CRITTENDEN COUNTY, Ark. – Almost 23 years after an Arkansas mother was murdered by a 16-year-old, the convicted killer allegedly killed her daughter, police said.
Deputies from the Crittenden County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call on Wednesday at the historical Snowden House in Horseshoe Lake where they saw a possible suspect fleeing the property, ABC News reported.
Police located “a possible suspect who jumped from an upstairs window and ran to a vehicle that he drove across the yard and got stuck in the yard at the Snowden house, the suspect then jumped from the car and ran and jumped into the lake,” according to a post from the sheriff office’s Facebook page. “He was observed going under the water and never came back up.”
Law enforcement found the body Martha McKay, 63, inside the house. The body of the man believed to be her killer was recovered from the lake. Both bodies were sent to the state’s medical examiner’s office to determine the cause and manner of death.
Police identified the suspected killer as Travis Lewis, 39. He was on parole since 2018 for the September 1996 murder of McKay’s mother and another relative, reported ABC.
Lewis, who was 16 at the time and tried as an adult for the murders, is now believed responsible for killing McKay inside the same crime scene from 23 years ago, police said.
The investigation remains ongoing. The sheriff’s office had no further comments as of Saturday.