Share and Follow
Police in Michigan have arrested a man in connection with a body found in the back of a pickup truck after a minor fender bender last week.
Prosecutors said that 62-year-old Gabriele Seitz’s body showed “obvious” signs of strangulation, including a shoelace around her neck, the Macomb Daily reported.
Stephen Lee Freeman, 19, was charged with receiving and concealing a dead body and concealing the death of an individual and given a $75,000 cash/surety bond, the Daily said. A judge rejected prosecutors request for a $250,000 bond, saying that if Freeman is later charged with murder, the bond issue can be revisited.
Authorities said the homicide portion of the case is still under investigation and those charges are expected later. Macomb County Prosecutor Peter Lucido also said that investigators are looking at other possible persons of interest and more arrests are possible.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, a pickup truck rear-ended another vehicle in Roseville Thursday afternoon, and the driver fled the scene on foot. While investigating the accident, Roseville police discovered Seitz’s body in the covered bed.
Seitz’s son, Justin Omans, told WYXZ that he doesn’t know Freeman and that the truck he was driving belonged to Seitz.
Read Related Also: Miralem Pjanic insists it was HIS decision to leave Barcelona and says Xavi wanted him to stay
“He was going to go somewhere with my mom’s body. He could have dumped it somewhere and he could’ve took the truck and took it to a junkyard and had it crushed and I would not know where my mom would be,” he said.
His mother, Omans said, “was the sweetest person alive that everyone loved.”
Investigators said that Freeman is homeless, the Daily reported. He is due back in court for a probable cause hearing on November 9.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Gabriele Seitz, left/handout and Stephen Lee Freeman/Macomb County Jail]
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;
n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,
document,’script’,’
fbq(‘init’, ‘249856382045099’);
fbq(‘track’, “PageView”);
