More than two years after going missing, a Rhode Island woman’s remains were discovered, and the man suspected of her murder was finally arrested.
The location of 44-year-old Charlotte Lester’s skeletal remains, discovered on November 17 and identified using dental records, led to the arrest of Mark Perkins, 64, on Wednesday.
According to the Warwick Police Department, Perkins had been on their radar since the beginning, but they lacked the necessary evidence to make an arrest.
Court documents obtained by Providence NBC affiliate WJAR detailed police evidence of Perkins’ activities in the days following Lester’s disappearance on May 16, 2022, when her landlord reported her as missing.
According to the documents, a witness at a convenience store saw Perkins with “blood on his hands, scratches, and bite marks on his arm.”
Perkins allegedly told the witness that he and Lester, with whom he had a relationship, “had the blowout of the century” and described his home as “a blood bath.” He also told the witness, “I think I killed her,” which the witness reported to the police.
Police interviewed Perkins several days later, on May 20. Despite his swollen hands, they reported that he appeared “calm and unaffected” by Lester’s disappearance.
He allegedly told police that “she had stopped texting him, and he did not know where she was,” CBS affiliate WPRI reported.
Warwick police reportedly searched Perkins’ home and reported finding blood splatters on the walls, ceiling, door, and bedframe, as well as an apparently bloodstained shirt hanging on a clothesline in the basement over a bottle of bleach.
Later testing revealed that the blood matched Perkins and, most likely, Lester because it matched Lester’s mother’s DNA.
The court documents also stated that Perkins followed Lester as she drove to another man’s house on May 16, 2022, the last time anyone saw her alive. Perkins reportedly texted Lester that night, asking her to return home from the other man’s house.
On May 18, the day following his alleged bloodied and scratched appearance at the convenience store, video footage purportedly showed Perkins leaving his home in his truck with an object in the back, which had vanished by the time he returned three hours later.
Investigators made the necessary connection only after discovering Lester’s skull. When police began investigating Perkins’ truck’s GPS tracking data, they discovered that he visited the area where the skull was discovered four times in four months—twice in July and twice in October 2022.
GPS data allegedly found Lester’s remains within 1,000 feet of where Perkins had stopped his truck on one of those trips.
In August 2022, Perkins faced an entirely unrelated arrest for allegedly threatening a local radio personality with his lawn mower following a confrontation about Lester’s disappearance.
Kent County District Court arraigned Perkins and charged him with first-degree murder. Perkins remains in custody without entering a plea.
