Fugitive Brothers Charged in Couple's Murder

One had previously threatened the missing pair
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 20, 2016 8:28 AM CDT
Fugitive Brothers Charged in Couple's Murder
Tony Reed, left and John Reed.   (Snohomish County Sheriff Office via AP)

Court documents show that Washington state police have reached the "inescapable conclusion" that missing Arlington couple Patrick Shunn and Monique Patenaude were murdered. Their vehicles, found partly obscured by branches down an embankment in a remote area near Oso on Sunday, showed "obvious blood pooling and smearing, and some blood splatter," reports Q13. "The largest concentration of blood in the vehicles appeared to be in the cargo area, consistent with a body having laid there some amount of time." An ax, rubber gloves, and tarps were also found, reports the Seattle Times. The evidence is enough that brothers John Reed, 53—with whom the couple shared a driveway and had an "ongoing and constant" dispute—and Tony Reed, 49, have been charged with murder, though both remain on the run.

The brothers were last spotted Monday driving a 2002 gold Acura in California near the Mexican border, according to police. Back in 2013, Shunn told police that John Reed threatened "to shoot or assault" the couple after they cut some brush between their properties, an affidavit reads. More recently, Reed became incensed when Patenaude told a county official that he was squatting on his former property, which he had sold to the county, police say. During a 2014 landslide in Oso, however, Shunn and Patenaude "risked everything just to run down and see if (John) was OK," a friend tells Q13, adding it's incomprehensible "to think that he would take their lives." Police say a shell casing was found near a gate between the two properties, while "dried blood" was found around the bathtub of John Reed's former residence. (More Washington state stories.)

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