Prosecutors have charged a former Marine with murder after the body of his alleged lover was found in an abandoned Southern California mine shaft, according to Reuters.
Erin Corwin, 19, was reported missing on June 28 by her husband, Marine Corporal Jonathan Corwin, after she failed to return from what she told him was a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park, near their home on the military base in nearby Twentynine Palms, Reuters reported.
Christopher Brandon Lee was arrested Sunday in Anchorage, Alaska, in connection with the death of 19-year-old Corwin, according to Reuters.
The San Bernardino County Superior Court's web site says prosecutors on Tuesday charged 24-year-old Christopher Brandon Lee with murder, Reuters reported.
On Sunday evening, her remains were recovered from the bottom of a mine shaft less than 2 miles from Twentynine Palms and positively identified by dental records, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said, according to Reuters.
About an hour later, Lee, 24, was taken into custody without incident during a traffic stop in Anchorage, Alaska, according to the sheriff's department and Anchorage Police Department, Reuters reported. He was expected to face extradition proceedings to return him to California in the coming weeks.
Authorities say Corwin and Lee were having an "intimate relationship" before she disappeared in Southern California in June, according to Reuters. Court papers say Corwin was pregnant at the time.
Two days after her husband reported her missing, Corwin's car was found abandoned on a street in Twentynine Palms, a desert community 130 miles east of Los Angeles, next to footprints showing that she got into another vehicle, Reuters reported.
Authorities searched a vast, remote area some 130 miles east of Los Angeles for Corwin for nearly two months and found her body Saturday in an abandoned mine shaft, according to Reuters.
