The son of a wealthy Connecticut couple whose remains were found in a yard months after they disappeared has been arrested in their deaths, along with his girlfriend, state police said.
Kyle Navin, 27, and his girlfriend, 31-year-old Jennifer Valiante, were arrested Friday on murder charges in the deaths of Jeffrey and Jeannette Navin, according to Connecticut state police.
The remains of the Weston couple were found in a yard on Norfield Road on Thursday and sent to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to be identified. A source told NBC Connecticut earlier Friday they had been positively identified as those of the Navins.
Police detectives were processing the scene at 89 Norfield Rd. until Friday evening. Police secured an active arrest warrant for Kyle Navin, who was already in federal custody. He is charged with two counts of murder and murder with special circumstances. Navin is being held on $2.5 million bond.
He has been in custody since Sept. 8, when he was arrested on a federal gun charge and will continue to be detained, a judge decided when he appeared in court for a detention hearing. Authorities said they found guns and ammunition in Kyle Navin's bedroom while searching his home as part of the investigation into his parents' disappearance.
Valiante, previously identified as Kyle Navin’s girlfriend in court documents, was arrested at her home in Westport and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and first-degree hindering prosecution. She was being held on $2 million bond and is expected in court Nov. 2.
Kyle Navin served as operations manager of J&J Refuse and told police the family was in the process of selling the company, according to search warrants obtained by NBC Connecticut.
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Police records indicate Kyle Navin saw his parents the morning they vanished. According to the warrants, Jeffrey and Jeanette Navin visited their son and asked to take him out to dinner, but Kyle Navin said he had a broken back and declined.
That was the last anyone heard from the missing couple.
Jeffrey Navin, 56, was president of the J&J Refuse sanitation company in Westport and Jeanette Navin, 55, worked as a school library aide in Weston.
Investigators honed in on Weston on Thursday afternoon when the owner of the vacant home on Norfield Road found something suspicious and asked police to investigate, according to Weston Police Chief John Troxell.
The property has been vacant for around 10 years and officers "located areas in the yard that appeared suspicious and may contain evidence that may be linked to the Navin case," said Troxell, who added that items in the yard did not fit with yard work that was being done.
