Joe Kennedy was arrested in Florida on Tuesday and will be extradited to Oklahoma, authorities said.
A person of interest in the Oklahoma case of four men whose dismembered remains were found in a river has been arrested in Florida, authorities said.
Joe Kennedy, the owner of a scrapyard that the victims had visited, was arrested Tuesday in Daytona Beach Shores in a vehicle that had been reported stolen, announced Oklahoma's Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice.
Kennedy is being held at the Volusia County Jail on one charge of automobile grand theft and one count of being a fugitive from justice, according to online records.
Prentice said Kennedy was allegedly driving a car reported stolen to Okmulgee police on Monday. An arrest warrant for Kennedy was also issued Monday in connection with an unrelated 2012 case, Prentice said.
"The district attorney and the sheriff will begin the process of getting Kennedy back to Okmulgee County," Prentice said Tuesday in a statement. "The murder investigation is ongoing and investigators continue to follow leads every day. Additional information will be relayed when it is available."
The four victims, all friends, were last seen Oct. 9 at 8 p.m. when they rode off on bicycles from one of their homes, police said. Relatives reported them missing the next day after calls to their cellphones went straight to voicemail, according to the sheriff.
On Monday, Prentice held a press conference to announce that dismembered remains removed from a river belonged to the four missing men. He also announced police were searching for a person of interest who had since disappeared and "may be suicidal."
Later that day, Kennedy's blue PT Cruiser was found abandoned in the nearby small town of Morris, the chief said.
"I've worked over 80 murders in my career ... but this case involves the highest number of victims and it's a very violent event," Prentice said at Monday's press conference.
The sheriff said evidence collected by investigators showed the four men had "planned to commit some kind of criminal act" on the night they disappeared.
A witness told investigators the men had boasted they were going to "hit a lick big enough for all of them," Prentice said.
The witness had been invited to join the men but didn't go, the police chief said. Investigators don't know what the men were planning, or where, Prentice said.
Kennedy was named a person of interest because he owned a scrapyard adjacent to the murder scene, Prentice said.
He had been questioned Friday and denied knowing the four men, the chief said.
The victims were identified as Mark Chastain, 32, Billy Chastain, 30, Mike Sparks, 32, and Alex Stevens, 29.
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