CORTEZ, Colo. — Montezuma County investigators said Thursday they found dismembered body parts encased in concrete, and they arrested the son of a missing man on suspicion of murder.
Jeremiah Raymond Berry, 20, is being held under $500,000 bail, Sheriff Gerald Wallace said. It wasn't know whether Berry had an attorney.
Wallace said other relatives reported Berry's father, 42-year-old Jack Berry, had not been seen for a couple months. He said investigators were awaiting laboratory tests to determine whether the dismembered body is the elder Berry's.
"The last thing we want to do is name the victim and then have him show up alive and well,'' Wallace said.
"It's not like your normal homicide where you have a body lying there, and you can identify him,'' he said. "There were some body parts in two buckets of concrete.''
He said remains were found in three places, including the Berry family home south of Cortez.
Wallace said parts of the body were still missing. Investigators were searching with the help of a dog trained to find cadavers.
Wallace said a CT scan done at a hospital found the body parts in the concrete-filled buckets.
The investigation began Monday after the Arizona Department of Public Safety relayed a missing-person report about Jack Berry to Colorado officials. It was not immediately clear who originated the report and why it came from Arizona.
Jeremiah Berry was identified first as a person of interest and then as a suspect after investigators interviewed him on Tuesday, Wallace said.
The sheriff said the younger Berry helped investigators with the search.
Cortez is about 250 miles southwest of Denver.
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