The search for four missing friends in rural Oklahoma has been called off after officials discovered their dismembered bodies in a river on Friday and positively identified them on Monday.
Mark Chastain, 32, Billy Chastain, 30, Mike Sparks, 32, and Alex Stevens, 29, were last seen alive on bicycles, leaving the home of someone in the group on Oct. 9, cops in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, said.
The men’s spouses reported them missing the following evening after their repeated calls went straight to voicemail. They launched a frantic search to no avail, conceding by the end of last week that their loved ones were likely dead.
Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice said Monday that the quartet were “violently” murdered at a nearby scrapyard—shot, dismembered and then dumped into the Deep Fork River, about 40 miles south of Tulsa.
Prentice added that someone told detectives that the slain men “planned to commit a crime” when they left the house on Oct. 9, but investigators don’t know what their specific plan was or whether it had something to do with their murder. The tipster only told police that he was invited to go with the group to “hit a lick big enough for all of them.”
Prentice said a suspect or a potential motive have not been identified.
“Currently, we have more questions than answers,” he said.
Joe Kennedy, the owner of the scrapyard where the men were gunned down, is considered a person of interest in the slayings, but Prentice emphasized that he has not been named a suspect. Kennedy has been missing since Saturday and may be suicidal, Prentice said.
He added that Kennedy didn’t know any of the four men personally, and that their four bicycles remain missing.
“I’ve worked over 80 murders in my career,” he said. “But this case involves the highest number of victims and it’s a very violent event.”
Last week, multiple search parties—some organized by police, some by family—surveyed Okmulgee, a town of 12,000, and a nearby nature preserve to no avail. A breakthrough came around 2 p.m. Friday, when a passerby spotted four bodies partially submerged in the river and called 911.
The discovery blew up any hope the family had that their loved ones may still be alive.
“We’re heartbroken, we’re sad, we’re just, the unknown is what’s getting us,” Jessica Chastain, Mark’s wife, told News On 6 last week.
Jessica and Mark had two young kids together, according to Jessica’s Facebook. Mark’s public Facebook profile had an eerie final post a day before his disappearance, in which the 32-year-old shared a graphic that said, “I'm on my second guardian angel. My first one quit and is now in therapy.”
