PITTSBURGH — An arrest has been made in connection to a murder after police responded to a missing person's investigation at a Carrick home on Friday and found human remains.
John Robert Dickinson, 42, of Carrick, is charged with criminal homicide, abuse of corpse, theft of a motor vehicle, access device fraud, tampering with physical evidence and possession of an instrument of crime.
Police went to a house in the 1700 block of Parkfield Street on Friday after a woman reported her son, Kevin Thompson, missing. She said she didn't speak to her son for two weeks and also said his car was missing.
She told police her son lived at the home with his new roommate, Dickinson.
According to the criminal complaint, when detectives arrived at the residence, nobody was home. They then reached out to the woman who reported Thompson missing, who let them into the home in order to observe what they believed to be dried blood.
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Police said that there were blood stains on the kitchen countertops, cabinets, floor and on the walls leading up to Thompson's bedroom.
According to the criminal complaint, investigators said "the amount of blood found on the walls, ceilings, floors and various items in the house indicated that an extremely violent attack had taken place."
Detectives then detected a strong odor coming from a shed in the back yard, where they found what the believed to be human remains inside a dog food bag, according to the criminal complaint.
Police said they then obtained a search warrant, where they found body parts in the basement and in the shed.
The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's Office collected the remains and identified the victim as Thompson.
Police said Thompson appeared to have suffered multiple stab wounds and blunt-force trauma to the head and the homicide appears to have happened between May 27 and 29.
Dickinson is currently in the Allegheny County Jail.
"We had no idea that it would ever come to this," said Richard Brazell, Dickinson's half-brother. "It's disturbing."
Brazell said he and Dickinson are not close and only recently became involved in each other's lives.
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