SEDALIA, Mo. (AP) - Central Missouri investigators are awaiting autopsy reports to determine whether human remains found outside a home in a Pettis County trailer park belong to one person or if there are multiple bodies.
Trailer park maintenance workers on Sunday found human remains near a trailer where Joseph F. Arbeiter, 65, lived before being arrested four days earlier on a number of sexual assault and drug charges.
Deputies who arrived at the scene found partial remains outside Arbeiter's trailer, Sheriff Kevin Bond said, and a deputy searching a wooded area nearby found additional remains a few hours later.
Bond said he couldn't speculate about whether Arbeiter had anything to do with the remains found near his residence.
"I won't call him a person of interest right now. He wasn't here when the remains were found, but he is already in jail, so he isn't going anywhere," the sheriff said.
It's unclear whether the remains belong to one person or multiple ones, he said.
"We don't have a missing person reported, so we need to find out who this is," Bond told the Sedalia Democrat (http://bit.ly/1iZiWok ). "The autopsy will assist in maybe determining the manner and cause of death and any evidence or circumstances around that. Those are all very important questions we need to have answered."
Originally scheduled for Tuesday, the autopsy was pushed back until Wednesday, sheriff's Capt. Dave Keller said.
Arbeiter was arrested at the trailer on April 30 and charged with attempted rape, sodomy, three counts of assault, possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia, unlawful use of a weapon and two counts of armed criminal action.
He was being held in the Pettis County Jail on a $500,000 bond. The court clerk's office said Arbeiter does not have an attorney.
Bond declined to provide details about the type of remains found until the autopsy results are complete.
"This didn't happen last night, but it's not just bones, either," Bond said.