Riceboro, GA – A former naval officer has been accused of murdering his wife and scattering her dismembered remains throughout a six-mile span situated in two separate counties.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) and the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) reached out to the public in January asking for assistance in identifying an unknown female whose “partial remains” were found in the woods of the Portal Hunting Club off of Jones Road on Dec. 2, 2022, the GBI said in a press release.
Additional remains were discovered in both McIntosh and Liberty Counties, all within a three-mile radius of the hunting club itself.
Investigators said the remains had been dumped in the area on or about Nov. 27, 2022.
The GBI released a forensic artist’s rendering of the victim in an attempt to help identify her.
Investigators announced on May 12 that they were able to identify the victim and that her alleged killer has been arrested.
The victim, 40-year-old Mindi Mebane Kassotis, was residing in Savannah with her husband, 40-year-old Nicholas James Kassotis, when was last seen alive, according to the GBI.
Nicholas Kassotis, who also goes by the alias of Nicholas Killian James Stark, was apprehended in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on May 12.
He has been charged with felony murder, malice murder, tampering with evidence, aggravated assault, and removal of body parts from the scene of death or dismemberment, the GBI confirmed.
Nicholas Kassotis was booked into the Lancaster County Prison pending his extradition to Georgia.
The GBI worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to identify Mindi Kassotis using genealogy DNA.
“The GBI interviewed family members and obtained DNA swabs for comparison to the profile created through genealogy DNA,” the GBI said.
The remains were identified as belonging to Mindi Kassotis on May 11 – one day before her husband’s arrest.
A motive for the murder was not released and police did not specify where Mindi Kassotis was killed.
The couple was married in Virginia in 2016, NBC News reported.
Their wedding announcement described him as a former judge advocate in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, and her as a business owner and writer.
The U.S. Navy said Nicholas Kassotis was commissioned in June of 2006 and that he most recently worked in the Navy Reserve at the Region Legal Service Office in the Naval District of Washington, DC, beginning in 2017 until he separated from the Navy in August of 2019, NBC News reported.
Original Article: https://policetribune.com/former-naval-officer-arrested-after-police-find-wifes-dismembered-body-scattered-in-georgia-woods/
