The remains of Julia Jacobson, a retired Army officer who had been missing since September, and her dog were found in a shallow grave in a California desert.
Jacobson and her box terrier went missing over the Labor Day weekend and her ex-husband Dalen Ware had been arrested in October on suspicion of murder, KSWB-TV reported.
Investigators found the bodies on Friday in an area called Cactus City near Interstate 10 in San Bernardino County, KSWB-TV said.
About 140 law enforcement employees searched the desert for two days based on information allegedly given to them by Ware, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Officers from the Ontario and San Diego, sheriff’s offices and the U.S. Marshals joined in the search.
Steve Cline, Ware's attorney, told the Union-Tribune that that his client voluntarily showed the police where "he had buried" Jacobson without a plea bargain or a leniency promise.
Jon Jacobson, the brother of Julia Jacobson, told KSWB-TV that investigators contacted the family during his sister's funeral mass in North Dakota.
"The church was absolutely packed and halfway through the service, we got a call from the detective in San Diego letting us know her remains had been found and they were quite confident it was her," Jon Jacobson told the television station.
Jacobson, 37, a retired Army captain, was a corporate real estate broker for 7-Eleven when she went missing.
"For everybody here, including volunteers, our biggest thing is that that's somebody's daughter, somebody’s sister," Ontario Police Department Cpl. Fred Alvarez, told the Union-Tribune. "It's very important for us to get them closure."
Authorities have not revealed a motive for the murder. Ware and Jacobsen married on Feb. 28, 2014, separated on March 1, 2016, and a marriage dissolution was granted on Dec. 13, the Union-Tribune said.
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