Oklahoma quadruple-murder suspect extradited from Florida

The Oklahoma scrapyard owner who police say is a “person of interest” in the shooting and dismemberment of four men in mid-October has been extradited from Florida, where he was arrested in a stolen vehicle days after the slayings.

Joseph Kennedy, 67, was being held on $500,000 bond in Okmulgee in connection with prior charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Kennedy allegedly stole an employee’s car from his scrapyard and fled the state in October after four friends, Mark Chastain, 32; Billy Chastain, 30; Mike Sparks, 32; and Alex Stevens, 29, were shot to death, chopped up and dumped in the Deep Fork River. The group had gone out on bicycles to do a “lick” – or commit a crime – before they went missing on Oct. 9, according to Okmulgee police.

A passerby spotted their butchered remains in shallow water days later, and police said they found “evidence of a violent event” on a lot next to Kennedy’s.

Florida police caught up with Kennedy in Daytona Beach more than a week later, after he had been reported missing and was said to have been suicidal. The day after his arrest, his wife filed for a divorce.

Robert Seacat, an attorney for the slain men’s families, said last month that Kennedy shot another man in the back at the same scrapyard in 2012. Oklahoma court records show Robert Skinner, who was convicted of burglary in the same incident, survived his injuries. But he maintained that he was not on Kennedy’s property at the time of the shooting, and the scrapyard owner was given a deferred sentence.

“I think there’s a whole lot of information that police know that they haven’t released yet,” Seacat said. “What we know is that he’s done this before.” The Chastains, Sparks, and Stevens “were obviously on or near his property,” Seacat said. But the evidence of violence, he noted, was next door.

“Then he goes missing within a couple days, and it turns out he stole a vehicle from an employee at his scrapyard, so he was arrested in a stolen vehicle in Daytona, Florida,” he said. “If he was within the rights of what he did, he would’ve called police. I don’t think that we’re going to find that there was a 911 call or any attempt to call law enforcement.”