Third arrest made in burned body case

The Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office has arrested a third man connected to a burned body found in the woods earlier this year.

Deputies booked Kevin Isaza, 23, of Antioch, Tenn., on a murder charge Monday evening. He and at least two other men killed 26-year-old Luis Antonio Lopez, of Nashville, and burned his corpse in the woods off Ellis Road, said Capt. Rick Swiney, who oversees the investigations division at the sheriff’s office.

In February, investigators arrested Roberto Viera Aybar, 23, of Antioch, and Hector Ruiz, 29, of Nashville, on murder charges in the case. Swiney declined to comment when asked if anyone else is linked to Isaza’s death.

“It’s possible,” he said. “The case is still under investigation.”

After a 13-year-old boy found the burned body on Jan. 10, medical examiners identified the victim as Lopez. Swiney said he had been involved in a marijuana growing operation in the Nashville area. After identifying Lopez, the sheriff’s office and Georgia Bureau of Investigation began working with agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, trying to find people linked to Lopez.

“We believe it possibly involved drugs,” Swiney said of the killing.

During the investigation, agents linked Aybar, Isaza and Ruiz to the killing. Swiney declined to say how specifically the men were tied to the crime scene and Lopez.

But after Aybar’s and Ruiz’s arrests, investigators still had not found Isaza. Swiney said he fled to California after arrest warrants were issued in his name. Last week, members of the U.S. Marshal’s Office found him in Sacramento.

Some Whitfield County court services officers flew to California this weekend and drove Isaza back, arriving at the jail around 6:30 p.m.