A man suspected of killing two Lubbock State School employees last seen in August 2006 was arrested Wednesday in Oregon.
LUBBOCK, TEXAS -- Mickey Weldon Patterson, 59, is charged with two counts of capital murder in Lubbock County in the deaths of Peggy Merimon, 61, and Kay Harrelson, 51. The women were last seen leaving the school with an unidentified man around noon Aug. 9, 2006. Searchers found Harrelson's remains 11 days later near Shallowater; Merimon was never found.
Oregon State Police and local police in Bend, Ore., helped Lubbock police arrest Patterson outside a Bend-area resident about noon Wednesday, authorities said. He was being held on $10 million bond.
KCBD-TV in Lubbock reported that Weldon could be returned to Lubbock in as few as 10 days if Patterson waives extradition.
The news came as a jolt to Merimon's daughter, Natosha Davis, who said police called her at work Wednesday afternoon.
"I cried," she told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. "We'd always hoped we'd get this far, but we never really thought we would."
Patterson was indicted last week, but the indictment was sealed until his arrest, Lubbock County District Attorney Matt Patterson said
"We wanted to make sure he didn't find out about it until he was in custody," he told the Avalanche-Journal.
But even with the arrest, the wait is not over for Merimon's family, Davis said.
"Our ultimate goal is to find out, to have those questions answered. We still don't know what happened or why or where she's at or how could somebody do this to somebody. Ultimately, we just want to find our mom."
