Insets, left to right: John Rice and Kevin Brookshire. Background: The home where authorities recovered Brookshire”s remains (WHNS).

South Carolina authorities have arrested a suspect in the case of a missing man whose remains were found last month.

John Lucas Dale Rice, 21, stands accused of murder in the death of Kevin Brookshire, who was 45 when he went missing in 2021. According to Missing People America, Brookshire was last seen on Dec. 15, 2021, in Chesnee, which is not far from the Palmetto State’s border with North Carolina. He was supposed to drive his 2001 red Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck with an expired Tennessee license plate to Sevier County, Tennessee, some 160 miles to the northwest, but he never made it.

The pickup truck was involved in a traffic crash roughly five months after Brookshire’s disappearance, but cops do not believe Brookshire was the driver.

Authorities failed to find any leads in the case until August. According to Greenville Fox affiliate WHNS, the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office contacted their counterparts in Cherokee County after receiving a tip from someone who claimed Rice had shown them a decomposing body in a trash can of a home in Chesnee.

Investigators “started talking to different witnesses and found out there were different pieces of body — Mr. Brookshire’s body — had been found in different locations,” Barry Barnette, 7th Circuit Solicitor, told a judge during a probable cause hearing attended by WHNS.

Cops went to the home and recovered the remains in August. Using x-rays and medical records, the coroner identified them as Brookshire, per WHNS. Detectives spoke with Rice, who allegedly admitted to killing Brookshire. Police have not divulged the cause of death, nor have they revealed a potential motive for the murder.

Rice was arrested on Friday and is in the Cherokee County Detention Center without bond.