A Texas man arrested in connection with his wife’s death told investigators that he believes he was only taken into custody due to “not hiding the body very well,” The Dallas Morning News reports. Karlton Dudley, 37, has been charged with one count of abuse of a corpse and one count of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, but it seems like murder charges may not be long behind.
- Sarah Dudley was reported missing on June 24. At that point, Karlton Dudley told authorities that she’d decided to walk to work to “clear her head” but that he hadn’t seen her since. Colleagues at the restaurant where she worked said she never turned up for her shift.
- Her body was found two days later. On June 26, visitors at Hidden Cove Park in Lake Lewisville found Sarah Dudley’s body inside a suitcase matching the description of a bag Karlton told police was missing from the couple’s apartment. The cause of death was not immediately released.
- Karlton wasn’t a mastermind, by any stretch. Plano police were able to track GPS data in the ankle monitor he was forced to wear from a previous arrest to find that he was nearby where his wife’s body was found the day he reported her missing, according to an arrest affidavit.
- Karlton claimed to have an innocent explanation for why he was near the lake. He said that when Sarah walked to work, he went to check on a neighbor’s cat before eventually deciding to go kayaking on the lake. However, his kayak wouldn’t inflate so he decided to walk around a bit.
- Authorities arrested Karlton Dudley on June 29. While the initial charges pertained only to the discovery of Sarah’s body rather than how she got there in the first place, Karlton decided to stick his foot in his mouth anyway. He told an investigating officer that he was only in custody “due to losing his wife on Saturday and not hiding the body very well,” per a report by the Collin County Sheriff’s Office.
- Karlton Dudley is still in custody in the Collin County Jail with bail set at $1 million. Authorities are unlikely to let him go free, especially since he was already on probation for aggravated sexual assault of a child from 2022.
- Sarah’s brother issued a statement to Fox 4 regarding his sister’s death. “My family and I hope that Sarah’s memory can be remembered as the vibrant person she was. We pray for justice to the full extent of the law,” he said.
