Arrest after elderly Louisiana man found dead in garbage bin on his porch

JEANERETTE, La. – Police say the body of an elderly man who had been missing since Christmas Day was found inside a trash bin on his back porch Wednesday, reports CBS affiliate KLFY.

Deputies made the grisly discovery just hours after they arrested 23-year-old Jeffery Lee Marks for the first-degree murder of 75-year-old Howard Poche.

Iberia Parish Sheriff Louis Ackal says that Marks was booked into the Iberia Parish jail without bond. The sheriff said investigators had determined a motive in Poche’s murder but will not be releasing it at this time.

The station reports that Poche was reported missing when he did not attend 8 a.m. Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church on Christmas Day.

A priest asked members of the congregation to check on Poche, and Ackal said that when a parishioner arrived at Poche’s home they reportedly found his housekeeper cleaning up a “considerable amount of blood.”

The housekeeper is now in the parish jail on charges unrelated to Poche’s death but Ackal said it’s possible she could be charged in the case.