UPDATE: Fulton Police nearing 200 leads in DeBrodie case, body identified

UPDATE 4/28: The body that was found encased in cement in a storage unit in Fulton has been positively identified as Carl DeBrodie.

ORIGINAL STORY: The Fulton Police Department is quickly approaching the 200-lead mark in the case into what happened to Carl DeBrodie. As of Thursday afternoon, they were at 168 leads and expected to hit 200 by early next week.

DeBrodie was reported missing on April 17 from an assisted living home in Fulton. Police quickly gathered information that suggested DeBrodie had been missing for much longer. Earlier this week, a body police believe to be DeBrodie’s was found in a storage container.

“I think it’s probably, with the decomposition of the body, he’s certainly probably been there for months probably,” Fulton police chief Steve Myers said. “But we are not certain how long.”

The Fulton Police Department has been utilizing resources from other agencies during their investigation.

“We utilized the Task Force One out of Columbia for the original cutting of the concrete and getting him out of that,” Myers said. “We don’t have the resources some of these other agencies have access to, and they’ve been more than helpful in whatever we’ve been needing.”

Myers said a case of this magnitude with so many complexities can be stressful for investigators.

“We have been working around the clock in many cases this past week to try to identify some of those questions and answer them. We are, I think, making some headway,” Myers said.

Myers said because of how the body was found and the state it was in, some test results may take longer than expected. The investigators still have not determined a cause of death.

DNA testing is also being conducted on the body to positively identify the remains; however, Myers said for a normal case, those results can take six to eight months to come back.

“We’re trying to get dental records at this time,” Myers said. “We’ve got them requested. They haven’t come through yet but we anticipate getting those in the next few days.”

Myers said there’s no timeline for when the case will be handed over to the county prosecutor’s office, but the prosecutor has been working closely with the investigation.

“We talk to him numerous times a day and he comes out for briefings,” Myers said. “So we’re working very closely to the prosecuting attorney. He’s kept up to speed on everything we have.”

The family of Carl DeBrodie has also hired an attorney to assist them during this investigation.

“If you’re not trained in the law, and they certainly are not, so every little thing, they’re concerned if they say something, somebody will take it wrong,” attorney Rudy Veit said. “Or if they should be doing something they’re not. They truly want to cooperate with the law enforcement as much as they can and do as much as they can to try to solve this horrible situation.”

Currently, the family has not filed a lawsuit against anyone in the likely death of Carl DeBrodie.

“These are all preliminary investigations,” Veit said. “Nobody knows exactly what happened yet. So there is a lot of unanswered questioned and we’re not worried about the lawsuit. At this stage, it’s finding out what happened.”

Veit didn’t specify the last time DeBrodie’s family saw him, but said it had been “some time.” There are also reports of a former caretaker for DeBrodie not being allowed to see him at the Second Chance home where he lived. The caretaker claims she wasn’t allowed because she had reported possible abuse.

“There were some issues where they weren’t allowed necessarily to go to the home because the home had suggested that didn’t want to cause additional stress or something to Carl,” Veit said. “Those are issues we’re going to have to investigate to see why they weren’t allowed to and why other people weren’t allowed to go visit him.”

Veit said the way DeBrodie’s disappearance was reported and the way the situation has unfolded has been stressful for the family.

“I do find it rather disgusting that someone would allege that he had walked away on a certain date, and all the evidence indicates he had been deceased a long time before that,” Veit said. “What additional stress that puts on the family, the additional stress it puts on all the people who helped — after all they’ve been through — now to have this on top of it, they are certainly not going to get any peace until some of these questioned are answered.”