Remains found in Oklahoma identified as 4 missing men; police say they were shot and dismembered - NBC News

Four Oklahoma men who had gone missing portion connected a bicycle thrust were changeable and their dismembered bodies were discarded into a river, constabulary said Monday.

Mark Chastain, 32, Billy Chastain, 30, Mike Sparks, 32, and Alex Stevens, 29, were reported missing past week earlier quality remains were recovered successful a shallow information of the Deep Fork River, Okmulgee Police Chief Joe Prentice said.

The remains were located extracurricular of Okmulgee, which is astir 40 miles southbound of Tulsa.

All 4 were changeable and identifications were slowed due to the fact that their bodies had been dismembered, according to Prentice.

"We judge the men planned to perpetrate immoderate benignant of transgression act," Prentice told reporters. “We bash not cognize what they planned oregon wherever they planned to bash it.”

Investigators basal that content connected a witnesser who had been invited to travel on arsenic the men planned to "hit a lick large capable for each of them,” the main revealed, utilizing slang for a profitable transgression act.

Clockwise from apical left, Mike Sparks, Billy Chastain, Mark Chastain and Alex Stevens.Okmulgee Police Dept.

The probe led constabulary implicit the play to a scrap yard.

"Nothing singular was observed wrong the salvage yard, but grounds of a convulsive lawsuit was discovered connected an adjoining property," Prentice said.

The main named the salvage gait owner, Joe Kennedy, arsenic a "person of interest," who detectives are seeking to interview.

Kennedy was reported missing Saturday nighttime "and whitethorn beryllium suicidal," according to Prentice.

The man's bluish Chrysler PT Cruiser was recovered "abandoned down a concern in" Morris, Oklahoma, constabulary aboriginal said.

"Investigators are looking into however it came to beryllium there," according to a constabulary statement. "Currently we person nary conveyance accusation for Kennedy."

Prentice stopped conscionable abbreviated of calling Kennedy dangerous.

“I don’t person immoderate grounds to bespeak that Mr. Kennedy is simply a menace to anyone else," the main said. "But I would usage caution if anyone sees Mr. Kennedy, delight telephone the section authorities.”

A bulk of the remains were recovered connected Friday but immoderate assemblage parts weren't recovered until Sunday and Monday morning, constabulary said. The men’s bikes person not yet been recovered.

The victims' loved ones had already readied themselves for affirmative identifications, but the gruesome details of the men's deaths stunned them.

"The further accusation astir the dismemberment was evidently a shock," Prentice said. "They were precise distraught."

Prentice promised loved ones that constabulary volition proceed pressing guardant with the aforesaid dedication, adjacent arsenic this has turned from a missing idiosyncratic to a execution investigation.

"We person worked astir the timepiece each week," the main said. "We were retired each play and we volition proceed to enactment astatine the aforesaid pace  that we’ve been moving to effort to find retired precisely what happened to their lives and who did it.”