Cops: Body found in container in search for missing millionaire
BREMERTON, Wash. --Kitsap County, Wash. sheriff's detectives investigating the disappearance and robbery of an 89-year-old millionaire say it's now a murder case.
The Kitsap County Coroner's Office was searching Thursday for relatives of an elderly man found dead in a container Wednesday behind a home in north Mason County.
Kitsap County Sheriff's Deputy Scott Wilson said Wednesday detectives believe the body is related to the disappearance of Robert Archie Hood. The Seattle Times reports Hood is a millionaire. He was reportedly last seen by his caretaker and friend Candy Gratton at his home in the Seattle suburb of Silverdale Dec. 16.
Investigators believe Hood was killed around Dec. 17 and that his body was disposed of in an attempt to cover up a robbery.
Kitsap County prosecutors Thursday charged Robert Pry, 29, with first-degree murder in addition to previous charges. Six others have also been charged in the case.
Robert Lavalle Davis was charged Thursday with robbery and rendering criminal assistance. Another one of the men charged, Arnold Mafnas Cruz, was arrested early Friday after a search and also charged with rendering criminal assistance, reports CBS affiliate KIRO.
Kitsap County sheriff's spokesman Scott Wilson told the Seattle Times that "criminal intelligence" led investigators to the Mason County location where the body was found, about 30 miles southwest of Hood's home.
According to charging documents obtained by the paper, police believe Pry, 29, and another man, Joshua Owen Rogers Jones, 26, beat, tied up and robbed Hood. Jones is reportedly charged with first-degree robbery and committing the crime with a firearm.
Police allege three women -- Pry's girlfriend, 19-year-old Ocean Wilson, Rogers Jones' girlfriend, Miranda Bond, 25, and a 33-year-old friend, Alisha Small, helped Pry and Rogers Jones dispose of a car used in the crime and tried to cash forged checks stolen from Hood, according to the paper. The three women have been charged with rendering criminal assistance.
Cruz allegedly helped clean up the trunk of a car used to dispose of the body, reports the paper, citing the court documents. When investigators searched his home, they say they found what appeared to be a freshly dug grave partially covered by a tarp. A cadaver dog reportedly alerted on the tarp, indicating human remains had been in the area, according to the Seattle Times.
Pry and Rogers Jones are both being held on $1 million bail, reports the paper.
Hood's caretaker Candy Gratton told the paper she was close friends with the elderly Hood, a former engineer who never married and had no children.
"He was probably the most intelligent person I've been around," Gratton told the paper. "He never caused anybody any harm. He was just a wonderful, gentle man."