The determined pleas appeared on-line shortly after the 4 mates disappeared final week — a person asking if anybody had seen his cousins. A spouse in search of her husband. A mom trying to find the daddy of their 4 youngsters.
Days later, their households received the devastating information. The dismembered stays of their family members had been present in a shallow part of a river on the fringe of Okmulgee, Oklahoma, inhabitants roughly 11,300.
Now, the victims’ households and their group are battling a grim thriller: What occurred within the hours earlier than Alex Stevens, Mike Sparks and brothers Billy and Mark Chastain vanished — and and who’s liable for their horrific deaths?
The disappearance, deaths of 4 mates in Okmulgee, Oklahoma
“It doesn’t make sense,” stated Daybreak Carter, an Okmulgee metropolis council member. “If you’re a part of a close-knit group, when minor issues happen it will get consideration. One thing this main? It impacts all people.”
“Inform the parents to hope for us,” she added.
Who have been they?
The 4 males grew up collectively in Okmulgee, a metropolis that Megan Gordon, Billy Chastain’s widow, described as a “very small city” — a spot the place “everybody’s mother and father is aware of everybody’s mother and father.”
“Everyone is aware of all people right here.”
Mark Chastain, 32, and Billy Chastain, 30, have been the “definition of brothers and have been at all times collectively,” their grandmother, Milissia Smith, stated in a verified on-line fundraiser. Billy Chastain — who glided by BJ — was a handyman with 4 youngsters, two women and two boys ages 2 to 12, Gordon stated.
“He was humorous, he was loving, he was spontaneous,” she stated. “He was good.”
“All the things revolved round his youngsters,” she added.
Mark Chastain had two youngsters and labored in an oil area as a rig hand, stated pal Ron Pelham. Chastain “labored his butt off for every part he had” however would supply the shirt off his again, Pelham, 34, stated.
“He was doing good to raised the lifetime of his household each which approach attainable,” Pelham stated.
Alex Stevens labored as a nursing house prepare dinner aide, stated his widow, Teresa Corridor. He struggled with drug dependancy, and the 2 met after he was launched from jail in 2013, she stated.
They married in 2014 and separated shortly after, stated Corridor, 35, although they by no means legally divorced and remained greatest mates. Stevens had bouts of melancholy, however “there was by no means a day he couldn’t put a smile in your face,” she stated.
Efforts to achieve family members of Mike Sparks, 32, have been unsuccessful.
What occurred?
The 4 mates set off on a motorcycle experience Oct. 9, the Okmulgee Police Division stated final week. Getting round on two wheels is not uncommon in Okmulgee, Pelham stated, particularly if it is the weekend and there is been ingesting.
The group is believed to have left a home the place Billy Chastain lived part-time round 5:30 p.m., Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice stated in an interview this week. Investigators obtained GPS knowledge from cellphones carried by two of the boys that confirmed them touring east, then south. No video has been discovered that captured their actions after they left, Prentice has stated.
“I have no idea what was on their minds after they left the home,” Prentice stated. “I am as at nighttime as everybody else.”
In some unspecified time in the future, two of the boys invited somebody described by authorities as a witness to “hit a lick large enough for all of them,” Prentice has stated, utilizing a slang time period for committing a worthwhile prison act.
Within the interview, Prentice stated the witness did not “really feel proper about it and his bicycle wasn’t working, so he informed them to go on.”
The police chief did not know which of the boys allegedly made the supply, and he declined to determine the witness. Investigators do not have further particulars concerning the alleged plot, Prentice stated, nor have they gathered proof to corroborate the witness’ assertion.
“I am unable to consider a purpose he’d wish to make it up,” Prentice added.
A evaluation of court docket information for the 4 males reveals that Alex Stevens pleaded responsible to felony drug fees in 2013 and 2015, and Billy Chastain pleaded responsible to a felony drug cost in 2014. None have been accused of violent crimes, robberies or burglaries, the information present.
Gordon stated the final time she spoke to Billy Chastain was the day earlier than he vanished. She had no concept what he’d been as much as the evening he disappeared however stated that “hit a lick” wasn’t one thing her husband would have stated.
“My youngsters’ dad did not speak like that,” she stated. “It does not make sense.”
Pelham forged doubt on Mark Chastain’s involvement in a prison plan, saying he made good cash at his job and “rattling positive has by no means been a thief.”
Corridor additionally didn’t imagine that Stevens would have robbed anybody.
“Alex wasn’t that kind of particular person,” she stated. “If he didn’t have cash, he was going to work to earn money.”
The final time Corridor spoke to Stevens was three days earlier than he disappeared. They video chatted about how she was doing after her latest launch from a drug remedy program, she stated.
“I by no means knew that was the final time I might see him,” she stated.
‘We knew no matter occurred to them, it wasn’t going to be good’
Gordon discovered that her husband was lacking when Mark Chastain’s spouse referred to as early Oct. 10 and requested if the brothers have been at her home.
Initially, Gordon believed they have been at Mark Chastain’s house. Because the hours rolled by, she figured they have been operating late or had a flat tire. However, 1 p.m. handed, then 5 p.m., she stated. In order that they alerted police and reported them lacking, she stated.
“I hoped and praying they’d discover them secure,” Corridor stated.
The Okmulgee Police Division circulated the primary lacking particular person alerts Oct. 11. Initially, the company stated that there was no proof to point violence or foul play and that Mark Chastain’s cellphone was discovered with out energy in an space south of city.
Because the hours handed, family members posted their pleas to Fb and witnesses reported seeing the lacking males as shut because the native YMCA and so far as Monroe, Louisiana, authorities stated.
Pelham, who lives roughly an hour northwest of Okmulgee, stated he traveled to town together with his youthful brother to knock on doorways and assist with a search.
“Them boys weren’t small. They might maintain their very own. We knew no matter occurred to them, it wasn’t going to be good.”
Ron Pelham, Buddy of Mark Chastain
“For 4 grown males to return up lacking, that blew our minds,” he stated. “Them boys weren’t small. They might maintain their very own. We knew no matter occurred to them, it wasn’t going to be good.”
5 days after the boys have been final seen, Prentice informed reporters {that a} passerby notified authorities of one thing suspicious in a shallow stretch of the Deep Fork River southwest of Okmulgee. Close to a bridge, authorities discovered “a number of” human stays and “physique elements protruding from the water.”
By Monday, the stays had been recognized because the Chastain brothers, Sparks and Stevens. They’d been shot earlier than their dismembered our bodies have been dumped within the river, Prentice stated.
None of their bikes have been discovered, he stated.
An arrest
Additionally Monday, Prentice named an individual of curiosity within the case: Joseph Kennedy, proprietor of a neighborhood scrap yard the place investigators uncovered proof of a “violent occasion” on an adjoining property, the chief stated. He declined to offer further particulars about what proof was recovered.
Kennedy had been lacking since Saturday, Prentice stated, and he was thought to have been driving a blue Chrysler PT Cruiser.
At 8:29 a.m. Tuesday, greater than 1,200 miles away in Daytona Seashore Shores, Florida, a police officer’s license plate reader recognized a passing Toyota Tundra as stolen, town’s police division stated. Kennedy, 67, was the pickup’s driver.
Officers pulled him over and decided he was an individual of curiosity within the quadruple murder. He was booked with out incident on suspicion of grand theft of a motorcar and being a fugitive from justice, the division stated.
Kennedy has not been recognized as a suspect within the Okmulgee killings. The fugitive allegation is linked to 2 unrelated fees from 2012, additionally in Okmulgee, authorities stated — felony assault and battery with a harmful weapon and misdemeanor obstruction of a police officer.
Courtroom information present that in 2013, Kennedy pleaded no contest to the costs, which have been associated to a capturing at one in every of his companies, his lawyer in that case stated earlier this week.
The lawyer, Luke Gaither, stated a “variety of folks” had damaged into the property and Kennedy fired in self-protection at somebody he believed had a gun.
“The state clearly had a distinct facet of that,” Gaither stated.
To keep away from jail time, Kennedy was to stay on probation till subsequent 12 months. However in court docket papers filed Tuesday, prosecutors in Oklahoma argued that he had breached these phrases and ought to be sentenced for the 2012 crimes.
Gaither stated Friday that he was not representing Kennedy within the alleged probation violation, and it wasn’t clear if he had a lawyer to talk on his behalf. A lady who answered the cellphone at a quantity recognized in public information as Kennedy’s declined to remark.
A public defender assigned to Kennedy’s case in Florida didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. An affidavit filed for the grand theft cost states that Kennedy informed the arresting officer that the truck’s proprietor informed him he may borrow the car at any time when he needed.
Kennedy informed the officer he took the truck final week and drove to Florida for a weekend trip, the doc says. He allegedly informed the officer he was suicidal, the doc says.
Corrections information in Volusia County present that Kennedy remained in custody Friday and was being held with out bond on the fugitive cost.
Within the interview, Prentice declined to say if investigators from Oklahoma had interviewed Kennedy since his arrest and Prentice didn’t know when he could be extradited.
Prentice declined to offer further details about Kennedy’s hyperlink to the slayings, citing the continued murder investigation.
For Gordon, attending to the reality of what occurred to her husband and the three different males cannot come quickly sufficient.
“I actually thought they have been coming house,” she stated. To seek out out they have been “reduce up — it is simply horrible understanding my youngsters will not ever see their dad once more.”
“I really feel like I am breaking,” Gordon stated via tears. “I really feel like I am already damaged.”
