EVERETT — Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives have found two bodies buried in a remote gravesite a few miles from where a missing Oso couple’s vehicles were located last month.
The remains are believed to be those of Patrick Shunn and Monique Patenaude, who were last seen alive April 11. The Snohomish County medical examiner is expected to confirm the identities once examinations are complete. The cause of the death remains under investigation.
Suspect Tony Clyde Reed provided detectives with the location of the burial site, Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Shari Ireton said Tuesday.
The bodies were found just a few miles north of the missing couple’s home in a clearcut area that searchers had been through in previous weeks. The site, however, hadn’t been the primary focus of their exhaustive search efforts. Investigators Tuesday were excavating the gravesite and surrounding area, combing for evidence.
“It’s a remote area,” Ireton said. “It’s akin to finding a needle in a haystack.”
Since the couple’s disappearance, the priority has been to locate Shunn and Patenaude, she added. Snohomish County Search and Rescue and trained volunteers from other groups spent thousands of hours scouring the rough terrain for signs of the pair.
Some 60 people gathered late last month at the Oso Fire Station to remember Shunn and Patenaude, including their families, who came from Canada and Oregon after the couple was reported missing. The mourners remembered a loving couple who spent a lot of time outdoors. Shunn, 45, was a former Army Ranger with a dry wit, and Patenaude, 46, was an animal lover whose home-cooked meals were legendary among her many friends.
Investigators believe their former neighbor, John Blaine Reed, was responsible for killing the couple, likely over a boiling feud that seemed to worsen after the 2014 Oso mudslide.
“We’re comfortable saying that the evidence shows that John is the individual that had the animus toward Patrick and Monique and the motive,” Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Craig Matheson said Tuesday.
John Reed, 53, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He remains wanted on a $5 million arrest warrant and is believed to be in Mexico.
He and his younger brother fled south of the border shortly after Shunn and Patenaude were reported missing.
Tony Reed surrendered last week on the U.S.-Mexico border and was booked into the county jail late Friday. The 49-year-old Ellensburg man met with his attorney Saturday. James Kirkham said Monday that his client is innocent of murder charges.
Reed surrendered to defend himself against the allegations, Kirkham said.
As expected, Reed pleaded not guilty Tuesday to two counts of first-degree murder and unlawful gun possession. Superior Court Judge Bruce Weiss scheduled trial for July 15. Reed remains held on $5 million bail.
Matheson said it’s too early to talk about whether charges against Tony Reed could be amended. The investigation is ongoing, he added.
“Our main goal has been to find Patrick and Monique. Secondly, we want to get the charges right,” Matheson said.
The recovery of the victims hopefully will provide investigators a definitive cause and manner of death, he said.
As part of Tuesday’s hearing, the judge said Tony Reed can have contact with his parents so long as the family does not discuss the case.
Investigators had searched his parents’ Ellensburg home and had frozen the couple’s bank accounts after evidence showed that brothers had fled east of the mountains and handed out cashier’s checks to relatives before heading to Arizona and Mexico.
Their mother told detectives that her sons wouldn’t be taken alive, according to court papers. She said if she saw her sons first, she would shoot them herself rather than see them go to prison, detectives wrote in search warrants.
She and her husband denied knowing where to find their sons.
Tony Reed wouldn’t talk about where his brother might be, officials said Tuesday.
John Reed used to live next to Shunn and Patenaude until selling his land to the county as a result of the Oso mudslide that killed 43 people. Shunn and Patenaude declined to take the buyout, keeping their home off Whitman Road.
John Reed reportedly was extremely upset after the county confronted him about squatting on his former property. He had been told to remove his personal items.
Patenaude had told friends that she feared John Reed, who she said often acted crazy and aggressive, according to court papers. There had been bad blood between the neighbors for some time.
John Reed was convicted last year of illegal wood debris collection after the couple reported that he was driving heavy equipment into the Stillaguamish River and moving around fallen logs and stumps to prevent his property from flooding.
Shunn had reported to sheriff’s deputies in 2013 that Reed threatened him and his wife over brush being cut between their properties. Shunn told deputies that Reed threatened to shoot or assault the couple if they didn’t leave him alone.
In their search for Shunn and Patenaude investigators found a significant amount of blood in John Reed’s pickup truck and around his former property. They also found blood in the missing Oso couple’s vehicles, which were discovered down an embankment and covered by branches.
Detectives also recovered guns and ammunition.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @dianahefley.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
