Published: Thursday, May. 28, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 3B
For a year and a half, Arthur Charles Carnes IV has fought deportation from Canada – arguing, even, that he was a refugee from the United States, according to authorities.
It didn't work. On Wednesday, the 38-year-old man finally was returned to Sacramento County, where he faces charges in connection with the 2007 dismemberment of a Galt-area man.
Carnes was booked into the Main Jail on one count of murder, as well as four felony counts associated with stealing personal information from his alleged victim, Matthew Alan Seybert, according to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. He is scheduled to be arraigned Friday.
The suspect's long-awaited return to Sacramento follows a lengthy investigation that included scouring the Internet, tracing ATM transactions and sorting through immigration protocols with Canada, detectives said. "It's nice to finally have him here," said homicide detective Elaine Stoops.
Seybert's mother reported her 41-year-old son missing Nov. 18, 2007, after she hadn't heard from him in a while, Stoops said. Deputies went to Seybert's 38-acre property in Galt three times to investigate, but found no evidence of foul play, Stoops said.
Unconvinced, the man's mother flew from Pennsylvania and scoured the house herself. Pulling back the sheets on her son's bed, she found a bloody mattress, Stoops said. Divers and cadaver dogs found parts of Seybert's body in Laguna Creek, near his property, on Dec. 8, 2007.
Detectives questioned one of two men who worked for Seybert's lawn mower repair business and lived on his property. The other, Carnes, couldn't be found, Stoops said.
Detectives allege Carnes drove Seybert's Ford Maverick to Lynden, Wash., just outside the Canadian border. Checkpoint cameras show Seybert ditching the Maverick and meeting a man on the other side of the border, Stoops said.
That man was Christopher Remple, Stoops said, a 21-year-old Canadian who met Carnes on what the detective described as an anarchist-like, anti-government Web site,
www.roguesci.org. Carnes posted on the site under the name "nbk2000" – "Natural Born Killer 2000," Stoops said.
Remple brought Carnes to his parents' home in Langley, British Columbia, and persuaded them to let Carnes stay, saying he was "a draft dodger," Stoops said.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided the home in 2008 and arrested Carnes for entering the country illegally. They found him in possession of an AK-47 – the weapon detectives say was used to kill Seybert. In the car abandoned in Washington, authorities found three loaded high-capacity magazines for an AK-47, the detective said.
Canadian authorities arrested Remple for aiding and abetting. Stoops said she was unsure of the status of that case.
What exactly motivated Carnes to kill his employer remains unclear, she said.
The best theory so far, Stoops said: Seybert was moving his business elsewhere "and had told Art Carnes he was not going to be invited" to come along.
