AUGUSTA, Ga. -- A Salt Lake truck driver has been charged with kidnapping a man now being held for the slaying of an unidentified man near Santa Cruz, Calif.
Joseph D. Tregeagle, 51, admitted to authorities that he kept 18-year-old Jeremy Michael Kraft chained in the back of his truck after picking him up in Seattle in late November. He is being held in the Richmond County Jail along with Kraft, who has been charged with the California killing. The judge set bail at $1 million for Kraft.Tregeagle told police he only held Kraft against his will because the teenager was wanted in the Santa Cruz slaying, said Richmond County Chief Deputy Ronald Strength. Kraft called Augusta police Wednesday, claiming a former California death-row inmate had kept him chained inside a tractor-trailer truck for two months and sexually assaulted him.
Authorities from the Santa Cruz, Calif., sheriff's office met Friday with Augusta police officials and Kraft, hoping to learn the victim's identity.
The man's body was found by sightseers last month in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The victim, between the ages of 17 and 25, had been slain six to eight weeks before he was found, Santa Cruz police said Friday in a statement.
Two detectives did not learn the victim's identity Friday, said Sgt. Joe Cervantes, a spokesman for the Santa Cruz sheriff's office.
Santa Cruz police are trying to determine whether the unidentified man's killing is connected to the November killing of businessman Gaylord Chilcote of Watsonville, about 25 miles from Santa Cruz. Four people have been arrested in that case.
The Augusta Chronicle said Tregeagle was convicted of murder in California in 1971, but his death sentence was commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 ruled the death penalty unconstitutional.
He was paroled in 1988, the newspaper said.