Stacy McCann spent the past week searching, along with family members and friends, for his missing son, Cody McCann, in the woods and fields surrounding their Landmark house, often looking for the 20-year-old into the morning hours.
Early Saturday morning, Stacy McCann and his family received the news that Cody McCann's body had been found near a power line off Border Lane in southern Pulaski County.
The Pulaski County sheriff's office arrested two men in McCann's kidnapping and death, and it was looking for another man Saturday.
Evatt Theodore "Ted" Warner III, 28, of 11823 Carrington Lane in Pulaski County, was arrested at 1:50 p.m. Saturday and charged with capital murder and kidnapping. Clifton Edward King Jr., 28, of 2321 Pratt Road in Landmark, was arrested at 7:45 p.m. Friday and charged with kidnapping.
Warner and King were being held in the Pulaski County jail Saturday night with no bail set.
A third man, Hiram Contreras, was wanted for questioning in McCann's disappearance and death.
Warner told sheriff's investigators that he and Contreras walked McCann deep into the woods, with tape over McCann's mouth and his hands bound behind his back, according to Warner's arrest report. Contreras then "forced" Warner to shoot McCann in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun, the report states.
King's arrest report states that "King admitted to binding Cody McCann with tape."
The sheriff's office hasn't released details on how McCann's body was found.
The victim's mother, Brenda McCann, reported her son missing from their Landmark house late Tuesday night. She said he was last seen in the Landmark area Jan. 10, wearing a black, hooded sweatshirt; a white and red long-sleeved T-shirt with a Razorback logo; bluejeans; and gray tennis shoes, police reported.
Stacy McCann said a sheriff's investigator told the family early Saturday morning that Cody McCann's body had been found.
"Is it driving me insane? Absolutely," Stacy McCann said. "I know that he is truly missed already. I haven't slept in six days. I've been looking out the front room window, seeing if my son is going to walk up here. It ain't going to happen. It's not going to happen now because they took my son."
On Saturday afternoon, family members and friends stood in the front yard of the McCanns' home and remembered Cody McCann, especially his love of working on automobiles.
"Cody was a very level-headed young man," said Cody McCann's brother, Lee Chadwick, who lives south of Vilonia. "He believed in working hard and trying to make an honest dollar. Cody loved working on cars. Automotive work was his life. He would buy old clunker cars just to learn how to tear them apart and put them back together again. If it could burn tires, he was into it."
Chadwick said his younger brother, who had been working at O'Reilly Auto Parts in Landmark for about six months, first started working on lawnmowers and motors at the age of 8. Chadwick said Cody McCann had plans to go to automotive school.
Chadwick hadn't seen Cody McCann since Christmas, but he and his fiancee made a trip to Landmark to visit family last week. It wasn't until arriving that Chadwick was told his brother was missing.
"We came over here [Monday], and my dad met me at the front door and said, 'Have you seen Cody?'" Chadwick said. "I said, 'No, I came over here to see him.' My dad said, 'He's been missing since Saturday.' I had a gut feeling something bad had happened. It's not like my brother to not come home at least for a cigarette or check in with his momma."
The next several days were spent searching for Cody McCann. "We were just walking around, searching, spotlighting," Chadwick said. "Everywhere we could think that my brother might be. Then we were told he was thrown in Lorance Creek, and we even searched there."
Chadwick said he was familiar with the names of the people arrested, but he didn't know them personally.
"I don't hang around with people like that," he said. "[Cody] had a lot of friends who were bad influences. I told him to stay away, but he was 18 at the time. He was like, 'It's my life.' I tried to protect my brother as much as I could."
Less than 12 hours after being told his brother was dead, Chadwick was still coming to grips with the news.
"Cody wouldn't hurt nobody," he said. "He would give you the shirt off his back. He would go without just so somebody else could have something. That's the type of guy he was. It's a shock to all of us."
Metro on 01/18/2015