LAKE COUNTY, Fla. – A man is wanted in connection with a fatal shooting after deputies discovered the body of a missing person in a wooded area behind a Marion County home Thursday night, the sheriff’s office said.
Lake County deputies issued an arrest warrant for 26-year-old Matthew Allen, who is currently booked in Marion County jail on unrelated Sumter County warrants, on Friday.
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Deputies said they initially responded to a missing person call around 10 p.m. Wednesday on Mitchell Drive in Leesburg.
The victim, who deputies later identified as 26-year-old Casey Dean, had been missing since Aug. 28, an affidavit of probable cause shows.
The friend who reported Dean missing told deputies there were rumors he was killed, the affidavit reads. According to investigators, she told them Dean was last seen with the suspect in a 2015 Dodge Ram.
A woman who the suspect recently met off a dating app told deputies Allen and Dean had got in an argument over a firearm on Aug. 28.
According to the affidavit, Allen asked Dean, “Why would you go pull a gun on people that doesn’t work?” before a shot was fired at the victim.
The woman said Allen then asked if Dean could “just put the gun in (his) hand, so it looks like a suicide,” according to the affidavit.
Investigators then said Allen forced the woman to help him dispose of the body and threatened to kill her family if she didn’t. According to the affidavit, Allen and the woman drove to a wooded area in Marion County, where he disposed of the body.
Deputies said the woman also told them he had “been under the influence of Methamphetamine for the past week.”
Allen is facing several charges, including manslaughter, kidnapping, neglect of a child, unlawful transportation of human remains, grand theft auto and tampering with physical evidence.
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