A Vienna man suspected of killing and dismembering his 64-year-old father is awaiting extradition to Virginia after he was arrested at an Ohio motel Friday evening.
Dail Brown Jr., 35, had been missing since Wednesday, a day before the remains of his father, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official Dail Brown, were discovered in the trunk of a family car. Police were called to their Carrhill Road home Wednesday evening after the victim’s wife found signs of a struggle and large amounts of blood at the residence.
The son was arrested without incident by Columbus police at about 9:30 p.m., a little more than two hours after Fairfax County police obtained a warrant for murder against him, police spokesman Lt. Richard Perez said Sunday.
Earlier on Friday, police had only named the younger Brown as a “person of interest” in the case. New information discovered later in the day and further evidence from the crime scene gave police sufficient cause to obtain the warrant, according to Perez.
“Information was surfacing quickly as to where he was,” Perez said.
The elder Brown retired last month as chief of the ecosystem assessment division of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.
A former colleague last week described him as mentor to others within his agency and a wealth of knowledge on marine conservation, who recently led a charge on combating invasive marine species.
Brown is the second former official within the U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees NOAA, to be killed in Fairfax County in recent months.
In July, William Lash III reportedly shot and killed his 12-year-old son and then himself inside his McLean home after a standoff with police. Lash was a law professor at George Mason University’s law school and had served from 2001 to ‘05 as an assistant commerce secretary under President Bush.
