Sierra Vista police arrested a 50-year-old man Monday night, in connection with the strangulation death of his roommate during an argument, authorities said.
Keith Allen White was booked into the Cochise County jail on charges of second-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence, Sierra Vista Police Department spokesman, Corporal Tim Wachtel, said in a news release.
Officers responded to the 100 block of Golf Links Road shortly after 9 p.m., in response to a 911 call for a possible murder. Officers spoke to the caller, who said that White told him he had killed his friend and roommate, Brian Cook, and hid the man's body in his closet, Wachtel said.
When officers arrived at White's residence, they could see through the open windows into the living room and bedroom, and were able to observe "significant blood trails leading from the bedroom closet into the living room," Wachtel said.
They could also smell signs of human decomposition.
Officers ordered White outside of his residence and detained him while conducting a search. They located a heavy black suitcase near the front door, and White later told detectives at the scene that he strangled Cook to death during an argument several days earlier, Wachtel said.
White told detectives that he'd hidden Cook's body in a suitcase and stored it in the bedroom closet, but was preparing to dispose of the body when police arrived Monday night, Wachtel said.
