Police Say Curtis Engeland, 74, was Catfished, Defrauded and Murdered by Man He Met On-line

Even in retirement, Curtis Engeland was all the time on the transfer.

The 74-year-old Mercer Island, Wash., resident stored lively by doing CrossFit, mountain climbing and mountaineering, trekking up the Half Dome at Yosemite Nationwide Park final summer time and Mount St. Helens final fall.

“We did some strenuous climbs collectively,” Engeland’s shut buddy and mountain climbing buddy, Richard Sater, 63, tells PEOPLE. “He was very, very match. He definitely took his health significantly.”

The 2021 dying of Engeland’s companion of 41 years compelled him to rebuild his life, together with looking for companionship, Sater says.

In January, he advised Sater how he tried on-line relationship and met a youthful man named Philip Brewer, 32, on a website known as Scruff.

However the pleased retirement years Engeland envisioned for himself led to tragedy when was discovered useless on March 7, 110 miles away from his house in Grays Harbor County after being reported lacking on Feb. 24.

“It is horrible,” says his neighbor Laurie Goeken. “He was a youthful 74 with a few years forward of him nonetheless.”

Investigators quickly discovered that Engeland had allegedly been the goal of on-line criminals who met him on a relationship web site solely to steal his identification and drain his accounts, a possible trigger affidavit obtained by PEOPLE alleges.

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“It’s simply so unhappy as a result of he was simply the most effective,” says Engeland’s niece, Tara Mirante, 44. “He was enjoyable. He was simply so concerned with our youngsters, eager to know each bit about their lives and what they have been doing. When my children have been house from faculty, he would sit and have conversations with them for hours on the desk.”

A Probability Assembly On-line

Engleland’s ordeal started in January when he met Brewer on-line after which in particular person for espresso and for a hike, inviting him again to his house on Jan. 13 to look at a film, the affidavit says.

Engeland stated he fell asleep and when he wakened, Brewer was gone — and so have been Engeland’s pockets, telephone and automotive keys.

He known as the police when he discovered that 1000’s of {dollars} had been transferred out of his accounts, checking in with detectives concerning the investigation every now and then, Sater says.

Six weeks later, Sater and Engeland’s members of the family acquired improperly worded texts purporting to be from him in the course of the evening, saying he was going to be away for the following three to 6 weeks.

Figuring out what a stickler Engeland was for correct grammar, his family members knew one thing was incorrect.

They grew to become additional alarmed when Engleland purportedly stated somebody named “Christina” can be renting out his basement. Once they could not attain Engleland, they known as the police and reported him lacking.

Utilizing telephone information and GPS, authorities discovered his stays at a dump website close to Cosmopolis.

Within the ensuing murder investigation, detectives began trying into Brewer and a girl named Christina Hardy, 47, who they discovered at Engeland’s home, the affidavit says.

They advised officers they have been renting Engeland’s basement and didn’t know the place he was, based on the affidavit. 

Alleged Assault within the Darkish of Evening

After receiving a tip from a witness, authorities stated they consider that Brewer and Hardy snuck into Engeland’s home in the course of the evening and after a “violent confrontation,” the affidavit alleges, injected him within the neck with a potent dose of fentanyl.

They drove greater than 100 miles to Cosmopolis with Engeland within the truck of his personal 2003 Camry, the affidavit alleges.

Once they arrived on the dump website, they realized he was nonetheless alive. Consequently, “Hardy held him down whereas Brewer stabbed him within the neck with a knife,” the affidavit alleges.

The pair was arrested on March 14 in Southern California and pleaded responsible to costs of  homicide, kidnapping and identification theft.

They’re every being held on a $5 million bond in a King County jail.

As they await trial, Engeland’s family and friends are nonetheless coping with the aftermath of his brutal killing.

“We misplaced a very pretty human,” says Goeken, who remembers how Engeland would bake cookies and convey them over to her home and share tomatoes, peas and rhubarb along with her and her household. 

She nonetheless tends to the backyard he liked a lot to honor his reminiscence.

“His daffodils are blooming,” she says, including that she couldn’t consider somebody so beneficiant and caring got here to such a horrible finish.

“If it was simply over cash,” she says. “How is that value an individual’s life?”