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Pair accused of defrauding, killing Washington state man who went missing last month

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A man and woman have been accused of murdering a 74-year-old Washington state man who disappeared last month, as part of a wider financial fraud scheme, authorities said. The pair were arrested on Thursday in Southern California and will be extradited back to Washington to face homicide charges.

Curtis Engeland’s family reported him missing on Feb. 24, one day after authorities said he was last seen at his home on Mercer Island, in southern Lake Washington near Seattle, police said in a statement

Although police originally investigated the disappearance as a missing persons case potentially involving a kidnapping, they later found the man dead near Cosmopolis, a city some 100 miles west along the Pacific Coast. 

Police said Engeland was stabbed in the neck, CBS affiliate KIRO-TV News reported.

Investigators used GPS information from the suspects’ cell phones to find Engeland’s body, according to Mercer Island police. They said the probe so far suggests that the suspects became acquainted with Engeland several months before his death and financially defrauded him. Police believe that the suspects “violently confronted” Engeland at his home on Mercer Island on the evening of Feb. 23 and used his car to leave the area that same night. 

Police have not shared more details about the circumstances surrounding that confrontation, but Mercer Island police said that detectives believe both suspects left Washington state soon after Engeland was killed. They alleged the suspects then rented new vehicles and changed cell phones “to cover their path.”

The suspects were identified as 32-year-old Philip Brewer and 47-year-old Christina Hardy, KIRO News Radio reported, citing police as well as charging documents filed by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. 

Prosecutors said that Brewer and Hardy “appear to have concocted a scheme to kill the victim and then move into his home, all while taking over his financial accounts and making extravagant purchases just hours after killing him,” according to KIRO News Radio. They also alleged the suspects used Engeland’s cell phone, after his murder, to conduct falsified conversations between them in an ostensible attempt to dupe authorities into thinking he was still alive.

CBS News contacted the Mercer Island Police Department for more details but did not receive an immediate reply.





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Wisconsin school shooter was in contact with California man plotting his own attack, court documents say

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The shooter who killed a student and teacher at a religious school in Wisconsin brought two guns to the school and was in contact with a man in California whom authorities say was planning to attack a government building, according to authorities and court documents that became public Wednesday.

Police were still investigating why the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison shot and killed a fellow student and teacher on Monday before shooting herself, Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes told the Associated Press Wednesday. Two other students who were shot remained in critical condition on Wednesday.

A Southern California judge issued a restraining order Tuesday under California’s gun red flag law against a 20-year-old Carlsbad man. The order requires the man to turn his guns and ammunition into police within 48 hours unless an officer asks for them sooner because he poses an immediate danger to himself and others.

Carlsbad is located just north of San Diego. 

According to the order, the man told FBI agents that he had been messaging Natalie Rupnow, the Wisconsin shooter, about attacking a government building with a gun and explosives. The order doesn’t say what building he had targeted or when he planned to launch his attack. It also doesn’t detail his interactions with Rupnow except to state that the man was plotting a mass shooting with her.

CBS’ San Diego affiliate KFMB-TV reported that law enforcement searched the man’s home Tuesday night after the order was signed by the judge. 

Police, with the assistance of the FBI, were scouring online records and other resources and speaking with the shooter’s parents and classmates in an attempt to determine a motive for the shooting, Barnes told the AP.

Police don’t know if anyone was targeted in the attack or if the attack had been planned in advance, the chief said. Police said the shooting occurred in a classroom where a study hall was taking place involving students from several grades.

“I do not know if if she planned it that day or if she planned it a week prior,” Barnes said. “To me, bringing a gun to school to hurt people is planning. And so we don’t know what the premeditation is.”

On a Madison city website providing details about the shooting, police disclosed Wednesday that two guns were found at the school, but only one was used in the shooting. A law enforcement source previously told CBS News the weapon used appears to have been a 9 mm pistol.  

Barnes told the AP that he did not know how the suspected shooter obtained the guns and he declined to say who purchased them, citing the ongoing investigation.

No decisions have been made about whether Rupnow’s parents might be charged in relation to the shooting, but they have been cooperating, Barnes told the AP.

Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school that offers prekindergarten classes through high school. About 420 students attend the institution.

The Dan County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the two people killed Wednesday as 42-year-old Erin West and 14-year-old Rubi Vergara.

An online obituary on a local funeral site stated Vergara was a freshman who leaves behind her parents, one brother, and a large extended family. It described her as “an avid reader” who “loved art, singing and playing keyboard in the family worship band.” 

West’s exact position with the school was unclear.   



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