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California IN BRIEF : LODI : Body in Freezer Leads to Suspect

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From Times Staff and Wire Reports

A man suspected of killing his girlfriend five years ago and keeping her body in a padlocked freezer is in custody. Michael Shinkel was arrested on a murder warrant after a suspicious landlord pried open the freezer and found the partially mummified body. Shinkel and his wife had been evicted from a house in Galt and left the freezer behind, Sheriff’s Detective Darrell Edwards said. When Shinkel placed the freezer on the property--unconnected to electricity--landlord Rick Harmon asked him why, and the tenant replied, “No big deal, there’s a body in there.”

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