Mary Bowerman

USA TODAY Network

The wife and stepson of a Ku Klux Klan leader who was found dead over the weekend were charged with murder Monday, according to authorities.

Malissa Ancona, 44, and her son Paul Edward Jinkerson Jr., 24, were both charged with murder in the first degree, tampering with evidence and abandoning a corpse, the Park Hills Daily Journal reported.

Ancona's husband, Frank Ancona, 51, was found dead on Saturday on a river bank near Belgrade, Mo., Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen said in a Facebook post.

An autopsy found that Frank died from a gunshot wound to his head, the Park Hills Daily Journal reported. Frank was killed on Feb. 9 inside a bedroom at the home he shared with Malissa, according to a probable cause statement, the paper reported. According to authorities, Malissa Ancona said that her biological son shot her husband, who was sleeping, in the head.

Authorities obtained a search warrant and found extensive blood in the master bedroom on Feb. 11, the Daily Journal reported.

Officials first learned of the 51-year-old's disappearance on Friday, a day after a United States Federal Forest Service employee discovered Ancona’s car on Federal Forest Service Property, Jacobsen said in a Facebook post.

Authorities searched the area, but Ancona’s body was not found until Saturday when a family that was fishing found his remains on the river bank, The Park Hills Daily Journal reported.

Leadwood Police Chief William Dickey told the Daily Journal that Ancona was last seen by his wife on Wednesday morning. Dickey said Malissa Ancona told authorities that husband told her he was driving across state lines to deliver a part for work.

The Daily Journal reported that Malissa told authorities her husband packed a bag and said he wanted a divorce when he returned from his work trip. The day he left, she placed an ad on Facebook seeking a roommate to help her with rent, the Daily Journal reported.

Dickey told the Daily Journal that officers found a safe that looked like someone had used a crowbar to beat the side out of it and that all of Franks firearms were missing from the home.

Ancona, of Leadwood, Mo., is identified as the “Imperial Wizard” for a group called the “Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.” In a photo on the group's website, Ancona is wearing a white hood and standing in front of a burning cross.

“The media will tell you The KKK is dead, gone, irrelevant,” Ancona said in a statement on the website. “They have tried since the birth of the Klan to downplay the influence and power of the KKK... Let me tell you they are the haters. They have engaged in a campaign to destroy our Race, culture, and heritage.”

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