The Oklahoma junkyard owner, who police say is a “person of interest” in the mid-October shooting and dismemberment of four men, has been extradited from Florida, where he was arrested in a stolen vehicle days after the slayings. .
Joseph Kennedy, 67, appears in a new booking photo after his return to Okmulgee on Saturday.
He was being held on $500,000 bond in Okmulgee in connection with prior charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
Kennedy allegedly stole an employee’s car from his junkyard and fled the state in October after four friends, Mark Chastain, 32; Billy Chastain, 30; Mike Sparks, 32; and Alex Stevens, 29, were shot to death, hacked to pieces, and dumped in the Deep Fork River. The group had been out on their bikes to “lick” or commit a crime before going missing on Oct. 9, according to Okmulgee police.
OKLAHOMA QUADRULE MURDER: WRONGLY DEATH LAWSUIT FILED IN CASE OF 4 FRIENDS DISMEMBERED AND ERASED IN THE RIVER
Joseph Kennedy, 67, right, is a “person of interest” in a quadruple homicide in Okmulgee. The four victims are, clockwise from top left: Alex Stevens, Billy Chastain, Mike Sparks, and Mark Chastain.
(Okmulgee Police, Okmulgee County Detention Center)
OKLAHOMA MURDERS: PERSON OF INTEREST IN DEATH OF 4 FRIENDS ARRESTED IN DAYTONA BEACH
A passerby saw his butchered remains in shallow water days later, and police said they found “evidence of a violent event” in a lot next to Kennedy.
Florida police captured Kennedy in Daytona Beach more than a week later, after he was reported missing and said to be suicidal. The day after his arrest, his wife filed for divorce.
Robert Seacat, a lawyer for the families of the slain men, told Fox News Digital last month that Kennedy shot another man in the back at the same junkyard in 2012.
The police department discovered Kennedy’s blue PT Cruiser behind a business in Morris, Oklahoma, about six miles east of Okmulgee.
(Google Maps)
Oklahoma court records show that Robert Skinner, who was convicted of robbery in the same incident, survived his injuries. But he maintained that he was not on the Kennedy property at the time of the shooting, and the junkyard owner was given deferred adjudication.
“I think there is a lot of information that the police know that they haven’t released yet,” Seacat said. “What we know is that he has done this before.”
The Chastains, Sparks and Stevens “were obviously on or near their property,” Seacat said. But the evidence of violence, he pointed out, was next door.
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“Then he disappears in a couple of days and it turns out that he stole a vehicle from an employee at his junkyard, for which he was arrested in a stolen vehicle in Daytona, Florida,” he said. “If he had a right to what he did, he would have called the police. I don’t think we’re going to find that there was a 911 call or any attempt to call the police.”
