SAN ANTONIO -- A local man is facing some serious questions from police after he was reportedly found digging up a body along FM 1346.
Sixty-year-old Eugene Boston was arrested Saturday for abusing a corpse, according to the Bexar County Sheriff's Office. The body was later positively identified as 29-year-old Christopher Varela.
Officials would not go into details as to how sheriff's deputies learned Boston was tampering with Varela's body.
Paul Berry, spokesman for BCSO, said deputies are treating the case as a capital murder case; however, Boston is currently only facing one felony charge of abuse of a corpse.
I saw all the law-enforcement there Saturday and it was kind of a shocker, said Steve Bone, a friend of Boston's. He's the kind of guy who is quiet and you don't expect nothing from him. Not saying he had anything to do with it; I don't know. It's just a shocker in this neighborhood.
Varela was last seen on April 6. Authorities had been investigating his disappearance as a kidnapping.
The last time (Varela) was seen was getting into a gold-colored Suburban, or gold-colored SUV, SAPDspokesperson Javier Salazar told KENS 5 last week.
In the days that followed, police said a relative received phone calls from strangers demanding ransom for Varela, starting at $100,000 and topping off at $1 million. Relatives told police they could hear Varela being tortured in the background during those calls.
Investigators followed up on the clues and traced their leads back to a man named Terrence McKinney. He was arrested for the kidnapping of Varela on Friday.
Eugene Boston was taken into custody Saturday and remains in the Bexar County jail on a $75,000 bond.
The San Antonio Police Department is currently investigating to see if there are other persons of interest connected to the kidnapping of Varela.
Varela was scheduled to go to trial in June for a third-degree felony charge he acquired last November, for possession of marijuana under 50 pounds.
Email: adelgado@kens5.com
