The woman arrested in connection with body parts found in garbage bags on the side of a Michigan highway is now believed to be the mother of the victim, police said Sunday.
Evidence and tips from the public have led police to the conclusion that the 59-year-old woman who reported her 32-year-old son missing on Sunday, Jan. 26 is the same woman who dumped his remains on the side of a St. Clair, Mich., highway on Thursday, said St. Clair Shores Police Department Sgt. Jay Cohoe.
The woman was arrested Saturday and in custody at St. Clair Shores Police Department awaiting arraignment, according to a St. Clair Shores Police Department statement.
After a Friday autopsy, fingerprints taken from the dismembered man were sent to the FBI, who determined they matched prints of the man who was reported missing a week earlier. The prints had been obtained while he was alive for unspecified reasons, authorities said.
The identities of the victim and his mother have not been released.
A Michigan resident first reported a “suspicious incident” on Thursday when she saw a woman throwing garbage bags out of her SUV on a highway and adjoining road in rural Michigan and discovered body parts inside of the bags, said St. Clair County Sheriff Tim Donnellon.
She was “upset about it, checked the bag and discovered what they thought looked like human remains,” said St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Steve Campau.
When deputies arrived at the scene, they spoke with a second woman who told them the bags were tossed by a “heavy-set middle aged white female” from a mid-1990s-model white SUV, Donnellon said.
Investigators also recovered a bag filled with clothing and burnt documents that they believed belonged to the victim because they were found near the bags of remains, Campau said.
“We are treating this incident as a homicide,” Donnellon said Thursday.