Peoria County State's Attorney Jodi Hoos revealed additional details on Friday about the death of an East Bluff man whose body was discovered by police in his freezer during a July 13 wellness check.
The state has added dismemberment charges in its case against Portia Stokes, 26, and Michael R. Jansen, 29, who are also charged with first-degree murder and concealment of a homicidal death in connection with the alleged killing of 41-year-old David L. King.
In a press release, Hoos said King's cause of death was strangulation with suffocation. His body had multiple ligature marks on his neck, Hoos said.
A video showing the victim with the defendants presented privately to the court during a detention hearing Friday is said to have been taken by the suspects while King was still alive.
Hoos said investigators recovered the July 10 video footage from Jansen's phone. When King's body was identified by the Peoria County Coroner, authorities noted it "had been there long enough that his body was frozen."
Prosecutors said the video shows King tied to a bed with a rope around his neck. Stokes is seen sitting on King's face "while the victim violent struggles to escape," the press release said. Because of the graphic nature of the video, it was not played in open court but described by the prosecuting attorney.
Photos also described by prosecutors in court Friday showed King's body being "severely mutilated and cut," according to the press release.
During a police interview, Jansen initially told officers he and Stokes had killed King and moved the body into the freezer. He then changed his story, Hoos said.
Stokes, who was in King's residence when officers responded, told police that she had "stored [King] in the [expletive] freezer and folded him up like a [expletive] pretzel."
It is not clear what the relationship is between King and the defendants, if any, or what motivated the alleged killing.
The court granted the state's request to detain Stokes and Jansen until trial.
