Body found might be Marine’s wife; woman arrested

VISTA, Calif. (AP) — A Camp Pendleton Marine being investigated in the disappearance of the wife of another Marine was scheduled to be arraigned on a separate weapons charge Wednesday.

Louis Ray Perez, 45, was the last person seen with Brittany Dawn Killgore, a Fallbrook woman who has been missing since Friday.

The arraignment comes a day after a woman’s body was found north of Fallbrook in Riverside County near Temecula, about a mile from Lake Skinner. A coroner in San Diego County was doing an autopsy on the body to confirm the identity.

Authorities arrested one woman on suspicion of murder and said Perez is being actively investigated in this disappearance. But few other details have emerged about Killgore’s mysterious disappearance less than a week after she filed for divorce from another Camp Pendleton Marine.

San Diego Sheriff’s Department investigators have released few details — including the connection between Brittany Killgore and the two arrested. Authorities say Killgore’s 22-year-old husband, Lance Cpl. Cory Killgore, was deployed to Afghanistan when she was reported missing and is not suspected in his wife’s disappearance.

Perez was arrested Sunday and was jailed on $500,000 in connection with a stolen AR-15 rifle. The Marine Corps does not have AR-15 rifles and the source of the weapon is unclear.

Jessica Lynn Lopez, 27, was arrested at a Ramada Inn near the San Diego airport, said sheriff’s Capt. Duncan Frasier said at a Tuesday news conference in San Diego after the woman’s body was discovered by detectives searching for Killgore.

The body was spotted by a maintenance worker leaving the area after clearing brush in an area about 70 miles northeast of San Diego and 25 miles northeast of Killgore’s home in Fallbrook.

Lopez is scheduled to be charged Thursday with first-degree murder, according to jail records. She was taken to jail after being treated at University of California, San Diego Medical Center with self-inflicted wounds.

Killgore’s estranged husband — a Marine vehicle operator in Afghanistan — was returning to California on emergency leave after being informed she was missing.

Brittany Killgore went missing after filing for divorce April 10. The couple was married in July 2010. Killgore listed “irreconcilable differences” as the reason and gave no details.

Her cellphone was found in the Gaslamp District of downtown San Diego, but authorities said it was unclear whether she actually left Fallbrook, where she lives.

Cory Killgore could be back at Camp Pendleton by the end of the week, said 1st Lt. Alex Lim, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Division.

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Associated Press writer Julie Watson contributed to this report.

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