Three people were arrested in connection with the gruesome 2005 murder of 33-year-old Shanan Lynn Read, the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Thursday.
The arrests were made over the last few days and in three other states.
Law enforcement arrested 39-year-old Brian Anderson Bourquard, 42-year-old Brandon Michael Reeve and 34-year-old Oscar Cash Gonzales.
On January 15, 2006, Read’s “badly” decomposed and headless body was found in a plastic container floating in the Puget Sound between Manchester and Blake Island, according to the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office.
A resident saw the container floating in the water and called Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officers, who responded.
After the officers discovered Read’s headless body, they reported it to the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office, which began an investigation.
In March 2006, Read’s head surfaced in the same area as the container and she was identified using fingerprint analysis, authorities said.
During the investigation of Read’s murder, detectives identified four people believed to be involved in the murder.
As detectives continued to investigate over the years, it was not until 10 months ago that leads led to four people believed to be involved in her death and it was determined that Read was actually killed in August 2005.
Detectives determined that Read had been struck in the head with a metal baton at a Seattle apartment, put in a plastic container and taken to a Port Orchard cabin by one of the suspect’s family members, which is where she died, authorities said.
According to police, she was left at the cabin for numerous weeks as two of the suspects made frequent visits and poured chemicals on her body to speed up decomposition.
Read’s body was finally placed in a plastic container and dumped in the Puget Sound. Investigators said Michael Thomason, who was later convicted of unlawful disposal of human remains, helped to dispose of her body.
In June 2022, four warrants were issued for the suspects after special agent Jimmy Kilgallen with the U.S. Coast Guard Investigative Service, who was assisting detectives, presented the case to the county prosecutor’s office.
Detectives and Kilgallen reached out to multiple federal and state agencies to help find and arrest three of the people after learning that a fourth person involved in the murder, Anthony Marou Martinez, had died.
On Monday, Bourquard was arrested in Philadelphia for first-degree murder. On Tuesday, Reeve was arrested in Sarasota, Florida for second-degree murder, and Gonzales was arrested in Riverside, California for first-degree murder.
All three suspects are in custody in the states that they were arrested in, pending extradition back to Washington state to be booked into the Kitsap County Jail to face charges. Each is being held on $10 million bail.