CONROE, Texas – Two people are being sought by the Liberty County Sheriff's Office in connection with what deputies call an apparent staged suicide that was exposed in Nevada.
Charles Edgell, of Conroe, called the county sheriff's dispatcher around 11 p.m. on Aug. 15 in what was meant to sound like a suicide call, deputies said.
Edgell and his girlfriend, Jennifer Burkes, are now being sought by authorities in Nevada for attempting to get a driver's license from the state with a dead person's Social Security number, the Sheriff's Office said.
"I have a lot going on in my life and I'm dying of cancer," authorities say Edgell told the dispatcher.
Deputies discovered that Edgell had recently been indicted for sexual assault in Conroe. Court documents show he was indicted in May for sexually assaulting a child younger than 14 years of age. The sexual assaults first started in 2007.
Channel 2 spoke to a Conroe man who said Edgell has been married to his daughter for the past 15 years. He said Edgell sexually assaulted his granddaughter, who is not Edgell’s biological daughter, several times.
“He’s a bad person,” the father-in-law said. “I wish I knew where he was because I’d turn him in.”
The father-in-law said he did not know who Burkes is and he was not aware of her relationship with Edgell.
"What lead investigator Sgt. Billy Knox said could almost be described as a 'movie script' started out as a missing-person case by the Sheriff's Office based upon receiving the phone call from Edgell and finding his white 2006 Mustang abandoned on the Highway 105 Trinity River bridge with his last will and testament lying on the dashboard of his car," the Sheriff's Office said.
Deputies said they conducted an all-day search the next day on the banks of the Trinity River, with volunteers and cadaver dogs checking the shoreline for Edgell's body, but they didn't find anything.
Knox was conducting a follow-up investigation on Monday when he received a telephone call from authorities in Nevada, deputies said.
According to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, Edgell entered an office and attempted to get a state driver's license using the Social Security card of Burkes' late husband, whose first name was also Charles.
When a DMV clerk ran the Social Security number and it came back registered to a dead person, Edgell was confronted and fled the office, leaving Burkes behind, deputies said.
Authorities questioned Burkes and released her, the Sheriff's Office said. However, the DMV's follow-up investigation on the Social Security number led them to call the family of the dead person. The Nevada DMV then contacted Knox.
Knox said the Nevada DMV currently has three outstanding felony warrants against Edgell, and said Burkes is also possibly involved. Both are being sought by Nevada authorities, in addition to the felony sexual assault indictment in Conroe.
Authorities said they didn't know if the two will try to return to the Conroe and Liberty County area, or remain on the run in Nevada.
Edgell is described by the Sheriff's Office as white, 6 feet 3 inches tall and 180 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. Burkes is described as white, 5 feet 7 inches tall and 112 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes.
Deputies said the two are thought to be in Burkes' vehicle, but the make and model were not known.