AURORA | Aurora police last week arrested two people suspected of murdering a 45-year-old Ohio man and dumping his body on the side of a Michigan highway earlier this month.
Police arrested a 39-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman on an active arrest warrant for murder from the Michigan State Police on Dec. 21, according to Bill Hummel, spokesman for the Aurora Police Department.
The man and woman were arrested during a traffic stop at about 3 p.m. near the intersection of East Colfax Avenue and Havana Street, Hummel said.
The two are being held in Adams County jail, according to Detective First Lieutenant Thomas DeClercq with the Michigan State Police First District Special Investigation Section.
DeClercq said the two suspects will not be identified until they are arraigned in Michigan court.
The two people will be extradited to Michigan sometime in the near future, police said.
He said the suspects have indicated they may fight their extradition, which could further delay the process.
DeClercq declined to specify why the man and woman, who are both from the Toledo, Ohio area, were in Aurora.
As reported by the Monroe Evening News, the Michigan State Police said the man and woman are suspected of murdering James Martin Wappner, 45, whose body was discovered about 50-feet off a rural highway in Lenawee County, Michigan earlier this month.
A passerby first reported seeing Wappner’s body in a cornfield in Lenawee County, Riga Township, Michigan some time during the day on Dec. 3, officials said.
Investigators believe the murder occurred in neighboring Monroe County, Michigan.
Officials believe Wappner’s body was deposited in the cornfield less than a day before it was discovered, DeClercq said.
DeClercq declined to comment on a possible motive or relationship between the victim and suspects.
He also declined to specify whether a weapon was used, but he did say Wappner was the victim of an “obvious homicide.”
Wappner was also from Toledo, Ohio, according to the Michigan State Police.
Officials from the Michigan State Police, the U.S. Marshal’s Service and local cops helped locate the suspects, according to a press release from the authorities in Michigan.