A teenage boy has been arrested almost 800 miles away from the family home where his mother and stepfather were mysteriously found lying dead. At present, officials have not charged Nikita Casap, 17, of Waukesha, Wisconsin, with any crime relating to their deaths.
Casap lived in the home where his stepfather Donald Mayer and mother Tatiana Casap were found dead on Friday February 28. That same day, Casap was charged with operating a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent and a second count of theft of movable property – a gun.
The criminal complaint, amended Tuesday and obtained by The Independent, does not confirm Mayer and Tatiana Casap’s identities. The pair’s relatives confirmed that they were found dead in various statements to local media.
Around 12 hours after the bodies were found, Casap was apprehended in WaKeeney, Kansas, some 800 miles from his home in the Milwaukee suburbs after a traffic stop.
Police were alerted to the family’s home after Mayer’s mother, Judith, requested a welfare check on Friday morning. She said she had not been in contact with her son in weeks and had received a spate of suspicious messages from her son's phone on February 23.
School authorities were also concerned as the 17-year-old reportedly failed to show up for two weeks before the discovery at his home despite previously having a “perfect school attendance,” stated the complaint.
Mayer’s sister last had contact with him on February 18 when he told her that he had been feeling “pretty sick and was going to take some time off social media.”
At 1.52 p.m. Friday, officials found a woman, believed to be Tatiana, lying on the first floor hallway, with “her face blackened from decomposition [and] dried blood [was present] on the floor around her.”
The boy's mother was dressed in a jacket but had towels covering her legs and a blanket draped over her body.
Crucially, they observed an exit wound in her back, near her right shoulder, and what appeared to be a bullet hole in the wall next to her body. Her car was noted to not be at the home, while Mayer’s was.
A second body, believed to be Mayer’s was found at around 5 p.m. that day, in the office of the home. The body was described as “a male with a gray beard” who was found with a gunshot wound to his head and covered by a pile of clothing.
Days before the incident, Casap, was spotted by a neighbor driving his stepfather’s Volkswagen Atlas alone. The absence of the families’ “small black dog” was also noted.
After the discovery, Casap’s phone and his mother’s phone were both pinged to Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Advanced location records revealed that Casap’s cell appeared to leave Waukesha, just outside of Milwaukee, on February 24 at around 10 a.m. before it traveled through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and finally Wyoming and Colorado.
Only one stop was recorded – The World’s Largest Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa, at 2:25 p.m. on February 24 for just under 30 minutes.
Video surveillance reviewed by the Walcott Iowa Police Department confirmed that the father’s VW Atlas aligned with that timeframe. Casap could be seen driving the vehicle along with the family’s little black dog.
“Based on the defendant’s school photo, Officer Horihan [of Walcott PD] believed the lone occupant of the vehicle was the defendant and he was accompanied by a small black dog, consistent with the dog that was missing from the residence,” stated the criminal complaint.
A police search of the home recovered paperwork confirming that Casap’s stepfather owned a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum firearm which was not found on the premises.
Police tracked Casap down at around 11:25 p.m. Friday and performed a traffic stop.
This is when they noticed the missing firearm on the passenger side along with the small black dog.
The victims’ driving licenses were also inside the car along with unused ammunition for the weapon and spent shell casings.
Casap has been held in custody and appeared for a court hearing Monday where a warrant for his arrest was announced along with extradition from Kansas back to Wisconsin.
He is scheduled to appear in Trego County District Court in Kansas on the afternoon of March 17 unless Wisconsin authorities pick him up beforehand, stated a court judge via the Monday court hearing.
