Eight people have been indicted on charges related to the kidnapping and murders of two Toledo teens.
While details surrounding the boys’ deaths have not been released, authorities believe they were lured to a home, tortured, abducted, and eventually killed by people they knew.
On Wednesday, Jan. 4, a Lucas County Grand Jury indicted Cruz Garcia, Charles Walker, Brent Kohlhoffer, Corbin Gingrich, Crystal Laforge-Yingling, Diamond Rivera, and relatives Carrissa and Don Eames on crimes related to the deaths of Ke’Marion Wilder, 16, and Kyshawn Pittman, 15, ABC 13 reports.
The teens were last seen alive on Saturday, Dec. 3, leaving a party at a cabin at Maumee Bay State Park around 8:14 p.m. A report from the Toledo Police Department states the hosts kicked the boys out of a party at the cabin because one of them had a firearm.
Wilder’s girlfriend called for an Uber to pick the boys up, and they left in a silver SUV that pulled up to the front part of the main lodge.
This would be the last time the boys were seen alive.
Court documents allege their families filed a missing person claim two days after the party. An extensive search party canvassed the area, hoping to find the boys alive, but on Thursday, Dec. 15, detectives discovered incinerated remains underneath a house on Chase Street.
The bodies belonged to Wilder and Pittman.
The Lucas County Coroner’s Officer has not made public either boy’s cause of death, pending an ongoing investigation. However, Lucas County assistant prosecutor John Arnsby said investigators told him that one of the victims’ deaths involved strangulation and thermal burns, and the other only included thermal burns.
A source at the Toledo Fire and Rescue agency says a fire consumed the vacant home on Dec. 5, the same day the teens’ families reported them missing.
According to Toledo Fire Chief Allison Armstrong, firefighters searched the house’s first and second floors for survivors or casualties of the blaze but did not check the basement after one of the firefighters was injured from falling through stairs.
Authorities suspect the blaze was an act of arson.
The Toledo Blade reports prosecutors alleged that after the boys left the party, they took an Uber to Maumee Street to Gingrich and Carrissa Eames’ house.
WTOL reports that one of the teen’s girlfriends is related to three suspects: LaForge-Yingling, Gingrich, and Eames.
“It’s my brother’s girlfriend’s family. It’s her grandma, her uncle and her uncle’s girlfriend,” Wilder’s sister, M’Aaliya Nino, said.
At some point in the investigation, all of them lied about the whereabouts of the teens, police say.
Carrissa and Gingrich told investigators they knew the boys but initially said they didn’t see them on the weekend in question. Later, they changed their story and admitted to hatching a plan to get them to the house so that they could confront one of them regarding a stolen gun.
“They were kids, and no matter what the situation was, I know they ain’t deserve that,” Nino said.
Authorities were able to trace the boys’ social media fingerprints to corroborate Carrissa and Gingrich’s story. Facebook messages show a video chat at 9:06 p.m. showing Wilder and Pittman were in the basement of Carrissa and Gingrich’s home before their tragic demise. These two have been charged with two counts of murder and two counts of kidnapping, and Carissa has been hit with one count of obstructing justice.
Other minor charges may emerge after police searched the Maumee Street house and found 11 rounds of ammunition, suspected bags of marijuana, drug paraphernalia, and a piece of glass and a DVR that authorities said they found blood on. Recreational use of cannabis is illegal in Ohio.
Later, Garcia, 24, came by and picked the teens up from Carrissa and Gingrich’s house.
Court documents accuse Garcia of assaulting the high school students with a gun before tying them up and putting them in a running car.
Investigators piecing the crime together state in court documents that Garcia went to the burned-down house “several times” after the boys went missing on the day of the fire. He is facing two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of murder, two counts of kidnapping, one count of obstructing justice, one count of having weapons under disability, and one count of trafficking in marijuana,
Garcia’s bond was set at $2.2 million.
Laforge-Yingling and Rivera both have been charged with obstruction of justice counts, while Walker and Kohlhoffer are facing two counts of aggravated murder, two counts of murder, and two counts of kidnapping.
Don Eames was hit with two murder charges and two counts of kidnapping. He is being held in the Wood County jail on separate felony charges related to burglary and identity theft in that county. However, authorities are considering extraditing him to Toledo so he can be tried for the boys’ deaths.
After the boys’ bodies were found, friends and family reflected on their lives during a candle-lit vigil. One person who spoke was Nino, who said he was a “good person” and was “very outgoing.”
“He lights up any room he’s ever been in,” she said. “He was the glue to my family. We’ll miss him.”
