WEST ALLIS, Wis. — A former police officer charged in the deaths of two women — one from the Twin Cities — whose bodies were stuffed into suitcases and left on a rural Wisconsin highway met his victims online, according to police and a criminal complaint.

Steven Zelich, 52, a security officer, was charged Thursday with two counts of hiding a corpse.

He was arrested Wednesday, when detectives wearing hazmat suits removed large bags of evidence and a refrigerator from his apartment in West Allis, a Milwaukee suburb.

Highway workers discovered two suitcases containing female remains June 5 in the Town of Geneva, about 50 miles southwest of Milwaukee.

Police identified one woman as Laura Simonson, 37, of Farmington. Authorities have not released the identity of the second woman.

Simonson was found naked with a rope around her neck and a ball gag strapped in her mouth with a collar, according to the criminal complaint filed in Walworth County, Wis.

The other woman’s hands were bound behind her back.

Both bodies were decomposed, and Zelich told investigators he hid one for about 1 1/2 years, moving it between his home and vehicle, the complaint says.

Zelich said he met both women online, and police said that in Simonson’s case it might have been through a bondage website.

Zelich told investigators he killed the unidentified woman in Kenosha County, Wis., in late 2012 or early 2013 and Simonson in Rochester, Minn., in November, the complaint says.

Police said they believe Simonson died at the Microtel Inn and Suites because she checked in with Zelich on Nov. 2, and Zelich left alone the next day, Rochester police Capt. John Sherwin said.

Investigators have collected evidence from the hotel and interviewed people who stayed there on those days. A woman who answered the phone at the hotel said employees had been told not to talk to the media.

Farmington police detective Sgt. Lee Hollatz said Zelich has long been his “No. 1 person, by far, of interest” in Simonson’s disappearance.

He discovered Simonson went to the hotel with Zelich soon after her family reported her missing Nov. 22, but he said all he had was a missing person’s case until the bodies were discovered.

Hollatz said Simonson was identified within a day by her tattoos.

“I saw Laura as a vulnerable adult because of things in her life that she was dealing with,” Hollatz said.

Simonson’s father, Richard Wierson, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that his daughter had struggled with mental illness since adolescence, and her seven children were placed in foster care with him in 2010.

Wierson also said she placed escort ads on Craigs-list.

Wierson spent Wednesday night looking at pictures of their canoeing trips to northern Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness when Laura was a preteen.

“She caught one of the biggest bass I’ve ever seen,” he said from his home in Northfield, Minn.

Kristin Scouton, who grew up with Simonson in Northfield, said they were in the same Girl Scouts troop and often held sleepovers.

She said Simonson was a divorced mother whose “kids were her life.” One of Simonson’s daughters suffered disabilities after a childhood accident and died in June 2013.

A call to Simonson’s mother, Mary Jo Wierson, was not returned Thursday.

After Simonson was reported missing, an ad was placed on SecondCityClassifieds.com claiming she was mentally disabled and had been enslaved, tortured and abused by Zelich.

The ad provided a cellphone number for Zelich and an email address for him that appears on an online discussion board titled “MasterB Slave Club.”

An email solicitation from Zelich appears on the board with the subject line, “seeking perm enslavement,” in which he seeks “no limit enslavement, imprisonment, captivity, animalization … ideally in a farm/caged situation.”

Zelich is scheduled to appear in court Friday in Wisconsin on the hiding-a-corpse charges. Police said they expect homicide charges to be filed where the women were killed.

Walworth County public defender Travis Schwantes said he would most likely be the attorney assigned to represent Zelich in Wisconsin. Schwantes declined to comment on the allegations until he’d spoken with Zelich.

At least a half-dozen law enforcement agencies have been involved in the investigation because events occurred in different places.

Zelich worked for the West Allis police department from February 1989 until his resignation in August 2001.

He has been a licensed private security officer with Securitas Security Services USA since 2007, according to the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services. Securitas said Zelich passed criminal background checks performed by the state every two years to renew his license and his employment record reflected “no extraordinary or remarkable incidents.”

Sarah Horner and Nick Ferraro contributed to this report, which includes information from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.