A former Naval officer has been arrested and charged with the grisly killing of his writer wife, whose dismembered remains were found scattered in the Georgia woods.
Nicholas James Kassotis, 40, was taken into custody Friday on charges including felony murder and assault in the death of Mindi Kassotis, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said in a news release.
He was taken into custody one day after she was officially identified using DNA technology, officials said. Her remains were found in December throughout a 3-mile radius in the woods of a hunting club in Riceboro, about 40 miles southwest of Savannah.
The GBI received help in the investigation from the FBI, who conducted genealogy testing on the remains. Swabs were obtained from family members of Mindi Kassotis to ultimately identify her, officials said.
Kassotis, who also goes by Nicholas Killian James Stark, was taken into custody in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he’s awaiting extradition to Georgia.
He’s further charged with malice murder, tampering with evidence, and removal of body parts from the scene of death or dismemberment, the GBI said in a news release.
The GBI previously said that testing determined the remains were placed in the area on or around Nov. 27.
For months, her identity was a mystery and police released a composite sketch with the hopes of identifying her.
It took about six months for her to be ultimately identified.
Officials have not disclosed a motive in the brutal slaying. No documents have been filed yet in Georgia courts.
Mindi Kassotis was 40 and living in Savannah with her husband at the time of her death, the GBI said.
Mindi and Nicholas Kassotis got married in Virginia in 2016, according to the couple’s wedding announcement in The Keene Sentinel.
The wedding announcement described her as a writer and business owner and him as a former judge advocate in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the U.S. Navy.
Kassotis was commissioned in June 2006 and separated from the Navy in August 2019. He most recently worked in the Navy Reserve at the Region Legal Service Office in the Naval District of Washington, D.C., from 2017 to 2019, the Navy said.
Kassotis is scheduled to appear in the Lancaster County court of common pleas for a waiver of extradition hearing on Friday. It’s not immediately clear if he has a lawyer.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
