nathan wanted, and at the time.
There was no reason to believe the voice message he'd left was particularly important. Nathan was going through a rough time, and.
The people around him knew it, including some of his former co-workers. One of those co-workers was a young man named Cody James Dennewith. Cody and Nathan had worked together at their local bakery, Dave's Killer Bread. According to Cody, they weren't best friends, but they were close enough to occasionally help each other out.
Did you.
Know Nathan?
Yeah, he used to be my worker. Used to be a worker for you?
At Dave's? At Dave's, yeah.
When was that?
Maybe a year ago.
Okay. Yeah.
We've hung out maybe two or three times since then. I helped him move from his mom's to an apartment complex.
Okay.
And, uh, it was the first time I heard from him in about six months. When was that?
Um, maybe a few months back.
Okay.
After that, he called me one day saying that he needed picked up.
He just got arrested or whatever for a DUI or something. Oh, so like recently. Yeah. Recently.
Yeah.
And, uh, He looked pretty bad off, you know, and I took him to the impound lot.
So pretty recently, you said he looked kind of like he's been struggling?
Yeah.
Did he look like he was using drugs again?
Possibly.
I'm sure he was, yeah.
I don't know what him and his.
Girlfriend were going through, but him and his girlfriend were going through something and he was struggling and his life just started to fall apart.
Cody understood addiction. He had struggled with it himself. Originally from Oklahoma, Cody had a criminal history that included a burglary conviction. After moving to Oregon, he entered treatment and started working towards sobriety. It was during his recovery that Cody met Dominique Britt, a young woman who would eventually become central to Nathan's story. As for Cody and Dominique, though, their relationship had no breaks. Not long after meeting, they were already expecting a baby boy.
We met at a recovery camp out, and we just headed off, and He answered my number, he was still in treatment, so we just like talked on the phone.
Pretty much he came over one night, one day, and that day I got pregnant with Maverick.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it was pretty fast.
He got out of treatment, moved into an Oxford house, and then seven months of me being pregnant, he moved in with me and my mom. And then after we had Maverick, we moved into the place that we're at now. So almost two years we've been together.
After their son was born, Cody started working long shifts at Dave's Killer Bread. where he eventually met Nathan Anderson. Dominique, meanwhile, stayed home to care for their child. She described Cody as a mostly easygoing, loving, and devoted partner and father.
In your relationship with Cody, what is Cody like?
He's usually a very happy, like, chill person, a great dad, but he has his moments where he just is, like, down, like, his mental, and he's struggled with that his whole life, but... He just has never gone on medicine because he doesn't want to be a zombie, he says.
Do you think it's, like, depression or is it more of psychosis?
Yeah.
Like, do you think he hears voices or.
Something in his head.
Why do you think that?
Is there behaviors you can attribute to, like, hey, that's an example of him being kind of mentally unstable?
Yeah, like, accusing me of cheating on him when I'm, like, home all day with your kids.
I cook, I clean, I take care of the house.
Like, just, like, thinking, like, I'm being sneaky or... thinking that everybody hates him or people are talking about him, just like stuff like that.
Does he kind of spiral when he gets into the movie?
Yeah, like this last month, completely different person.
Dominique said Cody sometimes had irrational bouts of jealousy and anger. She believed he struggled with mental health issues that could cause him to become suspicious and paranoid. By April of 2024, those episodes had become worse than she'd ever seen. Then, on the night of the 24th, things came to a head.
Cody and Dominique had been drinking heavily when they got into a heated argument at their apartment. Police were called. And although the argument never became physical, Cody was arrested.
I know that there was a call at your apartment on the 24th.
It was a domestic violence call. That's what I know.
Yeah, he was screaming and yelling.
Was there any physical stuff that night? Has there ever been any kind of physical abuse?
No, not at all.
Like, Usually that night he drank like a whole fifth, but no, he'd usually, he doesn't ever yell at me.
Nothing like it's this month. It's just, I don't know.
Do you know what, what set it off or what, like why he's been acting like that?
No.
Okay.
I think him getting arrested the last time kind of just made everything worse. Like within like the last two weeks, it's just been like, I don't know, bad, I guess his mental health.
I don't know.
After police removed Cody from the apartment, Dominique continued drinking. At some point that night, Nathan Anderson arrived. Exactly why he was there or exactly when he showed up remains unclear. By then, Dominique was so intoxicated that much of what happened that night remains a mystery. If you believe women, that is.
When the cops came, Nate was there that night?
I don't know.
I guess.
I don't know.
You don't know because you.
I was drunk that night, too.
Do you not remember?
I don't remember nothing.
From that night.
Nothing.
Was Cody ever jealous of Nate?
No.
No?
No.
I mean, I don't think so.
I don't know, honestly.
Did he ever express to you that he was jealous of Nate?
Did he ever accuse you of any kind of sexual relationship with Nate? No. Or anything like that? Did you feel, like, after that night, did you feel anything? I mean, you were drinking, I'm sure that there was, like.
I woke up and everything was just, like, everything hurt.
Like a hangover?
No, like my whole body.
Was it a hangover pain or was it a different pain?
Different pain. Like, my hangover pain was like.
You know, I don't know, like my knee is still, you can see, still scraped up.
So I don't know, like.
Do you remember where that was from?
No.
You don't remember when Nate came over that night?
No.
Or anything like that?
No, that night is a blur.
The next day, Dominique couldn't explain what had happened between her and Nathan. And when Cody got out of jail, he wanted answers. Why had Nathan been there? What happened between them? And why couldn't Dominique remember? According to Cody, he reached out to Nathan hoping to get some answers.
When I got out of jail, I talked to him.
But I talked to him and I guess he'd come over to my apartment while I was in jail and ended up getting my girlfriend high and all sorts.
Yeah, I don't know the whole story. He wouldn't tell me it.
Is Dominique in recovery too?
Yes.
Yeah, so there's like, and she wasn't getting high or anything, you know.
So that's kind of a big hit. Yeah, like we're all in recovery and you know. Does he know Dominique? I don't know, personally, just through me maybe. What made him go over to your apartment?
Because I was in jail.
Do you think he was like trying to pick up Dominique? I couldn't tell you.
He wouldn't tell me.
I tried to get the whole story from him for a couple of days and he kept getting all heated and arguments and stuff and, you know, cussing and this, that, and the other. And it's on the Facebook if you've been on his. I'm sure you have since you're doing an investigation. I'm sure that's probably why I'm here because of all his threats and.
Stuff, right?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I haven't seen it myself personally, but what kind of threats was he making to you?
Just that he would end my life and this, that, and the other. And he doesn't, I don't know him.
How did that make you feel? Did you feel threatened? No, not at all.
Okay.
You know, he's in my eyes, he was like my little brother, you know, I didn't know him on a personal level, but you know, he's younger than me.
We've been through some of the same things. He had his life on track there for a minute.
You know, and if he needed help, all he had to do was call. You know, I was always there if he needed help.
Cody explained that despite his efforts, he couldn't get a straight answer from Nathan. Still, he kept pressing him. What exactly happened between Nathan and Dominique that night? It's a simple question, really. You don't really need a PhD for it.
So it's kind of, I mean, it's kind of messed up that he Went over to your apartment then, given the fact that it sounds like you tried to.
Help him out.
Yeah, I mean, I didn't really mind.
You know, I didn't think he was trying to pick up on her, but she couldn't remember what was going on because she was blacked out drunk.
And so I tried to get the story from him.
And all I asked him was, hey, screenshot me the messages that you guys had. That way I can get some clarity on the situation of what happened.
And immediately he just went into blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, dude, some simple screenshots. Like, what's the problem?
What did you think went down with them?
That she got taken advantage of. And I mentioned that to him on Facebook as well. You'll see that if you took a look.
Did he deny it? He didn't deny it, but he didn't confirm it, you know.
Cody was left in the dark, and that certainly apparently made things much worse. According to Dominique, Nathan only added to that uncertainty by making provocative comments to Cody. about what may or may not have happened between them that night. At least, that's how Dominique described it to police.
Because Cody told.
Me that he was concerned that that night Nate had maybe taken advantage.
That's what, supposedly, I guess, I couldn't tell you. There was things that Nate said that could have been, like, he told Cody that he turned his wife into his thought that night. To have the police swap her pussy, you won't find nothing. Those are his words.
Thought, meaning that hoe over there? Yeah. T-H-O-T?
Okay.
He told that to... Cody.
Cody?
Is that like on Facebook or text?
I don't know.
What is he... What do you think he meant by that? I don't know.
Well, you look at that. I'm fresh out of swabs. Dominique didn't have many answers. She wasn't telling Cody that Nathan had raped her. She simply couldn't remember what happened. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Nathan.
Meanwhile, never appeared to have outright denied that sexual contact occurred. And Dominique seemed to want to keep that plausible deniability. You know, in case she changes her mind later and wants to cry rape. But wait, I was told no women ever do that. So confused. But Nathan had allegedly made comments to Cody that Dominique interpreted as meaning the two had not had sex. All of this left Cody, who apparently was already prone to suspicion and paranoia, with plenty of room to draw his own conclusions. I'm sure you've drawn a few of your own while listening to this story. Over the next few days, his suspicion only continued to grow. He and Nathan argued. Threats were exchanged over Facebook. The tension between them kept escalating. Then, according
to Cody, just when it seemed like things were about to boil over, everything suddenly calmed down.
Supposedly.
And a couple days go by, and I'm like, hey, are we cool?
He's like, oh, yeah, we're good.
And then a couple days go by. Were you guys cool?
Yeah, he said we were cool. Did you bury that shit?
No.
I mean, he said we were fine, you know. But, you know, I texted him. I said, are we cool?
You know, we're both hot-headed or we're both cooled off.
Yeah.
And he said, yeah, we're good.
Cody claimed the conflict was over, but over the next few days, Nathan's friends started having trouble reaching him. At first, Nathan's close friend Brian feared that Nathan may have overdosed.
I thought automatically he overdosed.
So I reached out to his ex-girlfriend to find out if.
She knew anything.
She didn't hear anything yet. So she starts wigging out. Okay, so fast forward about two hours later, she hits me back saying that, She had talked to Nate's grandma, and Nate's grandma had said that it wasn't an OD, it was a possible murder.
Eventually, Brian learned what happened to his friend. Nathan was dead. But he hadn't overdosed. He had been murdered. As investigators started piecing together Nathan's final days, they learned about the recent conflict involving Nathan Dominique.
And Cody.
It didn't take long for their attention to turn towards Cody. He quickly became the prime suspect in Nathan Anderson's murder.
What are you trying to charge him with?
A murder in the second degree and unlawful use of a weapon.
Okay. Under what grounds?
Based on the evidence we've collected in our investigation.
Honest question. Do you have a reason why we shouldn't be looking at you for this? Is there someone else we should be looking at?
I mean, I couldn't tell you firsthand if there's somebody else, but me, why me?
I'm a family man. I work hard every day to support my family. Why would I go jeopardize it to kill this guy? And that's a good question. I mean, is there something you had against him?
No.
Well, you talked about, I'll put it this way. Okay. Just talking about myself, okay?
Yeah.
If a buddy of mine.
went over to my house where my wife was when I was out of town.
No matter where I was, jail or not. You're not gonna go kill the guy.
But if they, if my wife said, hey man, dude was over here, he got me super drunk, I passed out, I don't know what happened. At the very least, I would be pissed.
Like I would start at pissed, right? And I'm just saying, I can understand that. But you still wouldn't go kill a guy, right? I can't say what I would do. I can only say that I would be pissed, right?
So at least there's a reason to think about... That's not a reason to take somebody's life.
I put life into this world.
Why would I want to take it out? People have been killed for their shoes.
Cody framed himself as someone with everything to lose. A girlfriend, a child, a job, a family. Whatever conflict he had with Nathan, Cody insisted it wasn't worth throwing all of that away. And he was absolutely right. Correct. There was no sense in throwing that all away. But detectives weren't talking to Cody because of an argument on Facebook. They had more. A lot more. Surveillance footage, cell phone data, and a distinct vehicle all pointed to one man. By the time detectives sat down with that man, they weren't trying to find Nathan or figure out what had happened to him. They already knew. On the evening of April 29th, sheriff's deputies responded to reports of a shooting. near an intersection in Clackamas County. I'm definitely not going to say
that correctly, so, you know, go ahead and correct me all you want. It's already recorded, so I'm not going to go back and change it anyway. But, you know, you could scream at the pod player all you want. Clackamas County. What a stupid name, first of all. Anyway, when they arrived, they found Nathan suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
Nathan was still alive and was rushed to the hospital, but doctors could not save him. At just 25 years old, Nathan Anderson was dead, and detectives believed Cody Dennewith was the man who killed him. On April 29, 2024, 25-year-old Nathan Dean Anderson was shot and killed in Clackamas County, Oregon.
Within days, homicide detectives had focused their attention on one of Nathan's former co-workers, Cody James Dennewith. Cody had recently been arguing with Nathan after becoming convinced that something sexual may have happened between Nathan and his girlfriend, Dominique Britt. But during his interview with detectives, Cody insisted that whatever conflict existed between them was over. According to him, he had no reason to kill Nathan. If only everyone could get over being with a hoe that easily, there'd be a lot less murders in the world. But investigators didn't believe them, and they had evidence to back up that belief.
This is, uh, Surveillance image that was captured at the time of Nathan's death.
Okay. Okay. Do you recognize that vehicle?
Yeah, I see them everywhere.
Okay.
This one has some particulars about it. Okay.
Okay.
Is this your vehicle?
It doesn't look like my car precisely.
There's a sticker in a window. Has your car ever had a sticker like that?
No.
Never?
Never had a sticker.
Okay.
In Clackamas County, all of our patrol cars have automatic license plate readers. So when they drive around the county, they take pictures of people's cars. And then you can search the license plate. This is a picture of your car.
From April 28th. That's the day before Nathan's death.
Okay.
You can see there's a sticker there on the car. Okay, so somebody put a sticker on my car?
Okay.
I've never had a sticker on my car. Have you removed a sticker from your car?
No.
Cody's car was a big problem for him. The investigators had surveillance footage of a Nissan near the scene around the time Nathan was killed, and the vehicle looked remarkably similar to Cody's, right down to that distinctive sticker on the rear window. But the sticker wasn't the only thing about the Nissan that caught their attention. There was also something strange about the license plates.
Have you ever taken the license plates off of your car before?
No.
The only damage to my license plates are the ones that you guys did to me. Well, I'm not talking about damage. They've never been off since they've been put on.
Okay.
So you would never have any reason.
To take your license plates off?
They've been on there since I got the car.
Okay.
Since I put them on the car. If you did take your license plates off, what would your reason be? To clean the car?
I don't know.
I have no reason to take them off. Okay. Yeah.
Hmm.
Okay.
Even through a car wash, you don't take your license plates off. Oh, no, I've never taken mine off.
No, never.
Just curious. Hmm.
Cody couldn't have been much clearer. According to him, those plates had been there on that Nissan since the day he got it. He had never moved them, and he couldn't think of a reason why he would. But, the investigators could come up with a reason. And the reason they had in mind was much more serious than Cody seemed to realize.
For argument's sake, let's say that it is your car in the video. And the video basically shows the driver of the car killing Nathan.
No doubt about it, right?
If that vehicle had license plates on it before he was killed, And then on the day that Nathan was killed, it didn't have license plates on it. The only reason someone would do that is if they were planning on killing Nathan and.
Wanted to try to obscure their identity.
So that's an element of premeditation, which is not a crime of passion killing. It's a thought through premeditated crime. And that's super interesting to me.
That was no question. I don't understand what you're asking. Okay, well, never mind.
You just have to love this detective's smugness. Cody still insisted he had never removed the plates from his car, but investigators clearly weren't buying it. And they weren't finished. While tracking Cody's car, they had also been tracking something else. Nathan's phone.
One of the things that we found when we were kind of investigating this is.
Nathan's phone wasn't with his body when his body was found. And after his death. This phone actually traveled to the area of your apartment.
Okay.
Okay. Did you have Nathan's phone with you?
No. No?
I had his phone, but I was never with him.
Basically, what I'm getting at is there's more surveillance images that we've collected, and I'm fairly certain that you're involved in this.
You think I killed him? Seriously?
Yes.
You think I killed him?
When paramedics arrived at the scene of the shooting, Nathan's cell phone wasn't found on him, and Cody denied ever having it. But according to investigators, the phone had somehow traveled away from Nathan and towards Cody's and Dominique's apartment. If Nathan's phone could help investigators reconstruct what happened after the shooting, Cody's own phone could potentially tell them where he'd been when it happened.
Is there any reason why we're going to get information from your digital device that you were in the area.
Of Nathan's death when he was killed?
I don't think so.
You don't think so? Okay, so what does it mean to you if you are in the area? If your device, if your cell phone's in the area? What does that mean? Well, I don't know what area he was killed in, so.
Okay.
Well, I'm just asking generally. What would that mean to you?
Well, probably that you have more evidence.
Yeah.
Obviously, you guys think I did it, so one little more piece of evidence to tie the piece together will fucking just.
Confirm it, right? We're not here to judge anybody.
You know, people have this misconception that the police are judging people or whatever.
Our job is to collect facts. We've developed probable cause to believe that you killed Nathan.
And what's the probable cause? I'm not going to explain that to you right now. I don't believe that you didn't hang out with Nathan. I believe you were with Nathan. I believe that your cell phone records will show you. will corroborate that information. Other data that we have covered will corroborate that information.
The investigators seemed confident that Cody's cell phone records would eventually help place him near the scene of Nathan's murder. Whether those records ultimately confirm that isn't clear. But by this point, Cody had a much bigger problem. Detectives weren't simply asking questions anymore. They were telling him They had probable cause to believe he had killed Nathan.
Well, actually, we're now probably looking at more of.
A first-degree murder.
How did it go from second-degree to first-degree?
Well, within five minutes.
Because of premeditation. All of a sudden? Yeah. All of a sudden, now that's probably.
In my mind.
I'm not the judge or DA, but in my mind it is.
The criminal charge hadn't actually been upgraded, but in the detective's mind, the evidence was beginning to suggest something much more serious than second-degree murder. Premeditation. Cody wanted to know how the detective had reached that conclusion so quickly. So the detective laid it all out for him.
So it's the whole car plate thing, man.
If you never take the place off your car, which you stated you don't, because what would you read into? But all of a sudden, one day you did, and that follows fairly recently after finding out that Nathan likely, we'll use the word likely in this case, I think, had sex with your fiance. And you took him off, you picked him up, and we have video of you picking him up, You picked him up, you took him down a particular area in the alleyway there, you shot him, drove off, you put the plates back in your car.
You wouldn't have taken the plates off your car unless you were planning on doing it.
Premeditation.
That's murder one.
Is there any reason why we shouldn't be looking at murder one and should be looking at murder two instead?
You guys can look at whatever you want. You guys are the investigators, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
The theory was simple. Cody removed his license plates, picked Nathan up, drove him to an area in Clackamas County, shot him, left with Nathan's cell phone, discarded it somewhere, then put the plates back on the car. At this point in the interview, Cody offered no alternative explanation. Instead, he decided it was time for a lawyer.
So I guess we're looking at And option one, which is a crime of passion, right? You got pissed at the moment and shot and killed him. Option two is you planned it ahead of time, which is much worse. Maybe option three is you meant to shoot him but didn't mean to kill him.
I don't know which one of those it is. And this is kind of your.
Opportunity to tell us which one of those it is because you're probably not going to get another one.
I think it's time to be a lawyer now. Are you saying that you want a lawyer? Well, obviously, if you guys think I killed somebody, I need a lawyer.
Okay, fair enough.
So what's going to happen now is we're going to have you go down to our temporary holding.
Cody Dennewith was arrested, but detectives still had work to do. And one of their biggest unanswered questions involved the murder weapon. As a convicted felon, Cody wasn't legally allowed to possess a firearm. But that doesn't stop somebody that wants to kill. That's why the whole gun argument is really fucking retarded.
Cody's girlfriend, Dominique Britt, however, owned two. And when police spoke with her on the day Cody was arrested, she revealed something important. One of those guns was missing.
Okay, so I'm going to be honest with you guys. I own two firearms. One I haven't seen in like three weeks.
What kind of firearm is it?
It's a 9mm, another one. And I don't know if he put it back in the safe upstairs in the room. There's a safe.
I don't know.
Does he have access to that safe?
Mm-hmm. And the only reason why he has access to that is because all of our information is like the kid's birth certificate, the social security cards, everything's in that.
Have you noticed it missing, the gun?
Yeah, I haven't seen it in like three weeks.
You've opened it up and noticed that it was missing?
Yeah, but if you open up the safe, it's not there.
And has he mentioned that he was taking the gun?
He just noticed that it was missing. Did you ever ask him about it?
No.
The missing firearm was a black 9mm pistol. And according to Dominique, she hadn't seen it in weeks. Cody had access to the safe where the gun was normally kept. But Dominique said that she never asked him about it. And despite everything detectives were telling her, she still couldn't believe Cody had used it to kill someone. Then again, women do lie, you know, despite what you've been told on TikTok.
Does it worry you that he may have used that firearm?
Yeah, because am I going to get in trouble?
Sounds like you didn't know what he was up to, right?
No, I don't think he did because I don't, he's not that type of person. I know, Cody, he's not that person. But for some reason, if it did happen, I mean, it's in my name, you know?
I don't know.
I mean, it seems like.
Dominique seemed overwhelmed by everything happening around her.
Cody had been arrested for murder. Police were searching their apartment.
Her children were confused and.
The life she knew had essentially exploded.
But that's what happens when you kill someone. Still, Dominique defended Cody. She described him as a loving father and insisted that the man she knew wasn't capable of murder. She acknowledged that his behavior in the weeks leading up to Nathan's death had been unusual, but maintained that she knew nothing about what had happened. That was on May 6th.
Two days later, An investigator called her.
Hey, is this Dominique?
Yeah, who is this?
This is Detective Hunter.
I talked to you the other day. Hi. Hey, I was just kind of calling to check in, see how things are going.
Not great.
That's understandable.
I haven't slept, haven't ate.
My son cried all the time for his dad. Literally losing my mind.
But other than that, you know, life.
It's understandable. It's a stressful situation. Yeah, I don't know anything.
Nobody will tell me anything.
Well, that's actually the purpose for my call. One of the things that we want to do is, I know you already talked to the detectives. I wasn't there for that. One of the things that we'll want to do, obviously, in investigations like these is recorded interviews with everybody. Are you available to come to our office to do kind of a formal interview? And then we can give you some updates on kind of what's going on and what to expect next and that kind of stuff.
Dominique agreed to come into the sheriff's office for another interview. She had already insisted that she knew nothing about Nathan's murder, but since then, investigators had gone through her phone and what they found completely changed the entire investigation. Because according to Dominique's own messages, she hadn't simply known that Cody wanted Nathan dead. She may have also helped him do it.
On May 8th, 2024, 26-year-old Dominique Britt arrived at the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office. Right now, there's probably someone in the audience screaming, It's Clackamas!
It's Clackamas!
I don't care.
Nobody cares.
You live in a shithole anyway. Portland is a complete shithole. Anyway, at the time, her boyfriend, Cody Dennewith, was rotting in a jail cell, charged with murdering Nathan Anderson. Two days later, Dominique had insisted that she knew nothing about Nathan's murder. She acknowledged that Cody had been angry with Nathan and had even talked about fighting him. But according to Dominique, she thought that's as far as it went. And we didn't even need to swab her pussy for it to all go away. For this interview, though, detectives had something they didn't have before. Dominique's text messages with Cody. And those messages told a very, very different story. Because guess what?
Women lie. Not only do they lie, but they lie with ease.
Often.
When they get caught in a love triangle. Which is not the best geometry. for a relationship, by the way.
He messaged you a couple hours before Nathan was killed that he needed you to bring him his toy, the one from upstairs.
Yeah, and I said, told him sure, and then I called him and I said, no, I'm not bringing nothing to you.
What is he referring to?
The gun, probably.
The gun.
And I told him I'm not.
The SIG gun?
Yeah, I told him I'm not.
Bringing nothing to you. If you want it, you can come get it. He came in the house, he grabbed a backpack.
Which backpack?
The blue one that is... Was at my aunt's house.
You messaged him and you said, do you even know where he is? Who are you referring to?
Nate, because he was going to meet my dad, right? At my dad's work. And I just told him, I was like, do you even know where he's at? Like, you're just driving around like a fucking maniac. Like I said, I thought he was going to beat him up.
Now that the weapon, I'm like, yes, things are piecing together.
So he's asking you to bring him a gun and you thought he's going to go beat Nate up?
That's what he told me. Okay.
Why would he need a gun to beat up Nathan?
I don't know.
Okay.
Essentially, Dominique asked detectives to believe two things at once. That Cody wanted a gun, but also that he was planning on fighting Nathan only with his fists. That explanation was pretty difficult to reconcile with the messages investigators had recovered. And the more they pressed Dominique about what happened that day, the more her story started to change.
He came and got the stuff. He left.
Sorry.
And he literally came back and we went to McDonald's. We went to my mom's.
Like, what I'm telling you, he acted completely normal. Like, nothing happened. That's why I just thought nothing happened.
Do you know if he met up with Nate?
I don't know.
I need you to be real honest.
He said that he was going to meet up with him and that he was waiting for him to show up.
And that was it.
Did he ever tell you that he was... with him or anything like that?
I think so. That he was with him, yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
We need... We need the full story.
I know.
You need to stop hiding things related to this investigation because this is a murder.
A man is dead, right?
And if that guy did something to you, that's fucked up and that's not okay. But it's also not okay that someone shot and killed him.
Mm-hmm.
Okay?
And that person is Cody.
Mm-hmm.
So I'm going to... I can read more.
No, I know he met up with him.
But you need to tell us the full story... of that day and what happened immediately after, okay? Because we're kind of done beating around the bush.
I know he met up with him. I know that. And he met up with him on Monday. Monday, Nate died.
The detectives had gotten more out of Dominique, but they clearly believed she was still holding back. Her conversations with Cody suggested she wasn't simply aware the two men had met. She suggested she knew exactly what Cody was doing. And eventually, caught in the lie, she stopped denying it.
You're in a really hard position, and I understand that, and I can actually sympathize.
With that, okay?
But you are not, it's not going to be beneficial to you to withhold more information.
He had to have killed him. Let me, my gun's gone.
No more he had to have, no more whatever. You need to tell us all the details you know about this crime, okay?
Because what these messages look like is that he asked you for a gun, you were arguing about Nate, you gave him a gun, and then you texted him to ask status updates about what happened.
Are you there yet?
Yeah, he's in my car.
I didn't give him the gun. I didn't. He came and got it. And I didn't know he did it. I know he did it.
For the first time, Dominique acknowledged that she knew Cody had killed Nathan. Nav detectives wanted to know what Cody had told her about the murder itself and what happened to that gun.
What did he tell you after the fact?
That he shot him and left.
Okay. What did he do with the gun?
I don't know.
I really don't know.
I haven't seen it since then.
What did he do with Nathan's belongings?
It was at my mom's and he... We threw it away. I didn't know. It was a backpack in the car. Me, my mom, and him, because my mom had a trash bag, we walked to her trash and he threw away that bag that was in the warrant that you guys were looking for.
So I don't know if maybe the gun was in that backpack or something.
I don't know.
I just know he threw it away.
When he told you that he shot Nathan, what did he say exactly?
That Nathan got out of the car and he shot him and then he drove off.
Which gun did he use to shoot him?
The one that's missing.
Dominique gave investigators another piece of the puzzle, a blue backpack. According to her, it contained Nathan's belongings and was later thrown away. Fortunately for detectives, Dominique wasn't the only person who remembered seeing it. Dominique's aunt had seen the backpack as well.
A blue backpack?
It was, yeah, dark blue.
Yeah.
You asked Dominique what that was doing here and what it did.
And she said she didn't know that it wasn't Cody's backpacker. It wasn't, she'd never seen it is what she'd said.
Okay.
Do you guys pick it up and look at it or?
I didn't look through it. I just knew it stunk and I just left it there. And then I'm thinking it was the next day afternoon when they came here, we asked him about it. I said, Cody, is this your backpack? And he told me it was just something that was stuff that came out of his car that needed to go in the trash bag.
Did the backpack feel light? Did it feel heavy?
No, it was heavy.
It felt heavy, like full, like it was full of stuff. I don't know if it's just, yeah, it was a pretty heavy backpack.
So did you throw the bag away and the hat away?
We all walked outside because I was leaving to go to work, so we all went out. And it got thrown into the dumpster over there.
And do you just think you remember that when the backpack went in there and made a thud sound?
Yeah, it was like, you know, the garbage dumpsters are like metal dumpsters. And it was, yeah, it was like kind of a bang because it makes, you know, when they garbage dump, it's kind of like a bang sound.
Dominique's aunt knew that the backpack was heavy. It smelled strange, and eventually it ended up in a dumpster with a loud metallic bang. What seemed strange, though, was Cody's demeanor. He didn't seem particularly concerned about getting rid of it, or about anything at all, really.
Did Cody seem concerned or nervous at all about that backpack?
No, nothing.
I'm just going to say, the last couple times I saw him, he just seemed a real... Like, blank. Like, nothing in his mind.
I don't know. I don't know how to explain it.
So when he said it, when he gave you where he got that backpack, did he sound very nonchalant about it, or did it sound like he was taking time to think about what to say?
No, he just said that it was stuff that was in his car that just needed to go in the trash.
The backpack helped investigators understand what Cody may have done with the murder weapon after Nathan was killed. But their interview with Dominique soon shifted. and became increasingly focused on what happened before the murder. Dominique had already admitted that she knew Cody killed Nathan. What detectives still didn't believe was her claim that she only learned of his intentions after the fact.
You know, I've gone over the messages that Detective Hunters talked about, and I'll be honest with you, I've heard what you said to us, to a degree it makes sense, but I think you knew a good bit more about his... that I don't think it was, I'm going to beat this guy up. When the messages and what you're telling me, they don't match. The content of the messages, that makes no sense. I don't, I think he was planning on killing him the whole time. It doesn't, the beat up thing, that's out the window based off of all the planning that he did.
It doesn't make any sense.
The plan that he told me was that he was going to go meet up with him and they were going to fight each other. But yes, I should have... Okay, you're coming to asking for a gun. I mean.
I think before that, because in your messages, you're asking, is it done? Is it done isn't what you ask beating a guy up. That's a murder.
So when for real did you know about the murder that was going to happen? Because it's bullshit that the plan was to beat him up. That's out the window. That's not a real thing.
At this point, detectives weren't asking whether Dominique knew Cody had been planning something. They wanted to know when she knew that something was murder. After repeatedly insisting that Cody had only talked about fighting Nathan, Dominique finally started giving them a very different answer.
When was the.
First time that you talked to Cody about killing Nate?
He called me on the way to go meet him.
It was before that. From the messages, I know that it was before that.
So when, I think it was before Monday, based off the messages.
Yes.
Let me ask you the question to answer first, okay? When did you two talk about the plan to kill Nate?
It wasn't my plan.
I didn't say it was.
When was the first time that you and Cody talked about the plan?
He, in his mind, said that he was going to make him pay for what he did to you. And him making him pay was he was going to hurt him, shoot him or stab him, do something.
I think the whole time it was shoot based off the messages.
The detectives pushed Dominique closer to the truth. The murder plot, she now admitted, had been discussed before Monday. Still, detectives pressed her for more.
And here's the thing. You've already lied to us. I understand if you're scared about it, but that has got to end. The lying has to end.
I knew when he came into the house and got the gun that that's what he was going to do.
I knew.
When was the first time he said, I'm going to shoot and kill Nate?
Friday is when he had his mind set that that's what he was going to do and there was no talking him out of it.
And what specifically did he say?
That I'm going to go shoot Nate.
Okay.
With the intention?
I guess killing him.
Okay.
Yeah.
I don't know if we were, I don't think we were on the phone. I think we were together.
So maybe in the car. And he just said that I'm going to go shoot him. And that's what I'm going to do. Like, there was no talking him out of it at all because he was just gone.
Like gone.
What do you mean by he was gone?
Like it wasn't Cody.
Like you look at him and it wasn't the Cody that I fell in love with. It wasn't the Cody that, you know, my kids are, Oh, that's dad. You know, like, but it just wasn't Cody.
Okay.
Dominique wasn't describing something Cody suddenly decided to do during a confrontation with Nathan. According to her own account, Cody had announced his intention days earlier, and Dominique knew all about it. But there was still one crucial part of her story detectives did not believe. She continued to insist that when Cody needed the gun, he came back to the apartment and got it himself. Investigators suspected that that was not true.
We've applied for court orders to get his phone records. So when we get the records back, we'll be able to tell that Nate drove up or didn't drive up and whether or not he went in the house or not. So if it shows that he drove up and then drove away, that means you brought him the gun. So if that's what happened, this is the time to talk about it. So talk to us about you bringing him the gun.
I did.
Where? Where? Where? Uh.
He was on the side of the street, and I brought him the backpack and everything.
What was in the bag?
The gun and some clothes.
And you did that knowing what he was about to go do?
It was more, yes, yes.
We can't walk back. You can't unring the bell.
Yeah, yeah.
What bag did you bring him the gun in?
The blue one that's in your evidence. It was at my aunt's house.
Okay.
Hey, Dominique, you're an accessory to murder now.
Stupid.
Dominique admitted that Cody never came upstairs for the gun or even went into the house at all. Dominique delivered the murder weapon to him, kind of like Uber Eats or DoorDash, but, you know, with guns. And more importantly, she admitted that when she handed Cody that backpack, she knew what he intended to do. No bueno. Still, Dominique insisted that none of this had been her idea. According to her, she had spent weeks frightened by Cody's increasingly erratic behavior. And when he finally told her what he'd done, she claimed she didn't ask many questions.
What was the plan afterwards? What were you guys going to do after it was done?
He acted so normal where I thought, okay, maybe he didn't do it.
And then he told me he did.
I don't have an excuse.
It was wrong. I... This whole month I've just been, like, scared of him type of thing. Like, not knowing, like, how he's going to be, what he's going to do. Is he going to freak out on me?
He's like... But it's still not an excuse.
When did he tell you that he had shot Nathan?
The next morning. Okay.
And what precipitated that?
I said, well, how did it go? Because he didn't say, you know. And he just said, I shot him. And then just stopped talking to me.
Okay.
Did you ask him any follow-up questions or any details about it?
No.
Did you ask... Cody to take care of Nate?
No.
Dominique portrayed herself as someone who had been afraid of Cody and simply failed to stop him. But there was a problem with that explanation. Her messages didn't show someone completely removed from what Cody was doing. They showed Dominique checking in with him while he was carrying it out. They showed someone complicit.
So based off of the conversation you had.
Um, knowing about it on Friday, knowing the specific plan of what's going to happen, texting him.
Hey, is it, is it, is he with you? Cool. Let me know when it's done. Hey, take care of yourself. Look, man, you're, you're as part of this as anyone else.
I'm just going to read you your own messages.
Okay.
You asked him, are you there yet? He said, yup. I got him in the car. I think I'm going to get it in the car. He said, Oh my God.
He said, it'd be the easiest.
And you told him, Okay, baby, be safe. Then come home and take a walk with us.
That's cold.
So either we're looking at one of two things happened. Either you were good to go with it from the beginning, or this was your deal and you wound him up and kicked him loose. So which of those two is it?
I guess I was just like, if you're going to do it, you're going to do it type of thing. You know, but I'm just.
For how long did you want Cody to kill Nate?
I didn't.
Everything about this says that you did.
This was the problem Dominique could no longer explain away. She knew Cody intended to shoot Nathan. She supplied the gun. And while Cody was gone, Dominique was asking for updates.
I did it.
I was just, okay, whatever.
Do what you want.
At the very least, based off of everything we know now, You're a co-conspirator in his murder.
Oh, God.
If not the originator of the idea of his murder.
No.
No.
No. And I get that you're upset right now, but I'm going to be honest with you from where I'm at.
You're not upset for Nate. You're upset because you got caught.
No, I hurt for.
Nate, too.
I didn't mean for this to happen. I should have just called the cops on him.
You could have made that call on Friday. You could have made the call on Saturday. I know, every day. You could have made the call on most of Monday. All Sunday, most of Monday.
Okay?
So this idea that you just sort of went with the flow, I'm sorry, but it just doesn't track with the information we have.
Dominique had arrived at the sheriff's office that day believing she was there to help investigators understand what Cody had done. But By the end of the interview, the real reason detectives had asked her to come in had been revealed. Dominique Britt was arrested and charged for murder, but neither she nor Cody would ever face a jury.
Cody, Dennewith took a plea deal today for the death of Nathan Anderson. Investigators say that Anderson was shot three times in Clackamas County.
He was taken.
To a hospital where he passed away. Now, an investigation revealed that Dennewith believed the victim had been sexually intimate with his girlfriend, Dominique Britt. Dennewith and Anderson were coworkers. In the days before the shooting, Dennewith was briefly jailed after a domestic violence call at a Milwaukee apartment. While in jail, Britt claimed that she was sexually assaulted by Anderson and that Dennewith was fixated on getting revenge. On the day of the shooting, investigators say that Dennewith sent Britt a text message asking her to bring him a gun.
Britt admitted to investigators that she did deliver the gun, knowing that Dennewith intended to kill Anderson. Both Dennewith and Britt were charged with murder, but they had that charge reduced after taking a plea deal.
Dominique's case was resolved first. In December of 2024, she pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and unlawful use of a weapon. She was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. Several months later, Cody pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and first-degree assault with a firearm. He received a total sentence of 27 and a half years. So, more than twice the sentence for Basically the same crime. The criminal cases were now over. But one question at the center of Nathan Anderson's death remained unanswered. What actually happened inside Dominique's apartment on the night Cody was arrested? Dominique had maintained she doesn't remember. She was simply too extremely intoxicated. And
much of what happened after Nathan arrived... allegedly remains blank. She remembered, though, going to bed with her son and her dog. She remembered waking up later, hurting with scrapes on her knees. But she couldn't explain what happened in between. Well, I have a pretty good idea. I'm sure you do as well. Exactly what Dominique told Cody afterwards isn't entirely clear, though.
Prosecutors would later say that Dominique claimed Nathan had sexually assaulted her. What a surprise. But in her interview with detectives, Dominique couldn't say what Nathan had actually done. She couldn't even say with certainty whether the two had had sex. Nathan, meanwhile, allegedly made comments that Dominique interpreted as meaning the two had not had sex. There was never an investigation that established what happened between Nathan and Dominique that night. And after Nathan was killed, there never could be. The secret was now just hers. But, whatever the truth was, Cody decided he already knew it. He decided Nathan was guilty.
And then he decided what the punishment would be. And he didn't even need to have any swabs on him. Dominique knew what Cody intended to do, and rather than warn Nathan or call the police, she handed Cody a gun. These choices didn't deliver justice. They made justice impossible. And somewhere beneath the allegations, the arguments, the investigation, and the murder was Nathan Anderson himself. A 25-year-old man whose family didn't want his worst days to become the story of his entire life.
That family hoping for justice for the murder of their loved one, Nathan Dean Anderson, was just 25 years old when he was shot and killed last month in Clackamas County. They want him to be remembered for more than his death. According to his uncle, he had the potential to go far.
He loved connecting with people through his music, touching people's hearts through his music.
And he loved basketball.
He was really good at basketball too.
I know Nathan Love.
The coast, Oregon coast, California coast, lighthouses, because he was that bright and beautiful, shiny light.
Whatever happened inside Dominique Britt's apartment on April 24th, Nathan never got the opportunity to tell anyone his side of it. Five days later, He was dead. And whatever the truth was, Nathan took his side of the story with him. That does it for another one. Hope you enjoyed it. And thank you guys for all the sweet, kind, heartwarming messages you left me this week. Stay safe.
Thank you.
