Boy, 9, Is 4th Member of Family Found Dead

Mom's boyfriend told cops where body was
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 1, 2017 8:39 AM CDT
Boy, 9, Is 4th Member of Family Found Dead
Reilly Scarbrough.   (Polk County Sheriff's Office)

The search for two missing children in western Arkansas came to a grim end Saturday with the discovery of 9-year-old Reilly Scarbrough's body in a wooded area. The body of the boy's 2-year-old sister, Acelynn Wester, was found a day earlier near the creek where her mother, 43-year-old Bethany Wester, was found dead on Tuesday, CBS News reports. A fourth family member, Steven Payne, was found dead in his home in Hatfield, Ark., early Thursday. The 66-year-old was Bethany Wester's uncle. The body of Reilly, who was reported missing on Saturday, April 22, was found with the help of Brian Travis, who has been in jail since last week on unrelated drug paraphernalia charges, KSLA reports.

Travis, 37, was the mother's boyfriend and was not related to the children. Polk County Sheriff Scott Sawyer, who told reporters Friday that they were still hoping to find Reilly alive, says Travis is expected to face capital murder charges in connection to all four deaths. Further details have not been released. Wester and her children lived in the small town of Mena. "I couldn't hardly talk about it with anybody without tearing up," Mena Mayor George McKee tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "Here we don't have things like that, we just really don't," he says. "It just blows our mind. It blows our mind and tears our heart out." (More child murder stories.)

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