A Camden, N.J., man, his wife and their adult son have all been charged in connection with the death and suspected dismemberment of a man who disappeared in June and whose body has never been found.
Suspect Everton Thomas, 41, was nabbed on Monday at the Port of Buffalo by U.S. Customs and Protection agents who discovered he had an active warrant for his arrest. He was crossing into the U.S. by bus from Canada, where he’d fled in June as evidence mounted in the disappearance of Harold “Hal” Miller Jr., 48, of Deptford.
Thomas was charged with murder, desecration of human remains and tampering with physical evidence, Camden County prosecutors said Thursday. He’s currently jailed in New York State, pending extradition to New Jersey.
Sherrie Parker and Deshawn Thomas, his 41-year-old wife and 22-year-old son, were also charged with desecration of human remains and tampering with physical evidence. They too were picked up Monday, by officers in the Camden Division of the U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, and are being held at the Camden County Correctional Facility.
Miller had been wearing a white T-shirt with writing on the front, light grey sweatpants and Yeezy sneakers when he disappeared on June 12, according to a flyer posted on social media.
He was reported missing to the Deptford Township Police Department on June 14, the same day his car was found abandoned in Pennsauken with his powered-down phone inside.
Surveillance video and cellphone data later showed Miller going inside a house on the 2600 block of Baird Boulevard in Camden just before 11:30 a.m. on June 12. Moments later, “video footage captured the sound of what appeared to be a single gunshot,” prosecutors said. “Miller was never seen leaving the property.”
It was Everton Thomas who left, driving Miller’s car, prosecutors allege. Meanwhile, Parker and Deshawn Thomas got busy buying a “chainsaw, containers, trash bags and other cleaning supplies.”
The father and son were also caught on video “loading containers and trash bags into a vehicle” and making several trips to the dumpsters at a nearby apartment complex.
On June 20, during a search of the defendants’ residence, investigators found a loaded gun on Everton Thomas, and bloodstains inside the house that turned out to be from Miller. That’s when Thomas hightailed it to Canada.
A housemate told police that the father woke up his son on the morning of June 12 and asked him to “chop up” a body, then uncharacteristically barred the housemate from the basement, Patch.com reported. Another housemate said they heard a gunshot at around 11 a.m. that day, followed by a burst of loud music and what sounded like extensive cleaning.
There was also a “strong odor resembling that of a decomposing body,” accompanied by the whining of power tools, Detective Jake Siegfried of the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office told Patch.
