PORT ORCHARD, Wash. — Two people have been arrested in connection with the death of a teen who went missing in South Kitsap County last week, law enforcement officials said.
Kannon Stephens, 19, of Gig Harbor was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Tyrone Sero, 19, of Port Orchard, The Kitsap Sun reported. Karlen Talent, 20, of Port Orchard was arrested and charged with being an accomplice. A third suspect hasn’t been located.
Stephens and Talent each pleaded not guilty to the charges Friday in Kitsap County Superior Court. Judge Tina Robinson kept their bail at $1 million.
Sero was last seen on surveillance video getting into an SUV early Wednesday during what authorities said was a marijuana sale.
On Tuesday, Sero told a friend that a 19-year-old man, later identified as Stephens, contacted him on Snapchat asking to buy marijuana, according to probable cause documents.
The pair met at the Kitsap Community Resource building in Port Orchard. Sero arrived in a car with a friend, and Stephens arrived in an SUV with at least one other friend, according to probable cause documents.
Surveillance footage shows Sero getting into the SUV, then struggling and being pulled into the backseat, according to documents.
Sero’s friend who drove him to the scene told police he heard what sounded like a firecracker going off as the SUV “sped out of the parking lot.”
Stephens told police Sero pulled out a gun and demanded money, according to authorities. Stephens said he heard a gunshot and thought Sero had shot his friend, so Stephens shot Sero, probable cause documents said.
The three suspects took Sero’s body to a property near Matlock in Mason County where they burned it, according to probable cause documents. Stephens told police he went back the next day and put Sero’s remains in bags, two of which he disposed of in a nearby river, documents said. The suspect put the third bag in his car, authorities said.
Stephens agreed to show detectives the spot in Mason County and agreed to turn over the clothing he wore and the gun and consented to detectives impounding his car, telling them some of Sero’s remains would be in the trunk, documents said. Detectives wrote that they were still searching for the other remains in Mason County.
