Idaho prosecutors are submitting homicide costs 4 years after the disappearance of a Fruitland 5-year-old who’s believed to have been kidnapped and killed in his personal neighborhood.
“My workplace is shifting ahead with costs towards the people concerned within the disappearance and homicide of 5-year-old Michael Vaughan, which occurred in the summertime of 2021,” Payette County Prosecutor Michael Duke stated in a press release late Friday morning.
He stopped wanting explaining who or what number of suspects had been being charged, and a lady who answered his workplace telephone stated she couldn’t share something past Duke’s assertion.
Nevertheless, a felon who had beforehand been suspected within the case and lived close to the sufferer when he vanished has been named in an arrest warrant, in response to KTVB-7, a neighborhood outlet.
Stacey Wondra, 33, will reportedly be charged with first-degree homicide, second-degree kidnapping and destruction of proof, the outlet reported, citing an interview with a neighborhood legislation enforcement supply.
The county sheriff’s workplace declined to remark. Fruitland Police Chief JD Huff deferred all inquiries to the prosecutor’s workplace.
Wondra and his spouse, Sarah Wondra, 38, had been each arrested on lesser costs in 2022 in reference to the investigation into Michael’s disappearance.
Her costs of failing to report a dying had been dropped, and he was despatched to federal jail in Arizona for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Stacey Wondra, whose sentence ended Thursday, had petitioned a federal decide for early launch in a handwritten movement filed on Oct. 7, claiming that he “has demonstrated exceptionally good conduct whereas incarcerated.” He’s reportedly anticipated to be extradited again to Idaho.
Police had named the Wondras together with two different potential suspects again in 2022.
She can be being held in an Idaho jail for an unrelated assault case.
Sarah Wondra beforehand drew scrutiny with social media posts in regards to the case, a few of which confirmed her standing in entrance of a lacking individual flyer about Michael’s case.
Extra not too long ago, police launched bodycam video exhibiting Stacey Wondra blaming his spouse for the crime when police had been looking their property, in response to KIVI-TV.
Duke stated that whereas prosecutors had hoped to search out Michael’s stays earlier than upgrading the costs, he was shifting ahead with the case partially to cut back additional hurt to the sufferer’s household.
Michael’s mom, Brandi Vaughan, praised Fruitland police and Duke’s workplace in response to the information.
“Your sheer dedication and power throughout this entire course of as of in the present day has been nothing wanting unimaginable,” she wrote on Fb, together with a replica of Duke’s assertion.
Fruitland police didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Michael disappeared from his household residence in July 2021.
The Wondra and Vaughan households lived inside a couple of minutes by foot, Fox Information Digital reported beforehand, and police and volunteer Okay-9 items had searched a whole bunch of acres within the space, together with round Wondra’s residence.
Fruitland police had additionally beforehand floated two different names as potential suspects within the case, Adrien Lucienne and Brandon Shurtliff.
“The costs are solely potential on account of Fruitland [Police Department]’s unyielding tenacity and perseverance,” Duke stated in his assertion. “They haven’t ceased to work the case for the reason that crime occurred, and they’re persevering with to go looking and examine to allow them to deliver Michael’s physique residence.”
Anybody with data within the case is requested to electronic mail findmichael@fruitland.org or contact the Fruitland Police Division at (208) 452-3110.
