By YachatsNews
NEWPORT — Police have arrested a 54-year-old Toledo man and charged him with the murder of a Newport used car dealer who has been missing for three years.
Police arrested Murphy C. Henry II on Thursday, Jan. 9, the day after investigators recovered the body believed to be that of Ryan Staggs from a shallow grave in a remote area of Lincoln County. Skaggs, 31, owner of Happy Motors, was last seen in January 2022 and was reported missing a month later.
Henry’s arrest follows the Dec. 27 arrest of Jack D. Baird, 60, of Newport on accusations of abuse of a corpse that a probable cause affidavit said was related to Stagg’s disappearance.
Baird is in the Lincoln County jail on $500,000 bond. Henry is being held without bail.
In a news release Monday afternoon, Newport police said they did not find Stagg’s body when they dug up Baird’s back yard on Northwest Seventh Street in December.
But, police said, cadaver dogs “alerted” to the scent of human remains in the soil and investigators identified additional information and witnesses which led them to the grave Wednesday, Jan. 8. Police said the body was recovered by state police crime lab technicians and the county’s medical investigators.
“The remains are believed to be Ryan Staggs, which will be confirmed through the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s office,” police said in the release.
The probable cause affidavit filed in late December laid out the reasons for Baird’s arrest and included finger-pointing by a third man who told police he saw a body at Henry’s shop in Toledo and that either Baird or Henry killed Staggs.
At the request of Lincoln County district attorney Jenna Wallace, circuit judge pro tem Joseph Allison on Friday sealed the affidavit outlining the reasons for Henry’s arrest because she said revealing the contents “could jeopardize the ongoing investigation” and that publicizing its details could affect the fairness and impartiality of a jury trial.
Henry is charged with second-degree murder, first-degree burglary and second-degree abuse of a corpse. He will be represented initially by the state public defender’s office and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Friday afternoon.
Police said Monday that the district attorney’s cold case unit, comprised of district attorney detectives and three retired volunteers had worked since May 2022 to check leads and develop new information regarding Staggs’ disappearance.
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