WWII veteran's body found in large suitcase on Arkansas farm

(FILE: “He was a war hero who could have been buried at the (Arlington) National Cemetery,” a police official said.)

An 89-year-old man whose body was discovered in a large suitcase on a rural Arkansas farm was a World War II veteran from New York, police say.

Robert Brooks died of natural causes at his home about a month before his body was discovered in a Prairie County field on March 5, Lt. David Gilbo of the Johnstown, New York, Police Department told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“He was a war hero who could have been buried at the (Arlington) National Cemetery,” Gilbo said. “Instead, he ends up in a suitcase dumped in a field in Arkansas.”

Police said Brooks, who was 4 feet 11 inches tall, wasn’t dismembered.

Gilbo said investigators are still trying to determine why his body was moved.

Two people considered to be caregivers of Brooks have been detained on suspicion of abuse of a corpse. Police are not considering the case a homicide, but authorities are reportedly looking into the possibility that the two were planning to defraud Social Security.

Gilbo said authorities will not be extraditing them to New York because of Arkansas’ strict laws on abuse of a corpse. In New York, the offense is punishable by three years in prison, while in Arkansas it is punishable by 10 years.

Brooks served in the military and was a gunner in a B-17 bomber’s ball turret.

“It’s the most dangerous assignment in war,” Prairie County Sheriff Rick Hickman said. “The belly gunner is in a small bubble on the bottom of the plane. The enemy wants to shoot at him first. Life expectancy on that job is very short.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report