Bodies of elderly couple found in shallow grave in Ozark National Forest in Arkansas; 3 arrested

Victims ID’d as Kansas couple

THURSDAY UPDATE: Authorities identify suspects as carnival workers. Click here for latest story.

Two men and a woman were arrested Wednesday in connection with the discovery of the bodies of an elderly Kansas couple in a shallow grave in the Ozark National Forest in Crawford County.

Rusty Frasier, Micheal Fowler and Kimberly Younger were booked into the county jail on charges of abuse of a corpse, felony theft and tampering with physical evidence, Crawford County Sheriff Ron Brown said. No formal charges were filed Wednesday.

The Van Buren Police Department received a tip about midnight Tuesday about the husband and wife being killed and then buried in Arkansas, police spokesman Jonathan Wear said. The three suspects were located at a Van Buren apartment complex and taken into custody. None of them were from Arkansas, he said.

Brown said information obtained from officers' interviews of the three suspects led investigators about 3 a.m. Wednesday to a site in a creek bed on Starr Road off Arkansas 59, which is in the Ozark National Forest. Investigators located the grave and began to exhume the bodies about 7:30 a.m., he said.

Wear said interviews with the suspects indicated the husband and wife were killed in another state, driven to Van Buren and buried off Starr Road. Brown said the couple may have been killed as early as Friday and buried Monday.

Brown would not comment on the cause of their deaths, only that the injuries were consistent with what the suspects told investigators.

Once the bodies were discovered, Arkansas authorities contacted officials in Great Bend, Kan., in western Kansas. The Great Bend Police Department, the Barton County sheriff's office and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation began their own investigation, according to a news release from Barton County Attorney Amy Mellor.

The news release said the couple disappeared from the county's fairgrounds west of Great Bend. The release contained no other details about the investigation.

"The Great Bend Police Department has begun their investigation and since we're talking about a possible crime scene in two states, this won't be easy to resolve," Mellor said in the news release.

Brown said Wednesday afternoon he was about to go into a meeting to discuss with Kansas authorities which state would take custody of the bodies, handle the autopsy and process evidence since the couple were killed in one state but discovered in another.

Working on the case with the Crawford County sheriff's office Wednesday were the Van Buren Police Department, Arkansas State Police, Crawford County coroner's office, U.S. Forest Service and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, Brown said.

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State Desk on 07/19/2018

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