The ex-wife of a western Pennsylvania man authorities said was killed in 2008 is now charged with murder, and her son — who was charged earlier — now says that his mother killed the victim and has led authorities to a body.
Jeanette Battle, 62, of Reading, is charged in Somerset County with criminal homicide, aggravated assault, conspiracy, arson, reckless endangering, evidence tampering and weapons counts, among other charges.
Battle's son, Samuel McFarland Jr., 38, was charged last month with killing 56-year-old Thomas Conrad after police and prosecutors said he had bragged about killing the victim, then burying the body in a remote area.
But prosecutors said Saturday that McFarland told them earlier this month that Battle had actually been the one who killed Conrad. He said the two then buried the body and Battle later set fire to their home.
Authorities say he led them to a spot in the southern part of the county near a strip mine where after several searches a body was uncovered and taken to Mercyhurst University for forensic analysis.
District Attorney Lisa Lazzari-Strasiser said at a news conference Saturday that she didn't think charges would have been filed without a body, The (Somerset) Daily American reported. She said it was unlikely that the body wasn't that of Conrad, but police sent it for examination to be sure.
Court records don't list an attorney for Battle; a listed number for her couldn't be found Saturday.
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McFarland, who was imprisoned on a parole violation on a 2012 robbery conviction, originally said he killed Conrad because he believed the victim — a convicted sex offender — had molested a child, authorities said. Conrad was released from state prison in January 2007 after serving time for rape in 1992, and moved in with his wife and her son, McFarland.
But police said in an affidavit of probable cause in Battle's case that McFarland told them that Conrad yelled at him for making a mess of the stove and kicked him out of the house. He said he packed and was leaving when Battle stopped him and told him to give her his gun, which he left in exchange for $700. He said Battle and Conrad were arguing when he left and he wasn't far from the house when he heard a shot, but he kept walking.
He said he later went to the house and found Conrad dead with a hole in his neck, and the two then drove to an area where he often rode four-wheelers and he dug a hole, then disposed of the gun in Somerset Lake. Police said McFarland told them that the pair then cleaned up evidence at the house and burned it in a fire pit. They then drove the body to the hole and buried it, and Battle later set a grease fire at the home to destroy evidence and get insurance money, McFarland said, according to authorities.
Police had earlier found Conrad's blood in his bedroom near an area where some carpet was replaced, and they found parts of a gun in the lake, including a magazine with six spent shells.
