Burned Body Found Near Wapato Last November Identified

Last November we reported on the discovery of a body inside a burned-out car not far from Wapato. Now, the victim has been identified.

  Yakima County Sheriff says the victim is a 47-year-old man

November 1st. Deputies responded to a report of a car on fire in the 2500 block of Riggs Road, about 10 miles northwest of Wapato, a good distance from State Route 97 and I-82.  After putting out the fire, they found a badly burned body inside. At that time it was turned over to the crime lab for investigation.

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   The man was from Wapato

According to the Yakima County Sheriff's Office:

"With the assistance of the Yakima County Coroner’s Office, the Washington State Patrol Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit, and the Washington State Department of Corrections, we were able to positively identify the victim as 47-year-old Jerred Dane King from Wapato. This case is being investigated as a homicide."

This was the third such incident in the last half of 2022, in June Grant County Deputies found a male victim inside a burned-out car near Moses Lake. Then on August 16th Yakima County Deputies responded to a car fire and found a partially-burned male victim inside. That location was on Progressive Road, about a mile SE of Wapato. That case is also being investigated by the FBI and Yakama Nation Tribal Police.