The victims are the mother and stepfather of a woman who has been arrested after confessing to the crime, officials said.
SAN ANTONIO — A woman and man have been charged with capital murder after the woman’s mother and stepfather were found in a ravine near Medina Lake, local authorities said.
The female suspect confessed to the killings after she and the man were pulled over in Corpus Christi this week, according to officials.
Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown said a coworker of the male victim, Stephen Rehbein, reported to authorities Wednesday that he hadn’t shown up for work.
Deputies went to his home in the 3300 block of County Road 265 in Mico, Texas, and found evidence of foul play, putting the investigation into high gear.
“The deputy looked into a trash can and there was some bloody items,” Brown said on Friday. “We found more evidence that probably something had happened there are the residence.”
They also discovered a car missing from the property, the sheriff said, and began tracking it. When they discovered it was in the Corpus Christi area, they contacted law enforcement partners in the coastal Texas city.
“Their gang unit got on it ASAP,” Brown said. “After a few minutes, they were able to pull the vehicle over.”
Inside that car were four people: 29-year-old Cassandra Lange, 32-year-old Joby Williams and two children, a baby boy and 6-year-old girl. Lange was identified as Stephen Rehbein’s stepdaughter and the biological daughter of his wife, Cherry Rehbein.
“The female confessed, we have a confession from her,” Brown said, adding investigators had not yet determined a motive. “The male halfway-confessed.”
According to the sheriff, authorities began searching for the Rehbeins after Lange said they had been dumped in a ravine.
“There’s a lot of ravines around Medina Lake,” Brown said. “As soon as that information was pushed back to us from Corpus, we began searching roadways, ravines, dry creeks, rivers.”
Eventually, during search efforts Thursday morning, a deputy came upon two large trash bags about 70 feet down a ravine. Law enforcement later determined the victims were inside.
Brown said “multiple murder weapons” were also found.
Williams was still jailed in Nueces County as of Friday afternoon, while Lange has bene returned to Medina County. Brown said that if it wasn’t for the fast action of law enforcement, “those bodies would’ve never been found, ever… it amazes me these people could get them where they were.”
The sheriff added it appeared the suspects, who are believed to have been in a relationship, may have sold guns belonging to the Rehbeins; authorities are working to track those weapons down.
Meanwhile, the baby boy is back with his biological father, authorities said. Brown wasn’t immediately sure about the status of the young girl.