PARAGON, Ind. -- Authorities arrested a Kentucky woman and her son on kidnapping and other charges in connection with the disappearance of an elderly man after they found burnt remains in a remote section of a forest near Indianapolis.
Police arrested Willa Blanc, 47, of Union, Ky., and her son, Louis Wilkinson, 27, were arrested Saturday at a Cincinnati-area motel and booked into the Hamilton County Justice Center in Cincinnati.
Kentucky authorities investigating the disappearance of Walter Sartory, 73, of Hebron, Ky., began searching a remote section of the Morgan-Monroe State Forest about 35 miles south of Indianapolis and found two burn pits with bones Friday. Sartory was last seen Feb. 15 and reported missing on March 4.
Boone County Sheriff's Office spokesman Tom Scheben said he believed the remains are Sartory's.
"We can't be certain on that because they haven't been analyzed. However we can say that we're confident that that will be the result," Scheben said.
Blanc was in the process of transferring more than $1 million from Sartory's bank account to hers when both accounts were frozen Wednesday.
"She got a little over $210,000 from him in a short period of time, purporting to be his health care advocate," Scheben said.
Blanc has an acquaintance in Morgan County and recently rented a van and made a trip to Indiana, Scheben said.
"(Sartory) was kidnapped. He was held against his will and was dead before he was ever reported missing," Scheben said.
Sartory was a recluse, with no immediate family or close friends in his northern Kentucky hometown. His relatives in Virginia called police after they hadn't heard from him for a while, and officers discovered his car missing but his medication still in the home.
Blanc is charged with kidnapping, tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse, abuse or neglect of an adult, and two counts of exploitation of an adult. She was being held on $4 million bond.
Wilkinson was charged with kidnapping, exploitation of an adult, tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse. He was being held on $1 million bond.
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