BATTLE CREEK, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – Battle Creek Police say they have found the bodies of a couple who had been missing for over a week and a murder suspect is now in custody.
34-year-old Joseph Soule and 31-year-old Jaclyn Lepird of Battle Creek were last seen Wednesday, October 7th, but very little details about their disappearances were known at the time. The missing persons report was filed with police the following Monday.
“It was later the next day, Tuesday, October 13th, that as the information was coming in it looked like it may be more than just a typical missing person, it looked like there may have been some suspicious conditions to the missing person,” Detective Sergeant Joel Case said during a press briefing on Thursday.
Case explained that the two were living with their landlord at an apartment on Post Avenue in Battle Creek and had an “ongoing dispute.”
Around noon on Thursday, the landlord, 53-year-old Chad Reed, confessed to the murders, turned himself in, and told police that he hid their bodies.
Reed claims that a verbal altercation on Wednesday led up to the killing. It’s reported that Soule pulled out a knife during the incident, Reed responded by pulling out a gun, killed Soule, and then killed Lepird as she was running away.
Case says the bodies were then wrapped in plastic wrap and left in his pickup truck on Post Avenue for several days until Reed moved the truck into an abandoned garage at another house.
Reed is now in the Calhoun County Jail and faces two charges of open murder. The case is still being investigated.
Anyone with more information on this incident should call the Calhoun County Dispatch at 269-781-0911 or Silent Observer 269-964-3888.
