The former roommate of a 53-year-old Ballard man whose partial remains were found on a conveyor belt at a recycling plant in Georgetown in 2011 has been arrested.
Scott L. Halfhill, 59, was charged with second-degree murder Friday and arrested by Seattle police Monday.
Halfhill had long been a suspect in the slaying of Donald Stephen Meyer, but it took several years for police to build the forensic evidence needed to complete the case, authorities said.
An explicit motive for the killing was not laid out, but numerous witnesses and friends of the victim told police Halfhill had criticized and “constantly complained” about Meyer, according to court documents.
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Meyer was last seen around June 17, 2011, and was reported missing to police about a week later by friends worried about his whereabouts. They said Meyer was not home and had left a treasured guitar and amp as well as his phone, which had not been used for a week.
That was unusual, they told police, because Meyer used his phone daily for work.
“They kept going to his house and his roommate kept telling them, ‘He’s not here right now, which did not seem right,’” police said after the slaying.
By July 1, homicide detectives had taken over the case from the Missing Persons unit.
On July 8, Meyer’s torso was found on a the conveyor belt of a recycling center in Georgetown.
Prosecutors say employees determined the remains had most likely come in a load of debris brought from a demolished house near Meyer’s home and members of the demolition crew reported seeing a 64-gallon recycling bin near the house that had not been there during an earlier inspection.
The crew also reported noticing a “strong, putrid” odor, court documents allege. In addition, the recycling bin from Meyer’s house was missing, prosecutors say.
Additional remains belonging to Meyer were discovered six months later on a hillside beneath the Ship Canal Bridge.
When police searched Meyer’s home, they found that one room had been stripped bare, the walls repainted and the carpet removed, police sources said. Nevertheless, police found spots of blood that matched Meyer’s DNA profile as well as others matching Halfhill’s, court documents say.
Halfhill, who has a criminal history that includes multiple convictions for assault, is being held in King County Jail on $1 million bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned Jan. 15 at 8:30 a.m. in the King County Courthouse.
Christine Clarridge can be reached at cclarridge@seattletimes.com or 206-464-8983. Information from The Seattle Times archives and news researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.