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A body found late Monday is believed to be that of a missing Missouri woman whose husband was charged last week with her murder after police found blood- and bleach-soaked carpeting in the couple’s suburban home, according to multiple reports.
Police learned where the body could be found during a meeting about 2:45 p.m. Monday with Beau and his attorney, and made the discovery about 11:30 p.m. in a wooded area about 20 yards off the highway shoulder, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told reporters, according to theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Beau Rothwell.AP/Shutterstock/St. Louis County Police Department
“We’re going to follow up with DNA to do a total confirmation to make sure it is Jennifer Rothwell, but I do believe and detectives believe it is her,” he said.
“It’s horrible for things like this to end this way, but the fact of the matter was, we didn’t have good news last week and we felt it would lead us to this outcome. But it’s good for the community and for Jennifer’s family and for her memory to have this wrapped up,” he said.
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Her abandoned Hyundai Sonata was found Tuesday night, less than two miles from the couple’s suburban St. Louis home.
Beau was charged Friday with murder in her presumed death after a search of the Rothwell home turned up wet carpeting that was soaked in bleach, say police.
DNA samples from the missing woman’s parents matched with the blood found at the home, where Beau is alleged to have killed his wife on Monday, according to court records.
Police say they have video evidence allegedly showing Beau buying carpet cleaner, gloves and bleach on the day before he reported his wife missing, according to charging documents.
Beau allegedly “purchased and applied cleaning products to a large area of blood in effort to destroy or remove physical evidence with the purpose to impair its availability in an investigation into the murder of Jennifer Rothwell,” according to those documents.
A motive for the presumed slaying is unclear. The couple married in 2015.
After the body was found, Bell told thePost-Dispatchthat authorities do not have any information regarding “the how or the why yet.”
source: people.com
