Two bodies found in crawl space, yard of Boise home

BOISE – Two apparent homicide victims were identified Thursday as part-time residents of the home where their bodies were found – one in a crawl space beneath the house and the other buried in the backyard.

The bodies of 48-year-old Jeffrey Alan Willett and 36-year-old Jody Collingsworth were found after police and firefighters responded to a fire at the home last week. The body found in the home’s crawl space was recovered Monday; the other was found in the backyard on Sunday evening.

Todd C. Hagnas, 38, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree arson and remained jailed pending an initial court hearing May 11. Hagnas was renting the home, and Willett and Collingsworth were his part-time roommates, police said.

Police have said Hagnas is also a suspect in what they’re calling two homicides.

Willett died from blunt force trauma to the head, and Collingsworth died from a slashed neck, the Ada County coroner’s office said.

Phone calls to police spokeswoman Lynn Hightower and Coroner Erwin Sonnenberg to request information on the location of the respective bodies, the times of their deaths and whether they had been reported missing weren’t immediately returned.

Last Thursday, police dispatchers received an anonymous call around 7 a.m. from a man telling them they would be busy and that they’d need to bring cadaver dogs.

The man hung up without identifying himself or his location, but two hours later, dispatchers were called by the same man, now believed to be Hagnas, saying his home was ablaze.

When firefighters arrived, Hagnas was sitting on a porch swing just feet from where the flames were consuming the house, authorities said.

He had to be forcibly removed from the home, and in questioning later indicated that two homicides had taken place, police said.

Officers then searched the home’s crawl space, finding the decaying body of a dog as well as what appeared to be freshly moved dirt and human remains, police said.

Ada County records identify the home’s owner as Monica L. Bronson. Efforts to locate her Thursday were unsuccessful.

On two occasions, once in 2005 and again in 2006, the home where the bodies were found was the subject of separate Boise city zoning enforcement actions after somebody complained of “misc. boxes, junk and trash in the front yard and driveway,” according to Boise Planning and Development Services documents.