Married Oregon man charged with murder after mistress and their three-year-old son go missing
A married Oregon man has been arrested in connection with the disappearance of his former mistress and their three-year-old son.
According to the Daily Mail, 52-year-old Michael Wolfe has been charged with two counts of aggravated murder and two counts of kidnapping in the disappearance of 25-year-old Karissa Fretwell and their son, three-year-old William.
Fretwell and William were last seen on May 13 and subsequently reported missing by family members on May 17, with the evidence suggesting it was Wolfe who was responsible for their disappearance.
Megan Harper, Fretwell's friend, revealed Wolfe and Fretwell had an affair when they were both working at a McMinnville steel mill years ago that resulted in the latter becoming pregnant with William.
She said there was "never a relationship there" and that the 25-year-old found out Wolfe was married only after she had become pregnant and he had offered to pay for the abortion.
But she went ahead with the pregnancy, with a petition filed last year establishing that Wolfe was the biological father. He was ordered to pay $900 a month in child support as a consequence of the test.
However, Harper claimed Wolfe soon wanted full custody of William and that he began to send her worrying messages and "creepy things in the email." She said she was supposed to watch the three-year-old on May 17 but that she never heard from Fretwell, and that a few days before, on May 11, the mother had asked her about installing a security camera system.
Wolfe was named a person of interest on May 23 and was arrested at a Portland doughnut shop the next day. Police and FBI are searching two of his rural properties, including a 10-acre property in Gaston, and dive teams have been mobilized to help search bodies of water in Yamhill County.
Authorities said the final charges against the 52-year-old would be determined by the Office of the District Attorney of Yamhill County, with Salem Police Chief Lt. Treven Upkes revealing they had enough evidence at "this point" to charge him with murder even though neither Fretwell's nor William's bodies had been found.
Investigators from the Salem Police Department are working still alongside law enforcement partners to search for Fretwell and her son. "We work toward the worst possible scenario and hope for the best," Upkes was quoted saying. "We continue to hope for the safe return of Karissa and William."
"I'm hoping by some miracle that they are just locked away somewhere and they find her," Harper said. "And I can say, 'We didn't give up hope, we didn't stop looking for you,' and have a happy ending to the story."
Wolfe is being held without bail at the Yamhill County Jail and is scheduled to make his first appearance in court on Tuesday, May 28.