A man’s body has been found inside a missing Everett man’s Jeep after the vehicle was recovered Saturday from a steep ravine near an Oregon campground.
Police have not identified the dead man. An autopsy is expected to be done Monday to confirm his identity and cause of death, Everett Police Sgt. Robert Goetz said.
Red Pedersen, 56, and his Jeep have been missing for more than a week. His wife, Leslie “DeeDee” Pedersen, was discovered slain in their Everett home Sept. 28. The Everett grandmother died of stab wounds.
Red Pedersen’s estranged son, David “Joey” Pedersen, 31, and his Oregon girlfriend, Holly Grigsby, 24, are suspects in the homicide and the Everett man’s disappearance. The couple was arrested in California on Wednesday afternoon.
They also are suspects in the shooting death of an Oregon teenager. Cody Myers, 19, was found Tuesday in a wooded area about 80 miles from where the Jeep was discovered Friday afternoon. Investigators say the Jeep was located over an embankment along a logging road near the Yellowbottom Campground north of Green Peter Lake in Linn County, Ore.
The vehicle was not visible from the road.
Investigators developed information about the Jeep’s whereabouts through their investigation during the last several days, Goetz said. The Jeep is expected to be returned to Everett and processed for evidence.
Joey Pedersen, who has ties to white supremacist groups, has spent most of his adult life in prison. He and his father, a former U.S. Marine, have had very little contact over the years, family said.
Joey Pedersen visited his father for the first time in more than decade this summer. He made another visit with his girlfriend the weekend before DeeDee Pedersen, 69, was killed.
Her daughters, Lori Nemitz and Susan Ellis, met Joey Pedersen for the first time last month.
“We had absolutely nothing to do with these people,” Ellis said. “Red had wanted to reconnect, but they didn’t know him.”
Red and DeeDee Pedersen had been married for about a decade.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
Contribute to memorial fund
Friends of Red and DeeDee Pedersen have set up a memorial fund.
Contributions can be made at any branch of Bank of America to the “Red and DeeDee Pedersen Charitable Fund.”
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