AWOL Soldier Is Arrested in Killing of TV News Engineer

A suspect in the slaying of an Emmy-winning television news engineer was arrested Thursday, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said.

John Louis Rex, 22, was arrested at Ft. Irwin, near Barstow, where he had turned himself in Tuesday night as a soldier absent without leave from Ft. Sill, Okla., Sheriff’s Homicide Lt. Derry Benedict said. Rex, a native of Burbank, had been AWOL since July 8.

Detectives brought Rex to Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon. He was booked at the Lakewood sheriff’s station on suspicion of murder and held without bail.

Rex is suspected of shooting to death KCOP-TV engineering manager Jeffrey Webreck and burying his body in a shallow grave in Angeles National Forest.

“We recovered property and other evidence that linked (Rex) directly to this crime,” Benedict said. The property, recovered in Los Angeles, included items taken from Webreck’s car. Deputy Hal Grant said a gun also had been found.

Webreck, of Glendale, disappeared after leaving work at the television station in Hollywood late Sept. 3. His body was found Saturday.

“It is a great relief, a tremendous relief,” Jeff Wald, KCOP’s executive director of news said Thursday of Rex’s arrest. . . . If it won’t bring Jeff back, then it will let us breathe a little easier.”