Missing woman killed, stuffed in suitcase and thrown in trash: officials

A Montana man allegedly confessed to strangling a woman, putting her body in a suitcase and throwing it in a dumpster, officials said this week.

William Glenn Olson, 29, was charged Wednesday with willful homicide and tampering with evidence in connection with the disappearance of Alicia Lindsey Wood, 46, who was first reported missing on Nov. 30 and is now suspected dead, according to court records. reviewed by HuffPost. Police said Olson and Wood knew each other before the incident.

As of Friday, Wood’s body had not yet been found, according to a news release from the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office.

On Nov. 30, a concerned neighbor called Conrad City police to request a welfare check at Wood’s home, according to an arrest affidavit shared by local news channel ABC FOX Montana. The neighbor told police that Wood had not been seen in days and was not responding to calls or texts. Wood’s car was also missing from its parking spot.

When police looked through the window of the house that evening, they noticed that his house was “out of order”, with sofa cushions on the floor and other items scattered around, according to the affidavit.

Later that evening, police entered Wood’s home. They found no signs of the missing woman and her pets were lacking food and water, according to the affidavit. Inside, a police officer saw what appeared to be red paint or blood splattered on the floor. Wood was officially declared a missing person that night.

A female informant told investigating officers that her car was found on a highway outside Conrad on Nov. 27, according to the affidavit. Soemone had crashed Wood’s car, then fled the scene.

An inspection of the vehicle revealed blood spatter inside and outside the car, according to the affidavit. Police noted handprints inside the vehicle “that appeared as if someone had run their hand over the vehicle’s locking mechanism,” as well as a .22 caliber bullet casing on the vehicle’s locking mechanism. ground.

Police caught a break in Wood’s case on Dec. 1, when his iPhone’s Find My Phone app pinged. Since a home in Conrad, according to the affidavit. A woman inside the home led officers to Olson, who she said had wrecked Wood’s car.

On December 3, the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office arrested Olson on outstanding warrants and questioned him. him about Wood’s disappearance. Court records show he was facing an unrelated domestic violence charge, which was open at the time of his arrest.

Olson told officers that he and Wood had been arguing at her home when the argument escalated and he killed her by strangling her in a headlock, according to the affidavit. He then allegedly placed Wood’s body in a hard-shell suitcase he found in his closet and put it in the trunk of his car.

Olson reportedly told police he left the suitcase in a dumpster in Great Falls, near a local elementary school. According to the affidavit, sanitation trucks collected the waste from the dumpster on Nov. 27 and Wood’s body was allegedly dumped at the landfill the next day.

The Cascade County Sheriff’s Office and several other agencies and volunteers have searched the dump, but no one has yet found Wood.