RUDY -- Two rural Crawford County men were being held Monday on first-degree murder charges after sheriff's deputies found a body in a shallow grave on the land where the two men live.
Sheriff Ron Brown said half brothers Jonathan Bridgewater, 27, and Nicholas Barrows, 19, were arrested near a 4628 Arkansas 348 home Sunday afternoon by the county SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) team members.
Brown said the SWAT team members spotted a vehicle matching the one belonging to the suspects in a roadside ditch on Arkansas 282 leaving Rudy. When the deputies pulled over, Bridgewater asked them for help because the vehicle had broken down. He was arrested for parole violation on a 2010 felony drug charge.
He gave deputies Barrows' location, and he was arrested without incident at the Rudy store minutes later, Brown said.
Their bond was set at $250,000 each, according to county jail records.
Little was known about the body in the grave, Brown said. Investigators with the sheriff's office, Arkansas State Police, the county coroner's office and the prosecuting attorney's office were working at the grave site and had not determined the gender, identity or cause of death of the body.
Once unearthed, he said, the body will be sent to the state medical examiner's office for identification and determination of the cause and manner of death.
Crawford County does not have any reported missing persons, Brown said. If any scars, marks or tattoos are found on the body, that information will be passed on to other law enforcement agencies to attempt to make an identification.
Brown said the sheriff's office got the initial call Sunday afternoon about a possible homicide at 4628 Arkansas 348.
Deputies contacted supervisors and detectives, who investigated and obtained a search warrant for the property, Brown said.
He said there are two homes on the 15- to 20-acre property, one on top of a hill where Bridgewater lived with a grandmother and other relatives, and one lower down on the hill where Barrows lived with relatives.
Brown said the SWAT team was called in as a precaution because initial information suggested the suspects were going to be home with other family.
Once the deputies entered the property, Brown said, a cadaver dog was brought in because the information was that the homicide occurred six or seven days ago, and the shallow grave was dug to dispose of the body.
The dog found the body about 8 or 8:30 p.m. Sunday, giving investigators little time before dark to process the grave, Brown said. The focus turned to searching the homes beginning Sunday night with plans to begin on the grave Monday morning because of the large amount of time it would take to process it.
During the search of the lower home, Brown said, searchers found three pipe bombs in the bedroom of one of the suspects. Brown said he did not believe the presence of the bombs was connected to the homicide.
The house was evacuated, and the Fort Smith Fire Department's bomb squad was called in to dispose of the bombs, he said.
NW News on 07/01/2014