Evidence shows body at trailer not planted

Evidence at the scene of a 1994 trailer explosion in which Arthur Bennett was presumed killed indicated the person whose body was found died in the fire and was not likely an already-dead body planted there to fool authorities, a Metro detective said today.

Bennett, a Marine staff sergeant from Yuma, Ariz., facing sexual assault charges at the time, turned up under a false identity in Southern Utah last November and was returned to Las Vegas to face charges in the death of the still-unidentified person. He denied to police knowing the identity of the charred remains.

But Metro Police Detective Michael Franks told a military judge today, "I didn't buy into that at all," because evidence at the scene in 1994 painted a different picture.

A military Article 32 hearing to determine whether to court-martial Bennett on the 1994 sexual assault charges is being held in a Clark County courtroom. Local authorities considered it too great a risk to send Bennett to a military base in Arizona for the hearing.

Franks, who testified that he always had felt uneasy about the trailer explosion, said he talked briefly with Bennett in November about the identity of the man at the campsite and what had happened.

After denying that he knew the identity of the man, Bennett, according to Franks, said that "a hand" had pulled him away from the fire that apparently was being fueled by an open propane tank with its nozzle aimed at the body.

Bennett's sister, Linda Walker, testified Tuesday that the defendant had come to her Cincinnati home after the Lake Mead incident and admitted faking his death to avoid court-martial by using a body stolen from a morgue in San Diego.

But Franks testified that an autopsy on the remains from the trailer indicated from soot in the lungs that the person had been alive during the fire.

Franks added that a Tazer stun gun was found near the trailer and nearby was a single burned match.

The remains were initially identified as Bennett from the teeth, but the identification by a military dentist had to be made from memory, because Bennett's medical records were missing from his file at the Yuma Marine Air Station.

archive