But the Missouri Supreme Court decided in January 1970 that Arbeiter’s juvenile records should have remained sealed and that without them, the state did not have sufficient proof of his guilt.

Arbeiter has since had several other run-ins with the law. In 1970, he was indicted in a rape case but later cleared. He served four years on a 1971 burglary conviction, then in 1974 was charged with murder in the killing of a tavern owner in Herculaneum and sexual assault of a woman there. A jury acquitted him of those charges in 1976.

Pettis County Sheriff Kevin Bond said this week his office is treating the remains as a suspicious death pending the results of an autopsy, the McClatchy-Tribune News Service reports.

“The big thing I want to know is are we dealing with one body or multiple bodies,” Bond said. “Also, we don’t have a missing person reported, so we need to find out who this is. The autopsy will assist in maybe determining the manner and cause of death and any evidence or circumstances around that. Those are all very important questions we need to have answered.”

Bond said he could not speculate on whether Arbeiter has any association with the found remains, but noted that he was still in custody relative to the earlier arrest.

According to the news service, Bond declined to give many specifics on what was found but noted, “This didn’t happen last night, but it’s not just bones, either. Are we talking weeks or months? The autopsy will have to show that.”

Shake off your afternoon slump with the oft-shared and offbeat news of the day, hand-brewed by our online news editor, Mandy St. Amand. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.