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SALT LAKE CITY — A man wanted in connection with a homicide in Michigan 12 years ago who had last been seen about a month ago in Utah has now been arrested in Montana.
Chadwick Shane Mobley, 42, was arrested Wednesday in Libby, Montana, which is in the northwestern part of the state, near the Idaho border, about 90 minutes away from Sandpoint.
Montana's Lincoln County Sheriff's Office posted on Facebook Wednesday that "Chadwick Shane Mobley is in custody here in Libby based upon a tip from some smart, local (Lincoln County Sheriff's Office Facebook) followers."
Mobley was recently charged in Michigan with first-degree premeditated murder after DNA collected in Utah matched with previously unknown DNA collected in Michigan. Additionally, the gun possibly used in the Michigan killing may have been recovered in Utah, according to court documents.
In 2011, Andrea Eilber, 20, was found shot to death in Lapeer County, Michigan, in an area about 30 minutes outside of Flint. Kenneth Grondin, then 19, Eilber's boyfriend, was arrested and charged with murder.
Grondin was convicted in 2015 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But in 2018, he "was granted an appeal based on faulty language on the jury verdict instruction form. He was subsequently released from prison and a new trial was ordered," according to court documents.
A cigarette butt found at the crime scene was one of the pieces of evidence that Michigan police collected, but investigators were never able to match the DNA collected from the cigarette to any of the people believed to be involved with Eilber's murder.
Last year, the cigarette butt was tested by a private lab in Texas specializing in genetic genealogy. In January, the familial genealogy test results linked the DNA to a man living in Utah, according to the search warrant affidavit. At the time, Mobley was listed as living in Brigham City. Michigan police further learned that Mobley had lived in Auburn Hills in 2011, about 40 miles away from Lapeer, and was employed in Pontiac.
The Utah Department of Public Safety was contacted and investigators held surveillance on Mobley for two months. According to a recently unsealed second search warrant affidavit, on June 6, Utah authorities collected six buccal swabs from Mobley and immediately shipped them to the Michigan State Police Forensic Laboratory in Grand Rapids to be compared to DNA from the cigarette butt.
The next day, "the Michigan State Police lab published a lab report confirming the (unknown DNA) profile and the profile obtained from Chadwick Mobley matched," the affidavit states.
While collecting buccal swabs from Mobley, authorities in Utah also found a ".38-caliber Colt revolver model SA Army" in Mobley's car and served a warrant to have that seized, along with any other potential evidence linked to the Michigan homicide, according to the affidavit. That gun was also sent to the crime lab in Michigan.
According to the affidavit, "a visual examination of the firearm was conducted by the forensic scientist, and determined that a match occurred between the firearm from Chadwick Mobley and the fired bullet recovered from Andrea Eilber's skull," according to the affidavit. It does not indicate whether a full ballistics test was conducted.
After the DNA was collected, Mobley allegedly fled the area. On June 13, the Utah Department of Public Safety made a request to the public to be on the lookout for Mobley, who was last seen on June 7 in the Corrine area. The search for Mobley was ongoing until his arrest Wednesday.
