A man was arrested in Florida after the bodies of four missing people were found shot and dismembered in a river.
Joe Kennedy was stopped by officers after he was seen driving a stolen vehicle in the city of Daytona Beach Shores on Monday, local police chief Joe Prentice said.
The 67-year-old, who has been described as an “interested person” in the four men’s deaths, was quickly arrested and will be taken to Oklahoma, where the bodies were discovered, for questioning.
Officials investigate a bridge near the Deep Fork River where bodies were found in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. Image: AP
The victims were identified as four friends who went missing on October 9: Mark Chastain, 32, Billy Chastain, 30, Mike Sparks, 32, and Alex Stevens, 29.
Mr. Prentice declined to say that Kennedy is a suspect in the murders and claimed that “a murder investigation is ongoing.”
The men’s dismembered bodies were discovered in the Deep Fork River in Okmulgee, a town about 40 miles (65 km) south of Tulsa, on Friday.
A witness told police he was invited to join the group to “hit a lick,” but explained that he did not know what the sentence meant, Mr. Prentice said.
“This is common terminology for engaging in some kind of criminal behavior,” Prentice added. “We don’t know what they were planning or where they planned to do it.”
Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice. Image: AP
Kennedy went missing after the bodies were discovered but was interrogated beforehand when he denied knowing any of the victims.
Investigators searched a junk yard owned by Kennedy and an adjacent property owned by other people, where evidence of a “violent event was found,” Prentice said.
Although an official cause of death has not yet been released, all four men were found dismembered and with gunshot wounds, the police chief said.
