Jeff Mattox, 35, and his wife Stacy, 33, are currently being held without bond at the Sebastian County Detention Center, according to a police report. Both face charges of six counts of residential burglary, felony theft by receiving, felon in possession of a firearm and parole violation.
“Doing stuff like that, that’s a pretty good show of desperation,” said Bobby Lowe, of Fort Smith.
Detectives were familiar with a couple because they were arrested on multiple counts of residential burglary in 2007 after the crimes were committed under the same circumstances.
Through on-line records and receipts, detectives discovered that Mattox and his wife had recently sold various amounts of jewelry to Precious Metal Brokers, according to a police report.
Detectives searched the Mattox home in Hackett and found large quantities of miscellaneous jewelry, golf clubs, two handguns and $3,000.
Investigators also located newspaper articles highlighting the names and cities of family members listed within obituaries, Sgt. Daniel Grubbs said.
“You could tell they were looking through each and every obituary,” said Grubbs.
Police say the burglaries happened with in the last week. “There’s many victims that I believe that we stopped,” said Grubbs.
The investigation is still on-going to determine other potential victims.
Anyone with information about these crimes is encouraged to contact Detective Jason Scarborough at (479) 709-5104 or dial (479) 78-CRIME.