A 38-year-old Arizona business owner faces charges of fatally stabbing, dismembering, and burning the body of Nebraska teenager Parker League in June 2023. Anthonie Ruinard, a former restaurateur, has been charged with second-degree murder and abandonment or concealment of a dead body by Arizona prosecutors.
League, 18, was visiting friends in Arizona last summer when he encountered Mr. Ruinard. Surveillance footage from June 11 showed the two leaving a gas station together in Chandler, Arizona.
Police discovered League’s dismembered, stabbed, and charred remains in Arizona’s Tonto National Park on June 12, the same day he was scheduled to return home. Dental records were used to identify League, as confirmed by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
League’s disappearance was reported by his family to the Tempe Police Department on June 15, unaware that police had already found his body.
“It’s hard to accept because he was the nicest kid in the world,” shared League’s brother Hunter with local outlet ABC15 last year. “I got a call from my dad telling me to come home. I asked him ‘why’ about three times and the third time he tried to explain it, he just started breaking down.”
Mr. Ruinard pleaded not guilty on March 21, according to Maricopa County records, and his trial is set for July.
The 38-year-old suspect previously owned a restaurant in Tucson, Arizona, known as Pastiche Modern Eatery, which closed in February 2023 due to a fire, as reported by the Arizona Daily Star last year.
Mr. Ruinard was initially arrested in July 2023 after surveillance footage revealed him using League’s bank card posthumously. Traces of League’s DNA were found in Mr. Ruinard’s vehicle during a police search, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. He was then charged with drug possession, weapon possession, theft, murder, and concealment of a body.
However, these charges were dismissed following a grand jury indictment for murder and concealment last month, according to Maricopa County records.
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