Texans charged in connection with Kansas carnival slayings
Fake mafia ritual led to killings of couple, authorities believe
A group of carnival workers, including three who were said to be from Texas, have been charged in Arkansas in connection with the death of a Kansas couple who sold crafts on the carnival circuit.
Police in Arkansas alleged that one of the workers, Kimberly Younger, posed as a member of a fictitious mafia group and ordered fellow workers to kill the couple as part of an initiation ritual. The details were outlined in filing charges related to dumping the bodies.
Younger, 52, of Aransas Pass and three others were charged this week in Crawford County Circuit Court, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. The charges include abuse of a corpse, theft by receiving and tampering with physical evidence in the deaths of Alfred “Sonny” Carpenter and Pauline Carpenter.
The other suspects were identified as Christine Tenney, 37, of Santa Fe; Rusty Frasier, 35, of Aransas Pass; and Michael Fowler, 54, of Lake City, Fla.
Attempts by the Chronicle on Friday to reach friends or relatives of the suspects in Texas were unsuccessful.
JD Cook, an airbrush tattoo artist who knew the victims, said the suspects were employees of Wagner’s Carnival, a Port Aransasbased company that provided entertainment at the Barton County Fair in Great Bend, Kan.
He described the Carpenters as a friendly retired couple who enjoyed selling trinkets at fairs in several states.
“They absolutely loved people, and where is a better place to be?” said Cook, a former police officer. “Why anyone would commit such a heinous crime is beyond me.”
The Democrat-Gazette reported that Younger allegedly posed as a carnival mafia member named “Frank Zaitchik” and text-
ed others last month to kill the Carpenters on the Great Bend fairgrounds, where the couple were vendors, according to Van Buren, Ark., police.
Detectives discovered Younger had a Facebook page in the name of Frank Zaitchik while examining her phone, according to police reports.
Police said Fowler told investigators that Frasier stabbed Alfred Carpenter before Fowler shot him. Fowler then went into the couple’s camper and shot Pauline Carpenter, according to police reports.
Fowler told investigators that the killings were initiation into the carnival mafia, police said. Asked whether there was even such a thing as a carnival mafia, Van Buren police spokesman Jonathan Wear said in an email that was something the woman “definitely made up.”
Zaitchik also told texted others to clean the inside of the camper and to dispose of the bodies, Fowler allegedly told investigators.
The four suspects loaded the couple’s bodies into the camper and dumped them in a creek bed north of Cedarville, Ark., according to police reports. Tenney’s sister-in-law told authorities Tenney called and said she was kidnapped by three others who had murdered an elderly couple and that she’s being held against her will, police said. Authorities found the suspects at an apartment complex.
Jason Wagner, owner of Wagner’s Carnival, said the Kansas Bureau of Investigation told him not to speak with reporters while police investigate the slayings.
Younger, Fowler and Frasier are being held on $1 million bail. Tenney is being held on $250,000 bail. All have pleaded not guilty.
No charges had been filed in Kansas as of Wednesday, according to the Kansas attorney general’s office. The Barton County sheriff ’s office, the Great Bend Police Department and the Barton County attorney’s office are conducting the investigation, according to the attorney general.