Annnd the original article.. k I'm done!
http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2007/09/14/news/top_story/120583.txtA sad turn of events
One man in custody for body found Wednesday, police looking for another
By Cass Friedman and Jared Hopkins
Times-News writers
It was a shocking crime in a quiet neighborhood - a body of a man found stuffed in a barrel on Morningside Drive late Wednesday night.
As Twin Falls authorities search for one man wanted for questioning and the city tries to make sense of the violence, the grieving loved-ones of the victim were hard-pressed Thursday to express the loss of 18-year-old Dale Miller.
"He was a good kid," said Keith Thomas, the fiance of Miller's mother, Kay Miller.
"He just got caught up with a bad crowd," Thomas said as Miller sobbed in the background at her son's apartment.
How Dale Miller came to be part of that crowd was unclear in the hours after the discovery of his body in the garage of an apartment building at 322 Morningside Drive.
Authorities have said little about the investigation, but Wednesday night they arrested John Henry McElhiney, 31, recently of Hailey, and are still searching for Cameron Watts, 29, of Gooding.
McElhiney was formally charged Thursday with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court. He remains in the county jail without possibility of bond.
A convicted felon, McElhiney seemed to be putting his life back on track. He was working and attending the Hailey Baptist Church until a month ago, when he simply disappeared. He left behind a pile of bad debts, prompting someone to file a missing person's report.
About three weeks ago, McElhiney met Rachel Madrid, a 26-year-old unemployed mother of two, through some friends. He soon moved into her apartment at 322 Morningside Drive, said her sister, Rebecca Rodriqguez, who lives nearby.
Madrid is described by her family and by authorities as a drug addict with a long arrest record. Well before McElhiney moved in, her apartment was often the center of all-night parties and dubious activity, said upstairs neighbor Jessica Starr.
The flow of strangers through the apartment was a sore spot in the otherwise quiet residential neighborhood.
"All I know is that at night there'd be a lot of traffic," said Michael Birdsong, who lives across Morningside Drive from the apartment. "There's a cop living at the end of the street. I don't know why they weren't looking into it."
Madrid was on probation following a 2004 conviction for felony grand theft and felony possession of a controlled substance. A married couple living upstairs from her had sought to quell the unwelcome disturbance. They felt certain it was drug-related.
"We'd made at least five calls (to her probation officer)," said Jake Starr, an upstairs neighbor and one of the first people to discover Miller's body. "That's the thing that bothers me most; this whole thing could have been avoided."
Dawn Anderson, who manages 5th District Probation and Parole, confirmed Madrid's probation officer had fielded several calls alleging criminal activity in Madrid's apartment.
But neighbors said their calls appeared to make no difference.
Then, on Wednesday evening, police arrived to arrest Madrid for allegedly violating her probation. A few hours later, they returned to arrest McElhiney, also for a probation violation stemming from a felony car theft conviction in the mid-1990s.
After police left, Rodriqguez and some neighbors entered Madrid's garage to move a red Pontiac Grand Prix. They immediately detected a stench.
"They (neighbors) opened the trunk and the first thing I noticed was there was blood all over there," Rodriqguez said. Then someone removed the top of a barrel and discovered Miller's body, pushed in head-first. His feet were bound with bailing twine.
The Twin Falls County Prosecutor declined to say why only McElhiney has been charged or to say why police have declared Cameron Watts as a person of interest. Madrid remains in custody, but only on the probation violation. Her children, ages 5 and 7 are now with her former husband.
Cameron Watt's father, Bob Watts, owner of Jerome Bowling Center, declined comment when asked about his son Thursday.
How Watts, Madrid, Miller and McElhiney came together is unknown, although it appears that McElhiney's life began to unravel over the summer.
In June, McElhiney's second wife, Joy, left him after living with him for less than a year in Hailey, said his father Roger McElhiney, who lives in Oregon.
"Joy told me he had a drug problem," Roger McElhiney said, adding that he had thought those problems were in his son's past.
Ten months ago, McElhiney rented a home in Hailey from Doug Niedrich. He held several jobs around the town - at the Sawtooth Animal Center, at Sawtooth Auto Sales and at ColorTyme, a furniture rental company. People at all three businesses described him as an amicable employee.
In December, however, he stopped working after he crashed a ColorTyme company truck in Gooding County.
"He said he had a knee injury," said ColorTyme management trainee Tami Lloyd. "We didn't know if it was fake or if it was real."
McElhiney struggled to make ends meet and was $5,000 behind on his rent, Niedrich said.
"I kept buying into his stories about how and when he was going to pay me," Niedrich said. "Generally speaking he had a very intimidating attitude."
On Aug. 5, the state police listed him as a missing person. When ColorTyme employees went to his home to recover furniture he had rented they found all of his possessions left in place.
His disappearance was puzzling even to close family.
"We talked almost daily," said his sister, Erica McElhiney. "I talked to him one Saturday and then I didn't hear back from him. He didn't text. He did nothing. That's when I found out that he was missing.
"I hadn't heard anything until today," she said after seeing his picture posted online Thursday. "He didn't even look like him. He looks old."
As police crime scene investigators processed the apartment and garage Thursday, neighbors watched and talked of the grisly find the night before.
Rodriqguez described a conversation between her own mother and Madrid's five-year-old son.
"He was telling my mom, 'I know why the cops are here,' and she was like, 'why are the cops here?' and he says, 'because there's a dead body in the garage.'"
