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McCOOK, Neb. - A Las Cruces teenager is being held as a suspect in the slaying of a 14-year-old McCook girl.
Stathis Sebastian Mobley Kirkpatrick, 18, who left New Mexico about a year ago, is being held without bond in Phelps County jail in Holdrege, Neb., charged with the first-degree murder of 14-year old Kailee Clapp.
Clapp was allegedly kidnapped from her Nebraska home the night of Jan. 20. The high school freshman's mutilated body was found the next evening at a cemetery 17 miles northeast of her hometown, according to that town's police chief.
After police found blood in the back of Kirkpatrick's pickup and clothes and a blanket with apparent blood stains in Kirkpatrick's bedroom, he allegedly told police Clapp had called him to her house the night of her disappearance. There, he claimed, he saw Clapp being attacked by an unknown man - who then hit her with his pickup, spirited her body away to the cemetery and burned her body, according to the McCook Gazette.
The girl's mother, Nora Clapp, said she last saw her daughter, the youngest of three children, about 9:30 p.m. Jan. 20 as she was getting ready for bed. Her 18-year-old sister saw her about an hour later, the mother said.
Nora Clapp said she alerted police just after 7 a.m. Jan. 21 when she realized her daughter was missing.
Kirkpatrick was arrested the next day.
Clapp said her daughter wanted to be a photographer when she grew up.
"She was a very sweet, loving ... loved girl," her mother said in
A preliminary court hearing for Kirkpatrick is scheduled for Friday.
