Nevada police have positively identified a body found in a remote part of Lincoln County last month as 33-year-old Jaime Rae Feden, a Pennsylvania woman last seen on September 15.
Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, police charged John Chapman, 39, last week with kidnapping, criminal use of a communication facility, and obstructing administration of law in Feden’s disappearance.
Chapman allegedly confessed to driving Feden, reportedly his girlfriend, to Nevada in September under false pretenses, and then suffocating her and leaving her nude body by the side of a desert road.
Court documents say that Chapman told investigators he and Feden drove to Las Vegas sometime in September for a vacation with the “potential of acquiring residence,” according to KDKA. Later in the month, the court papers say, Chapman drove her into desert, telling her it was for a bondage photo shoot, News 3 Las Vegas reported. There, he allegedly told police he used zip ties to bind her hands and feet, tied her to a signpost, and duct taped her mouth and nose so she couldn’t breathe. After she died, he removed the zip ties, duct tape, and her clothing and left her body by the signpost.
A motorist found the body on October 5, Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee said. The Clark County Coroner’s Office, the Las Vegas Metro Police Department, the FBI, and the Bethel Park Police Department assisted in making the identification using dental records, he said. Lee told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that deputies would soon travel to Pennsylvania to continue their investigation.
Bethel Park police began a search for Feden when her family requested a welfare check early last week, saying they had not seen her in two months, although they’d seen Chapman at her home, WPXI reported. Family members told police Feden and Chapman had a volatile relationship.
Action News 4 reported that Chapman was arrested when he returned to Feden’s home and that investigators found her cell phone there, along with a backpack that had duct tape and zip ties inside.
Family members also said they’d received messages via Feden’s Facebook Messenger account purporting to be from her, but police have said they believe Chapman wrote them.
Chapman’s family told police that he has been married to another woman for a year and that they believed he was going to Las Vegas for work.
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[Featured image: Jaime Feden/ Bethel Park Police Department]
