Charges in Crawford County Circuit Court have been dismissed against four carnival workers charged with disposing of the bodies of a murdered couple because the workers have been extradited to Kansas to face charges connected to the couple's deaths.
Court records showed Circuit Judge Mike Medlock granted a motion Dec. 19 by Prosecuting Attorney Marc McCune to dismiss charges against Kimberly Younger, 52, of McIntosh, Fla., Michael Fowler, Jr., 54, of Sarasota, Fla., Rusty Frasier, 35, of Aransas Pass, Texas, and Christine Tenney, 38, of Santa Fe, Texas.
McCune asked that the charges against the four be dropped because they had been extradited to Kansas, where all but Tenney were charged earlier this month with capital murder in the July 14 deaths of Alfred Carpenter, 78, and Pauline Carpenter, 79, both of Wichita, Kan.
Each of the four were charged in Arkansas with two counts of abuse of a corpse, theft and tampering with physical evidence.
Crawford County jail records show Kansas officials took custody of all four Dec. 19 to return them to Kansas. A fifth person charged in the case, Thomas Drake, 31, of Van Buren, waived extradition after the charges were announced in Kansas on Dec. 7 and was transported to Kansas.
Drake was not charged in the Arkansas case.
Younger, Fowler and Frasier have been charged with capital murder in the Carpenters' deaths, according to the Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt's office. Younger also was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, criminal solicitation and theft. Fowler also was charged with theft.
Tenney and Drake were charged with three counts of obstructing apprehension, which accused them of harboring, concealing or aiding Younger, Fowler and Frasier knowing they had committed murder.
Younger, Fowler, Frasier and Tenney were arrested in Van Buren on July 19 after a relative of Tenney called Van Buren police to report she was being held against her will. The case unfolded from there.
Reports from the Van Buren police investigation said Fowler shot the Carpenters on July 14 at the Baxter County Fair in Great Bend, Kan. He committed the killings, he told police, on orders he received in text messages from a person he believed to be Frank Zaitchik, a member of a "carnival mafia." The killings were to be an initiation into the carnival mob family, he was reported to have told police.
Police informed him, based on their discoveries in the investigation, the text messages attributed to Zaitchik actually were sent to him by Younger, who was posing as Zaitchik.
Fowler told police he attacked Alfred Carpenter between two vehicles at the fairgrounds, put him into a headlock and tried to cut his throat. When Carpenter fought back, Frasier stabbed Carpenter in the chest. Fowler then shot Carpenter, then went into the camper and shot Pauline Carpenter as she slept.
The Carpenters were a retired couple who frequented carnivals to sell crafts and trinkets that they transported in a trailer behind their camper vehicle.
After the killings, Younger, Fowler and Frasier loaded the bodies into the camper and, with Tenney, drove to Van Buren where, according to reports, Fowler's daughter lived.
The four and others took the bodies to an area north of Cedarville in the Ozark National Forest and buried them in a dry creek bed, covering them with stones, dirt and wood, before returning to Van Buren, the reports said.
After disposal of the Carpenters' bodies was discovered, Crawford County sheriff's investigators went to site off Star Road to recover the Carpenters' bodies and process the scene for evidence.
State Desk on 12/27/2018