PEORIA — Vulgar details regarding how a 41-year-old man was killed in an East Bluff home were unveiled in Peoria County Court on Friday, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
Investigators obtained videos from the phones of Michael Jansen, 29, and Portia Stokes, 26, the two people accused of killing 41-year-old David King, who was found dead in a freezer Monday in a home on the 500 block of East Seneca Place
Video footage obtained from Jansen’s phone showed King tied to a bed with a rope around his neck while Stokes allegedly sat on his face while he “violently” tried to escape, the state’s attorney’s office said. The video was too graphic to be played in open court and was privately shown to the defense and court. The video was filmed on July 10, three days before King’s body was found.
Preliminary autopsy results showed that King died of ligature strangulation with suffocation. His body was stuffed into a freezer and was found completely frozen and with cuts on it. The charge of dismemberment of a human body was added to the defendants’ charges on Friday.
When interviewed by police, Stokes told investigators she had put King in the freezer and folded him up like a pretzel. Jansen had originally told police that he and Stokes killed King but later changed his story.
The defendants were denied pre-trial release and will remain in jail until trial.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Prosecutors: Graphic cellphone video showed how suspects killed Peoria man
Reporting by JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star | USA TODAY Network
