PIC: Salvage yard owner named as ‘person of interest’ in murder and decapitation of four OK men
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A salvage company owner has been charged with the murder and beheading of three of the four men found in a river in Oklahoma.
Joseph Kennedy, 67, was arrested in Florida and named as a person of interest in the murders of Mark Chastain, 32, and Billy Chastain, 30, and Mike Sparks, 32.
Another man, Alex Stevens, 29, was found dead with them in Deep Fork River, but the wrongful death lawsuit was filed by only three families.
The families of the three men have also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Kennedy and his wife Sandra, though they do not allege that Sandra did anything wrong.
“I have no information whatsoever that she has any involvement or complicity in the murders themselves.” their attorney Robert Seacat told: Fox 23. “The only reason she’s been listed as a defendant was to get a personal license over her so that the ban could be directed against her as well.”
Steven’s mother Teresa told DailyMail.com exclusively last week that her son and his friends were “shot several times first” before “cutting their waists in half.”
The men, who were last seen on their motorcycle on Oct. 9, allegedly planned to commit a crime, police said.
Kennedy mysteriously disappeared after their deaths, before being found in a stolen car and arrested in Florida on October 19.
Joseph Kennedy, 67, was arrested in Florida and named as a person of interest in the murder of four men. Three of the men’s four families have filed culpable homicide lawsuits against him and his wife Sandra, asking $75,000 per victim
Mark, 32, (left) and Billy Chastain, 30, (right) and Mike Sparks, 32, and Alex Stevens, 29, are said to have been murdered and cut in half on October 9.
The police suspect that they committed a crime that night, but it is not known whether Kennedy was the target. Kennedy has not been charged as he is not an official suspect, but police said there is “evidence of a violent crime” in his property.
The men were found in Deep Fork River (pictured) on Oct. 9. Their bodies were found with multiple gunshot wounds and reportedly cut in the waist.
“These are, in my opinion, the actions of someone with a guilty mind who knows they have committed a crime and they try to avoid it,” Seacat told the outlet.
Sandra filed for divorce the same day.
The lawsuit allowed the families to file a temporary injunction against her, prohibiting her from liquidating Kennedy’s assets.
The original petition—now amended—claimed that Sandra sold numerous guns to a pawn shop and was one of the victims. Law enforcement has since refuted that claim.
Blaine Frierson, Sandra’s attorney, has “firmly denied all allegations in the petition” and said he “does not believe the ban is appropriate.”
“She owns half of the companies and she continues them in day-to-day operations,” he told Fox 23.
The petition seeks $75,000 in damages per plaintiff.
Despite Sandra pleading innocence, Seacat says there is “a lot of circumstantial evidence” pointing to Kennedy as the perpetrator and “causing the deaths of these individuals.”
The petition claimed Kennedy “deliberately” caused their deaths. GPS records were able to track one of the men’s phones to two separate Kennedy-owned salvage yards in Okmulgee.
Police Chief Joe Prentice said: “From what we’ve gathered so far, the four men left Billy’s home on 6th Street on October 9 at about 5:30 p.m. on their bicycles and went to an area near a salvage yard on 20th St. a mile away. Joe Kennedy owns the salvage yard.”
He said one of the men’s cell phones “pinged” the location several times around the 20th Street salvage yard.
The phone pinged at that location until about 7:55 p.m., then the phone pinged at another location about six miles away at another Kennedy-owned salvage yard, a little after 8 p.m. that same night.
Teresa Stevens (pictured) revealed that her son and his three friends were “first shot multiple times, cut in half in the waist” and then thrown into a river, in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com
The phone pinged for several minutes and then went silent, “either the battery was dead, it was tuned, or the phone was destroyed.”
Prentice said “ping” from the GPS location near the 20th Street salvage yard, police later uncovered “evidence of a violent crime,” but gave no further details.
No evidence of a crime was found at the other salvage location.
No charges have been filed against Kennedy as he has not yet been named an official suspect.
Kennedy has denied knowing the victims.
Steven’s mother told DailyMail.com that she is having a hard time processing the terrible news. She said that not only did she need to learn that her son had been murdered, but that it was too much to hear that his body had been cut in half.
“You read about it on the news, about what they did to my son and his friends,” she said.
‘Chopping a body is half, that’s what the drug cartels do to the dead. Whoever did this clearly wanted to send a message.’
Teresa, who works at the same local health facility where Stevens was a dietitian, said she last saw him on Sunday, Oct. 9, when he went to visit friends.
The crime took place in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, on October 9.
She reported that her son went missing around midnight the next day after failing to show up for work.
“My son never misses work and he had to work at 11pm that Sunday. He doesn’t have a car, so I’m taking him to work.
“When he didn’t show up on Sunday night to take him to work, I got worried.
“A few hours later, I went to the Okmulgee Police Department and reported him missing.”
Teresa said Stevens didn’t have his cell phone with him because he “run out of minutes,” but did bring his backpack and wallet with him.
Kennedy is serving probation after pleading guilty in 2012 to assault and assault with a deadly weapon, The Oklahoman reports.
He told the sheriff’s officers how he caught six alleged burglars at one of his salvage yards and shot one of them. The others fled.