CHARLOTTE, Mich. – U.S. authorities are trying to have a woman extradited from Pakistan to stand trial in the 2002 killing of her husband who was viciously beaten, suffocated, then dumped and burned in a blueberry patch in western Michigan, investigators said.
In the years following Robert Caraballo's slaying in Charlotte, Michigan, his wife — Beverly McCallum — met a man from Pakistan over the internet and moved to his native country, the Lansing State Journal reported Wednesday.
Caraballo's badly burned remains were found in a scorched footlocker in a wooded area in Ottawa County in the days following his death, but it wasn't until 2015 that an anonymous tip led police to identify those remains as his.
Murder charges were filed in November against 58-year-old McCallum, her 38-year-old daughter, Dineane Ducharme, and Christopher McMillan, 40, of Grand Rapids. The three also are charged with conspiracy, and disinterment and mutilation of a body.
Authorities have been trying to extradite McCallum since the charges were filed. The newspaper did not say if she has been located or whether extradition proceedings have begun.
McMillan, a friend of Ducharme, told investigators that the slaying was planned and a "test run" was performed before killing Caraballo, Eaton County sheriff's Detective James Maltby testified in November.
Maltby said McMillan told investigators that McCallum pushed Caraballo down the basement stairs of a home in Charlotte, about 110 miles (180 kilometers) northwest of Detroit. They then beat him with at least one hammer in an attack so vicious that one of the hammers became stuck in Caraballo's skull. McCallum wrapped a plastic bag around the head of the still-breathing Caraballo, Maltby testified.
Ducharme, who was 21 at the time of the slaying, told police her mother killed Caraballo and that she helped dispose of her stepfather's body, according to Maltby.
Another of McCallum's daughters, who was aged 9 at the time, told police years later that she believes she and her 11-year-old sister were in the van when her mother and others drove a large metal box containing her father's body about 90 miles (145 kilometers) to Ottawa County.
Maltby testified that the older of the two younger daughters said McCallum told her she killed Caraballo in self-defense.
Sometime after the killing, Ducharme and her mother moved to Pasadena, Texas. McCallum subsequently moved to Pakistan after learning that the investigation into the slaying was progressing, Maltby said.
Ducharme is jailed in Texas, awaiting extradition to Michigan. McMillan is jailed in Michigan.
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Information from: Lansing State Journal, http://www.lansingstatejournal.com
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