KITSAP COUNTY, Wash. — Editor's note: The video above was originally published on Aug. 11 after three men were arrested in connection to the 2005 death of Shanan Lynn Read.
A 34-year-old man is facing a first-degree murder charge in connection to the 2005 death of Shanan Lynn Read in Kitsap County.
According to the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office (KCSO), Oscar Gonzales was arrested on Aug. 9 in Riverside, California in connection to the 33-year-old’s death. Gonzales was arraigned in Kitsap County Superior Court Monday afternoon, according to the prosecutor's office.
In addition to Gonzales, two other men were also taken into custody this month, according to KCSO. A 39-year-old man was arrested in Philadelphia on Aug. 8, and a 42-year-old man was arrested on Aug. 9 in Sarasota, Florida. A fourth suspect in the case has since died.
Investigators were able to confirm the participation of the four suspects over the past 10 months.
Read's decomposed body was found floating in a plastic container in Puget Sound on Jan. 15, 2006. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife turned the case over to the sheriff's office after responding to a suspicious object floating between Manchester and Blake Island and discovering the body.
In March 2006, Read's head was discovered in the same general vicinity. She was identified using fingerprint analysis.
The investigation found that Read was killed in August 2005, five months before her body was found, when she was struck in the head with a metal baton. Court documents say Read was beaten “as retaliation for stealing from her associates during an ongoing criminal enterprise to forge financial documents and commit acts of theft and fraud.”
She was injured at an apartment in Seattle, investigators found, then was put into a plastic container and taken to a cabin in Port Orchard where she died.
The 42-year-old man who was arrested told investigators Read “could have been alive” when she was placed into the container and that no one checked her vital signs, pulse or breathing. Gonzales and the 39-year-old man who was arrested took the container with Read inside to a vehicle, and then to a cabin in Kitsap County owned by the 39-year-old’s family, according to court documents.
For two weeks, the 39- and 42-year-old suspects returned to the cabin and poured chemicals over her body to speed up decomposition.
In Jan. 2006, the 39-year-old old suspect recruited another man, identified as Michael Thomason, to help dump Read’s body in Puget Sound, according to court documents. Thomason was later convicted of unlawful disposal of human remains.
According to court documents, Gonzales was an “active participant” in Read’s murder and refused to cooperate when approached by investigators in 2007. A family member also identified Gonzales as an “associate of the Mexican Mafia” who had engaged in cross-border drug trafficking from California to Washington.
Gonzales fled Washington state after participating in Read’s murder and helping conceal the body, court documents show.
The Kitsap County Prosecutor's Office said the 42-year-old man arrested for Read’s murder is expected to appear in court Thursday afternoon. There is no estimated arraignment date for the 39-year-old suspect at this time, according to the prosecutor’s office.
All three men are being held on $10 million bail.
Assisting agencies included, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, the U.S. Marshall Service, and the Philadelphia, Sarasota and Riverside police departments.