The autopsies of a Kansas couple found buried in a shallow grave in Crawford County will be conducted in Arkansas even though officials believe the two were killed in Kansas.
Crawford County Sheriff Ron Brown said Thursday that he signed forms for the bodies of Alfred and Pauline Carpenter of Wichita, Kan., to be sent to the state Crime Laboratory for autopsy.
The Carpenters' bodies were found Wednesday in a shallow grave in a dry creek bed on Starr Road off Arkansas 59 in northwest Crawford County.
Crawford County and Van Buren law officers are working with officials from the Police Department in Great Bend, Kan., and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation on the death investigation.
Rusty Fraiser, Micheal Fowler and Kimberly Younger, initially identified as Myrna Khan, were being held without bail Thursday in the Crawford County jail on charges of abuse of a corpse, theft of property and tampering with physical evidence. Formal charges have not been filed.
Brown said he believes the three will be charged with murder in Barton County, Kan., where officials say the Carpenters were killed.
A news release Wednesday from the office of Barton County Attorney Amy Mellor said authorities there initiated an investigation after learning that Arkansas officers were investigating the couple's disappearance from the county fairgrounds west of Great Bend.
Mellor did not return a call Thursday seeking an update on the Kansas investigation.
Van Buren police detective Jonathan Wear said the Carpenters and the three suspects were connected with a carnival and that the Carpenters were killed Friday night or early Saturday morning.
Wear would not say how the couple died, pending results of the autopsy, but said the causes of death were consistent with statements made by the suspects.
The suspects transported the Carpenters' bodies to Van Buren on Saturday in the couple's pickup, which had a camper on the truck bed and pulled a trailer that the couple used at carnivals, Wear said. He said it is believed the bodies were buried Monday in the Ozark National Forest.
Wear said the sheriff's office dispatcher received a call about midnight Tuesday from a woman from another state who said her sister had contacted her and told her that she was being held against her will at an apartment complex in Van Buren and that the three people who were holding her had killed some people from Kansas.
Officers went to the complex and spotted the pickup camper and trailer with Kansas tags. They went to the apartment and took all four people into custody, including the woman who had called her sister, Wear said.
Wear said the four were staying in the apartment of a family member of one of the suspects. The woman who told her sister she was in danger was later released.
Investigators learned about the slayings during interviews of the four people, Wear said. He said the sheriff's office took on the task of recovering the bodies and collecting evidence at that scene while the Van Buren Police Department continued to interview the suspects and collect evidence from the vehicles.
State Desk on 07/20/2018