An Arizona couple allegedly plotted the killing of a registered sex offender before his stabbed body was discovered in the desert outside Bullhead City, police said.
Jacob Dylan Middlebrook, 35, and his partner, 36-year-old Layne Justine McIntosh, were arrested Saturday in connection with the death of Arron Christopher Warren.
A driver found the 29-year-old victim that morning on a dirt road roughly a mile east of Bullhead Parkway. Warren, who was homeless, had been classified as a Level 2 registered sex offender.
Investigators have not disclosed the offense that put him on the registry.
🪖Seventeen battle-tested candidates are ready to strike a decisive blow to the Democrat Machine — but they urgently need resources. 🪖 Join the grassroots push to save the House Majority and back them today! ➡️➡️➡️ Make a 17X impact!!! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
What police say they did uncover was evidence that Middlebrook and McIntosh had focused on Warren because of his status.
Detectives said the pair had openly expressed hostility toward registered sex offenders and believed the killing had been planned ahead of time.
Their preparations allegedly included selecting the desert as the place to leave Warren’s body.
Police said the couple even examined furniture abandoned along the roadside, measuring pieces that might be large enough to conceal him.
Warren’s vehicle later surfaced across the Arizona state line in Laughlin, Nevada. Authorities found the car parked at a casino several hours after his body was discovered.
Middlebrook and McIntosh were subsequently taken into custody and booked into the Clark County Detention Center in Las Vegas. Both were awaiting extradition to Mohave County, Arizona.
Bullhead City Police Chief Paul George addressed the case after the arrests, emphasizing that the department regularly provides the public with information about registered offenders but does not condone using that information to target them.
“When a Level 2 or Level 3 sex offender moves into our area or, more commonly, changes addresses, the Bullhead City Police Department shares that information as a public service to help keep residents informed,” George said.
Residents living within about 1,000 feet of an offender’s registered address receive required notifications, according to the chief. The department also publishes the notices on social media so they reach a wider audience.
“Our goal is to provide information, not create fear or alarm. We believe an informed community is a safer community,” George said.
But the chief drew a firm line between public notification and retaliation.
George said the department “will not tolerate anyone using this information as a reason to threaten, intimidate, harass or harm another person.”
Investigators with the department also conduct monthly address checks intended to make sure registered offenders are following reporting requirements.
“Our responsibility is to protect our community, keep residents informed and to enforce the law. We take all three of these seriously,” George added.
The Arizona case follows another alleged vigilante confrontation involving a registered sex offender, this one hundreds of miles away in Michigan.
A man in his 50s said a group of hooded youths appeared at his Allegan County home shortly after midnight in June after apparently locating him through the sex offender registry.
The man, who spoke anonymously with Fox 8, said he and his wife first realized something was wrong when they heard activity outside their garage.
“I heard the rattle of the garage door and then the banging, and thought, ‘What in the world’s going on here?’” he recalled.
When he opened the garage, he said he found a group of children standing outside.
A neighbor’s Blink camera later captured five or six hooded people entering the home.
The group began questioning him about his identity and criminal history while one person recorded the encounter on a phone.
The man said he answered them and acknowledged the offense that placed him on the registry.
“I was trying to be open and be honest,” he said. “I did tell them the truth, but they kept going on and on about, ‘Well, you still did this. You still did that.’”
He told the station that he pleaded guilty in 1991 to first-degree sexual assault of a child in another state.
According to his account, he was 19 when he had a relationship with a 13-year-old girl he met at a roller-skating rink. The relationship lasted about a year before the girl’s father discovered it and pursued charges.
He served 120 days in jail and was ordered to remain on the sex offender registry for life.
More than three decades later, he said the group at his home confronted him over that crime despite his attempts to explain that he regretted what he had done.
One member allegedly told him that “people on the registry need to be dead.”
His wife eventually told him to end the confrontation and come back inside.
Before he could do so, the man said someone standing to his left punched him from behind as he turned toward others in the group.
“I turned my head to look at the kids on the right, and the kid on the left … blindsided me with a hit to the head with a fist,” he said.
He described feeling the attacker’s knuckles strike the area behind his ear.
The group then fled, according to his account. He said the blow left him with a concussion.
The Michigan man did not deny the crime that put him on the registry and instead described it as a decision he still takes responsibility for decades later.
“I was 19 years old and being very, very stupid and selfish and did something wrong,” he said.
He told Fox 8 that he does not hide the conviction from employers or others who ask about his background.
“I’m not afraid to open up about what I have done, and that includes employers. I admit my wrongdoings,” he said. “I point the finger at my own self because God, he gives us life, right? He doesn’t control what we do down here. God didn’t make me do what I did.”
