Bodies Of Alabama Men Still Missing In Butte County Double Killings; Law Professor Talks Likeliness Of Conviction

BUTTE COUNTY (CBS13) – Murder charges were filed against 2 Butte County men aft 2 Alabama men went missing successful California past month.

The bodies of the victims — Ladexter Pelt, 25, and John Dubose, 20 — person not yet been found.

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But however tin execution charges beryllium filed without a body? And however apt is simply a conviction?

UC Hastings Law Professor John Myers says it’s uncommon but not impossible.

“There has to beryllium grounds beyond a tenable uncertainty that the idiosyncratic is dormant and that the suspect killed them, but you don’t person to person a body,” Myers told CBS13.

He explained that without a body, the lawsuit has to beryllium airtight.

“There’s nary question that if you bash not person a body, that it’s much hard to beryllium beyond a tenable uncertainty that a execution has occurred,” helium said. “You can’t person an autopsy, you don’t person an evident victim, you don’t person wounds.”

Investigators volition person to trust connected transgression country grounds and perchance cellphones to find charges.

Alabama residents Pelt and Dubose vanished successful aboriginal November aft traveling to California.

Their acrophobic families called the Gridley Police Department successful Butte County to study their loved ones missing. Investigators began their search, piecing unneurotic a timeline of events.

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That began connected November 4 astatine the Sacramento International Airport wherever John Dubose and Ladexter Pelt were past seen.

On November 8, Dubose’s cellphone was discovered successful the Sutter Bypass Wildlife Area.

“Then they’ll find retired what’s connected that phone,” Myers said. “That’s often a golden excavation of evidence.”

One time later, Pelt’s cellphone supplier led investigators to the Wyndham Hotel successful Sacramento.

By November 13, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office determined Pelt and Dubose were murdered astatine a location successful the Gridley area.

The pursuing day, Ricardo Banuelos-Villarreal, 30, and Alfredo Banuelos-Villarreal, 35, some of Gridley, had apprehension warrants retired for execution charges.

See photos of some men below.

Ricardo was arrested successful Yuba City and is being held successful the Butte County Jail. Alfredo is inactive missing.

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Butte County sheriff’s deputies are asking anyone who knows of the whereabouts of Alfredo oregon a 2008 Nissan Altima with a California licence sheet fig 6VAR204 to interaction them immediately.

Laura Haefeli