BONNE TERRE, Mo. (AP) - An eastern Missouri man is accused of killing a Cape Girardeau tattoo artist whose remains were dumped in a septic tank.
Forty-nine-year-old Melvin Scherrer, of Bonne Terre (bahn TEHR'), was being held without bond after prosecutors in St. Francois County filed charges Thursday.
KFVS-TV reports (http://bit.ly/15yMwOc ) investigators believe Scherrer hit 38-year-old Samuel "Tick" Francis with a baseball bat and smothered him last Dec. 18.
The charges were filed one week after Francis's remains were found in a septic tank on unoccupied property near Bonne Terre, about 70 miles north of Cape Girardeau.
Online court records do not list an attorney for Scherrer. The charges against him include first-degree murder, abandoning a corpse and tampering with evidence.