TOWN OF LESSOR (WTAQ-WLUK) – The owner of the property Missouri authorities are searching related to the missing Shawano County brothers has been charged with tampering with a motor vehicle.
Online records show the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office arrested Garland Joseph Nelson, 25, on Friday. It shows the violation date was July 21st, the last day family members say they spoke with Nick and Justin Diemel.
During a news conference Friday, authorities say the case has turned from a missing persons case to a death investigation. Authorities would not confirm whether Nelson was a suspect.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Nelson admits to driving the brothers’ rental truck from his Braymer property to a park-and-ride lot in Holt, where investigators found it abandoned with the keys in it on Monday.
The probable cause statement says GPS route information pulled from the truck’s black box shows the vehicle left the brothers’ hotel at 8:55 am. It arrived at Nelson’s property, where he conducts his farm operations, at 9:26 am. The vehicle left the farm property at 11:44 am and arrived at the park-and-ride lot at 12:45 pm.
Security videos from businesses the vehicle traveled past when it went from the farm property to the parking lot did not show any passengers in the rental truck, according to the probable cause statement.
The tampering with a motor vehicle charge is listed as a felony on the Missouri Courts website.
The affidavit also states the Diemel brothers are still missing as of 9:48 Friday morning, and their location is unknown.
The Diemel brothers own a livestock business in Seymour and traveled to Missouri over the weekend to check on cattle they own.
Lisa Diemel, Nick’s wife, has told FOX 11 the brothers did not return on their scheduled flight Sunday afternoon.
Authorities have been searching Nelson’s property in Braymer the last few days. K-9 units were walking the property on Friday.
Nelson has a conviction for selling cattle that didn’t belong to him and spent two years in a federal penitentiary.
If you have any information, you’re asked to call Clinton County CrimeStoppers at 816-632-TIPS.
