Cayley Mandadi: Slain Texan cheerleader was raped, battered so bad by boyfriend she was unrecognizable, says mom
Texas cheerleader Cayley Mandadi's mother Allison Steele has spoken out about the disturbing fatal attack on her daughter, revealing how the Trinity University student was battered so bad that when she was found near-dead, there was no recognizing her. Mandadi looked like she had fallen out of a plane, her mother adds. When the 19-year-old Mandadi was taken to Ascension Seton Hayes Hospital in Kyle, Texas, she was practically unrecognizable, before succumbing to her injuries on October 31, 2017. The depraved attack on her soon became crucial to a murder trial and her then-boyfriend Mark Howerton was accused of raping and murdering her.
CBS News' 48 Hours revisits the harrowing incident in a new documentary called 'The Final Hours of Cayley Mandadi'. The victim was last seen alive at the Mala Luna music festival, where Howerton was accompanying her. Later on the same day, Howerton took Mandadi to the hospital and admitted her with the gruesome injuries. When she didn't come home for a sorority meeting on the morning of October 29, 2017, her close friends reached out to the police, but not much could be done as she did not qualify for an Amber Alert.
At the hospital, Mandadi was pronounced brain dead, before she succumbed to her injuries on Halloween. Authorities found she died of blunt force trauma to the head and charged Howerton with sexual assault and murder. In his defense, Howerton claimed he and Mandadi had fought before having rough sex in his car. However, his version of events were not consistent with Mandadi's injuries, claimed the prosecution before providing evidence of sexual assault and a brutal beating. They also alleged that both were high on ecstasy at the time of the incident as Howerton was abusive to Mandadi on their way back from the festival, and finally beat her to death when she tried breaking up with him.
“He knew that Cayley would be an easy mark, and so he fixated on her,” Steele told 48 Hours. “And when it didn’t go the way he wanted... he snapped.” Several of Mandadi's friends have also vouched for Howerton's abusive and violent behavior towards Mandadi as they had witnessed it before.
Howerton's defense counsel contests there are no eyewitnesses to prove he was responsible for Mandadi's death, alluding her injuries to a fall and vehement CPR efforts by the hospital staff. "Mark was possessive, angry, he was a jerk... That doesn't make him a murderer," Howerton's lawyer told 48 hours. "This is a case where there is more than meets the eye and things aren't always as they seem." A retrial date was set for August 21.
In the hopes of avoiding the same fate for others, Mandadi's mother Steele pushed for the Coordinated Law Enforcement Adult Response, or CLEAR Alert. Just a year ago, in September 2019, the Texas Legislature approved the alert for missing adults within the age of 18 and 24. "The CLEAR Alert is a game changer. It's a paradigm shift in terms of our ability to find missing persons and to intervene in active situations that could turn fatal," Steele said. "We couldn't save Cayley. But maybe we can save the next one."
Steele also revealed CLEAR represents Cayley Mandadi, D'Lisa Kelley, Erin Castro, Ashanti Billie, and all the other victims of similar crimes, who died before the law existed. "Symbolically, it actually stands for some of the victims, who may have been saved if there had been an alert available at the time," Steele said.