Four bodies were found and recovered from a river in Oklahoma Friday amid a search for four men who were reported missing earlier this week.
The bodies were found after “suspicious items” were reported in the Deep Fork River, southwest of the city of Okmulgee, Police Chief Joe Prentice said Friday. Responding officers found “multiple human remains,” and four bodies were later recovered from the river.
The bodies had not been identified as of late Friday. They were being taken to the medical examiner’s office in Tulsa for autopsy and official identification, Prentice said in a Facebook post.
Mark Chastain, 32; Billy Chastain, 30; Alex Stephens, 29; and Mike Sparks, 32, were reported missing overnight Monday – the first time Prentice has seen four adult men go missing all at once, he said earlier this week, according to CBS affiliate KOTV.
“I can’t make sense of the actual set of circumstances because it is so unusual,” Prentice said.
The men, close friends, were believed to have left Billy Chastain’s home in Okmulgee Sunday night, reportedly on bicycles, according to police.
They visited a salvage yard west of Okmulgee before stopping at a station, KOTV reported. They then went to a different salvage yard, which is where Mark Chastain’s phone died or turned off.
Prentice said the area where the bodies were found was never considered a search area by police.
“All of the information that we had up to this point indicated that our missing men — based on telephone data — had gone east leaving town and then ultimately south on 75. This is in the opposite direction,” he said.
