PORTLAND — A Mississippi man wanted in the strangulation death of his roommate has been arrested in Portland, Oregon.
U.S. Marshals and Portland police took 40-year-old Thomas Elliott Stafford into custody near downtown. He was booked into jail shortly before noon Saturday and is awaiting extradition.
Investigators in Jackson County, Mississippi, believe Stafford killed 65-year-old Jerry Floyd Kirkendall sometime around March 3, when a landlord last saw Kirkendall.
Alerted by the smell, the landlord found Kirkendall’s body in an unplugged freezer on March 20. Sheriff Mike Ezell said Stafford also stole the victim’s Cadillac.