By Nouran Salahieh, CNN
A missing persons case turned into a murder investigation after dismembered bodies discovered in an Oklahoma river had been recognized as 4 males who vanished final week, police mentioned.
“I’ve worked over 80 murders in my career. I have worked murders involving multiple victims. I have worked dismemberments, but this case involves the highest number of victims, and it’s a very violent event,” Okmulgee, Oklahoma, Police Chief Joe Prentice mentioned Monday.
The 4 males — Mark Chastain, 32; Billy Chastain, 30; Mike Sparks, 32; and Alex Stevens, 29 — had been reported missing by family final Monday night time or early Tuesday, after leaving Billy Chastain’s Okmulgee dwelling on bicycles round 9 p.m. October 9, police have mentioned.
The discovery of their dismembered bodies in the river days later expanded the investigation and raised new questions, the chief mentioned. Here’s what we know concerning the case:
All the boys discovered in the river had been shot
On October 14, a passerby referred to as police after seeing something suspicious in a river outdoors Okmulgee, a metropolis of about 11,000 individuals roughly a 35-mile drive south of Tulsa, Prentice beforehand mentioned.
Police arrived and noticed stays protruding from the river, and ended up discovering a number of bodies.
Monday, the chief introduced the bodies were identified because the 4 missing males, all of them having been shot and dismembered.
“Although the official cause and manner of death is still pending, each victim suffered gunshot wounds,” Prentice mentioned. “All four bodies were dismembered before being placed in the river and that is what caused difficulty in determining identities.”
The stays had been recovered over a number of days and it’s unclear what form of proof investigators will be capable to recuperate, given the bodies had been in water.
“Whenever water is involved, it makes it much more difficult to identify evidence,” the chief mentioned.
Police haven’t recovered any bicycles, nor the gun used in the killings.
Police consider the 4 pals had been planning a crime
While it stays unclear precisely what led as much as the 4 males’s deaths, Prentice mentioned preliminary investigation seems to point out the boys had been planning to commit a crime after they set out from Chastain’s dwelling.
The chief mentioned in a news convention Monday that the idea is predicated on “information supplied by a witness who reports they were invited to go with the men to quote on quote ‘hit a lick big enough for all of them.’”
“That is common terminology for engaging in some type of criminal behavior, but we do not know what they were planning or where they planned to do it,” Prentice added.
After the boys had been reported missing, police traced two of their cell telephones, discovering they went to 2 salvage yards — one about 5 miles from the river, and the opposite about 10 to 12 miles from the river, Prentice advised CNN Saturday.
Police later discovered “evidence of a violent event” on property adjoining one of these places, the chief mentioned, with out elaborating on the findings.
A ‘person of interest’ is missing
Police have a particular person of curiosity in the case, however no costs have been filed, the chief mentioned Monday.
Prentice mentioned the particular person is just not a suspect, however “a person of interest that we’d like to talk to.” That particular person has denied realizing the 4 males, the chief added.
The particular person has since gone missing as of Saturday night time, and could possibly be suicidal, Prentice mentioned.
Now that the investigation is a murder investigation, Prentice mentioned, the division can be a little extra tight-lipped about additional proceedings “to protect the integrity of the investigation.”
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CNN’s Michelle Watson and Melissa Alonso contributed to this report.
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