Alleged Killer of Wash. Couple Captured in Mexico

John Reed now in custody in Arizona
By Luke Roney,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 23, 2016 2:25 PM CDT
Alleged Killer of Wash. Couple Captured in Mexico
Tony Reed, left, and John Reed.   (Handout)

After more than three months on the run, the Washington man accused of killing his former neighbors has been arrested. John B. Reed was captured in Mexico on Friday and kicked out of that country for violating its immigration laws, the Seattle Times reports. US Marshals arrested him when he crossed the border in Arizona, where he is now in jail. Reed was captured on the same day a memorial was held for Patrick Shunn, 45, and his wife, 46-year-old Monique Patenaude. “It was a blessing for their family and friends to get some closure,” neighbor Jana Hecla tells the Marysville Globe. The US Marshals had been working with Mexican authorities in Sonora to locate Reed. “We didn’t think he’d be taken alive,” Hecla says.

According to reports, Reed allegedly shot and killed Patenaude on the morning of April 11, and then shot and killed Shunn later in the day. Reed's brother, Tony Reed, allegedly helped dispose of the bodies and the couple's vehicles. Tony Reed, who turned himself in last month after also fleeing to Mexico, has pleaded guilty to rendering criminal assistance, according to the AP. The brothers' elderly parents also face charges connected to allegedly helping their sons flee the country. According to the AP, Shunn and Patenaude lived on a 21-acre property near the rural community of Oso, where a landslide destroyed dozens of houses and killed 43 people in 2014. They shared a driveway with Reed, who at one time threatened to shoot the couple, per an earlier Seattle Times report. In the weeks before the killings, Patenaude reportedly complained to the county that Reed was squatting on the land he had recently sold to the county. (More Washington state stories.)

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