Bodies likely those of missing women

OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma authorities said Thursday that bodies found last month in a hole initially dug for a septic tank were likely those of three females missing since 1992 and that police had arrested a man who sprinkled black pepper on the impromptu grave in an apparent attempt to cover any odor.

Remains found beneath 8 feet of dirt near Jennings were likely those of Wendy Camp, 23; her daughter Cynthia Britto, 6; and Lisa Kregear, 22, who was Camp’s sister-in-law, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said. Clothing, a backpack and a purse found in the hole matched items the women had when they disappeared May 29, 1992.

Grover J. Prewitt Jr., 60, of Bristow, used to own the land where the bodies were found and was charged Thursday with being an accessory after the fact of first-degree murder. Investigators said he told them that he suspected in 1992 that the three were in the hole and said he spread pepper in the area at his mother’s request.

Prewitt’s nephew had been married to Camp and was in a custody dispute with her around the time of her disappearance, according to the investigators.

In late March, Prewitt told investigators that, around the time the three disappeared, his sister Beverly asked him to hire a backhoe driver to dig a hole for a septic tank on 5 acres that their mother was buying from him. The hole sat empty for a bit, then after the three went missing his mother, Ida Prewitt, asked him to have the backhoe driver fill the hole. Ida Prewitt never moved onto the property and later sold it.

“Grover never looked in the hole after the girls went missing, because he was scared of what he would see,” agent Melissa Gann wrote in an affidavit filed in Creek County Court.