NEW ORLEANS — Two men tied to a brutal beating near Slidell that left a man severely wounded and left in a ditch are now named as suspects in the murder of a 25-year-old Slidell woman whose body was found inside the abandoned Navy Support Activity complex in Bywater.
Dylan Craddock, 27, and Cody Matthews, 32, have each been named in arrest warrants for second-degree murder in the Bywater killing, the New Orleans Police Department announced Thursday.
Craddock and Matthews remain locked up in St. Tammany where earlier they were booked with kidnapping and attempted murder in the Slidell beating case, jail records show. They will be subject to extradition to New Orleans to face the new murder charges.
Brooke “Bee” Buchler, 25, was found murdered inside the abandoned Navy Support Activity complex in New Orleans, police said. A police report stated that Buchler, who worked as a waitress, had a bullet hole in the back of her skull and a large metal pipe entangled in her hair.
Buchler was found by a squatter in the multi-story complex in the Bywater area on Aug. 23, the police report states.
“Lying face down on the ground, the female was unresponsive and had blood on her face and right arm,” the report states. “Officer (Ashley) Jones was unable to see the victim’s injury due to the position she was lying in. Officer Jones observed one bloody handprint on the door frame where the victim was located.”
The Slidell Police Department previously linked the two cases. Buchler and the beating victim had been “acquaintances” according to the department. Multiple sources said the two were staying together in Buchler’s Slidell apartment up until the time both turned up missing.
The beating victim was found near-death a short time after his abduction on Aug. 20. The Slidell Police Department said that the 27-year-old was stabbed, beaten and left for dead in a ditch along remote Bayou Paquet Road outside of Slidell.
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