Oklahoma man tied to dismembered bodies case arrested in Florida

An Oklahoma scrapyard owner considered a person of interest in the murders of four men whose dismembered bodies were found in a river was arrested on Tuesday, police said.

Joe Kennedy was taken into custody in a stolen vehicle in Daytona Beach Shores, Florida, the Okmulgee, Oklahoma, police department said in a Facebook post.

Kennedy is a person of interest in the quadruple murder, according to police, but has not been charged in connection with the case.

Police said he was being held on $500,000 bond for an unrelated 2012 shooting and they were arranging for his transfer back to Oklahoma.

The dismembered bodies of four men were found in a river on Friday in Okmulgee, a town of around 12,000 people in Oklahoma. They had been shot.

They were identified as Mark and Billy Chastain, 32 and 30, Mike Sparks, 32, and Alex Stevens, 29.

The four friends disappeared on October 9 after having left the home of one of them by bicycle, sparking a large search.

According to the Okmulgee police chief, Joe Prentice, the four men had been planning "to commit some type of criminal act" at the time of their disappearance.

"We do not know what they planned or where they planned to do it," Prentice said.

© Agence France-Presse