LITTLE ROCK — Jacksonville police and the Pulaski County sheriff's office searched separate sites Wednesday for two bodies after a man reportedly told Faulkner County authorities that he killed two women, and then led investigators to where he said he left the remains.
Searching in a stand of treesbordering an industrial park on Cory Drive near South Redmond Road in Jacksonville since early Tuesday, authorities called the Pulaski County coroner's office Wednesday afternoon when they found what they suspected were human remains. Coroner Garland Camper and a forensic anthropologist, Dr. Cheryl Puskarich May, confirmed that the bones found were human.
Jacksonville police Capt.Charles Jenkins said Faulkner County investigators alerted his agency Monday night about the possibility of a dead body just beyond the dead-end boundary of the industrial park. On Tuesday, he said, a search-and-rescue team and a canine-search team hunted around the woods until one of the dogs locked on a spot.
Then on Wednesday, inves-tigators found the decomposed remains, some buried and some above ground.
About six miles east, just outside the Jacksonville city limits, the Pulaski County sheriff's office came up empty in its search for remains.
"We're going to keep looking," sheriff's office spokesman John Rehrauer said Wednesday afternoon.
"So far we haven't found what we've been told might be out here."
Faulkner County Sheriff Karl Byrd said the searches were based on information his office provided. It came from a suspect - a man Byrd declined to identify but said is in custody - who Byrd said had previous criminal contact with law enforcement officers.
"This is all out of an investigation that my office initiated and that at this time is ongoing," Byrd said.
"We are at a very delicate stage of this investigation, and I hesitate to reveal too much at this time."
Byrd said it was unclear whether his investigation would reveal more killings.
"It remains early," he said. "We've gotten some information, and we're checking it out, and we hope to get more information."
Rehrauer said initial information provided to the Pulaski County sheriff's office appeared accurate.
"He has some first names that we believe might be accurate, and we'll be going through our records to look for any missing persons or any reportsthat may relate to this investigation," Rehrauer said. "We want to be very careful because this investigation started in another jurisdiction."
Still, he said, there was much that remained cloudy. The suspect told authorities that he couldn't be sure that the woman he dumped outside Jacksonville was actually dead, Rehrauer said.
The suspect had not been charged in any of the killings he claimed to commit as of Wednesday afternoon, Byrd said.
FBI Special Agent Steve Frazier, spokesman for the agency's Little Rock field office, said an agent had been made available to assist with the investigation.
State police, while not involved in the investigation, have provided an investigator to assist, as well, spokesman Bill Sadler said.
POINTING TO THE WOODS
On Cory Drive on Wednesday afternoon, forklift operators at Wright's Cabinets watched through an open bay door as investigators and coroners walked slowly, carefully into and out of the woods behind yellow policeline tape and beyond a gravel lot on the property. A small white tent offered shade to the investigators and a quiet spot for a sip of water.
A dozen marked and unmarked police cars sat clustered, with the stark white of a coroner's office van set in the foreground against the muted blues and greens and browns of the cars.
Jacksonville police kept reporters at a distance.
No one at Wright's Cabinets answered the phone when a reporter called later Wednesday afternoon.
At the second site about five miles to the east, Markus McGonigal leases the 43-acre parcel on Ann Lane, just beyond J.P. Wright Loop Road, that contains the area searched by the sheriff's office.
He said investigators asked him Tuesday night for permission to search the strip of woods just east of Ann Lane, as well as a weedy lot to the north, after the Faulkner County suspect identified the area as the place where he dumped the body of a woman.
"They said they drove by, andthe guy pointed to the woods," McGonigal said.
Ann Lane is a narrow stretch of blacktop, tree-lined and punctuated by signs that announce "No Dumping or Littering."
A few yards from the no dumping sign at Ann Lane's intersection with Robbins Road, a decrepit couch had been tossed onto the side of the road, andacross the street was a pile of discarded liquor bottles.
McGonigal said deer live on his property and that coyotes are prevalent.
He suggested that if the body was on the ground, the coyotes might have spread the remains over a larger area.
Eight sheriff 's office investigators searched half of the wooded strip Wednesday morning, marking their ending position with a batch of yellow flags.
About 1 p.m., after a brief break for lunch, the searchers gathered again to pick up the search.
They doused their pant legs with clouds of bug spray before heading into the sometimes dense undergrowth.
Forming a line, they walked the length of the wooded area, using sticks of metal probes to push aside the vegetation in a search for evidence.
After a half-hour of searching the woods, they took another break and began on the weedy lot to the north, breaking out machetes to attack the headhigh grass.
By 3:30 p.m., the search was called off.
"We may come back out tomorrow with a canine," Rehrauer said.
Front Section, Pages 1, 8 on 09/25/2008