Marine Held in Wife Slaying

A 27-year-old Marine Corps drill instructor has been booked into the Imperial County jail on suspicion of murder after he allegedly dug a hole off an isolated desert road to bury his wife, officials said.

Michael Kenneth La Faver, 27, is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail, a spokeswoman at the jail said.

Shortly before 9 p.m. Thursday, two U.S. Border Patrol officers saw a car parked near Dunaway Road on the southern side of Interstate 8, said Chief Deputy Michael Hackett of the Imperial County Sheriff’s Department.

The officers approached the car because the area is a popular spot for smuggling people from Mexico, Hackett said Saturday.

When the officers got near the car they saw La Faver, who told the officers he was working out. “The officers got suspicious because people don’t work out in the middle of the desert in 100-degree heat,” Hackett said.

Inside the car, the officers found the body of La Faver’s wife, Rebecca Joy La Faver, 27, of El Cajon. She had apparently been strangled.

The couple had been separated for a few weeks.

When investigators returned to the scene the next day, they saw a hole nearby. La Faver is suspected of digging it to bury his wife, Hackett said.

Hackett said La Faver, who is a Marine sergeant, had been living at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego since the separation.

The couple has two sons under 4 years of age.