PORT ANGELES — Authorities arrested two Port Angeles residents early this morning for investigation of second-degree murder in the death of Jennifer Pimentel, a 27-year-old developmentally disabled woman missing since Oct. 10, Port Angeles Deputy Police Chief Brian Smith said.
Kevin A. Bradfield, 22, and Kendell K. Huether, 25, are being held without bond in the Clallam County jail and will have a preliminary court appearance at 1 p.m. Friday in Clallam County Superior Court. The judge will determine if there is probable cause to hold them for 72 hours.
They were booked at 1:28 a.m. and 1:59 a.m., respectively, after they told police that Pimentel’s remains were located near the Hood Canal Bridge, Smith said.
Bradfield and Huether, described by Smith as a couple, “both voluntarily took us to a location by Hood Canal,” Smith added.
Unburied remains were found in a brushy area off Paradise Bay Road northeast of the Hood Canal Bridge, he said.
“We found someone we believe is her,” Smith said, adding investigators “will spend the better part of today” processing the area where her body was found.
Pimentel disappeared from The Gateway transit center in Port Angeles while waiting for a bus to her home in SeaTac.
A former Port Angeles resident who moved to SeaTac about a year ago, she was mentally about 12 years old, her family in Port Angeles said.
Smith said this morning he could not comment on a possible motive.
“Right now, we just have established facts that show clearly they were involved,” he said.
Bradfield was initially arrested for investigation of providing false information, Smith said.
“We have been communicating with all sorts of people throughout the last week-and-half that knew her and had contact with her,” he added.
“We became interested in these two individuals because we were not comfortable they were telling us the truth, the whole story of what they knew about her.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
