| Advertisement |
Oct. 18 (UPI) -- A man taken into custody in Florida is a person of interest in the slayings and dismembering of four cyclists in Oklahoma last week, police confirmed Tuesday. Joseph Kennedy, 67, was arrested Tuesday morning in Daytona Beach Shores, Fla., while in possession of a stolen vehicle, the Okmulgee Police Department said in a Facebook post.
Advertisement
The arrest happened some 1,200 miles away from the scene of the crime.
"The district attorney and the sheriff will begin the process of getting Kennedy back to Okmulgee County. The murder investigation is ongoing and investigators continue to follow leads every day," the department said in the post.
Kennedy has not formally been named a suspect, and police have not said why he is a person of interest in the killings of four men whose dismembered bodies were found in a river 40 miles south of Tulsa, Okla.
One report suggested that Kennedy may be the owner of scrap and salvage yards south of Okmulgee that also are of interest to police.
Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice told reporters Monday that a tipster said that the four men had "planned to commit a crime" before they were "violently" murdered at a nearby scrap yard.
Investigators do not know what their specific plan was or if it had anything to do with their murder.
On Monday, police confirmed the search for the four missing men who had been bicycling in rural Oklahoma, had turned into a murder investigation, after positively identifying the bodies of Mark Chastian, 32; Billy Chastain, 30; Mike Sparks, 32; and Alex Stevens, 29.
The four friends were reported missing by relatives last week after they were last seen riding their bikes on Oct. 9.
Investigators have not found the bikes or the gun used in the killings.
Police found Kennedy's abandoned PT Cruiser on Monday in Morris, Okla.
Kennedy was arrested when police checked the license plate of the car he was driving, which came back stolen. That vehicle was reported stolen to the Okmulgee County Sheriff's Office on Oct. 17.
He was taken into custody without incident and did not speak to the arresting officers.
Kennedy is being held on a $500,000 bond. He also faces a separate warrant related to a 2012 shooting in Oklahoma.
