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Police: 2 Arrested After Badly-Decomposed Body Found In St. Paul Garage

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Two people are in custody after a severely-decomposed body was discovered inside of a garage on St. Paul's east side.

Police say they were called to a residence on the 600 block of Lawson Avenue Friday at 3 p.m., where they found the body of an adult, later identified as 47-year-old Allan Bishara Aguilar of St. Paul.

John Michael Erickson, 49, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of murder, and 47-year-old Patricia Dawn Yucker was arrested on suspicion of interfering with a dead body.

The Ramsey County Medical Examiner's officer is working on identifying the cause of death.

Body found inside St. Paul garage
(credit: CBS)

Steve Linders, St. Paul Police's public information officer, says Aguilar's body was so decomposed that they had trouble determining the victim's gender at first.

"It's incredibly disturbing and concerning," Linders said. "That's part of what fuels our investigators to work so hard."

He says Erickson and Aguilar knew each other, though they are still interviewing people to determine the motive.

This is the 15th homicide this year in St. Paul.

The next door neighbors say Erickson has always been a nice neighbor, even helping plow and carry groceries for them in the couple of years the couple has been living here. They're shocked and obviously unsettled by this.

"I'm ready to move because this is crazy, it's like too close, that's just too close," neighbor Tonya Nicholson said.

Police have been called to the residence more than 10 times in the last year, some times for domestic situations. Neighbors said they had called police on several occasions upon hearing yelling from the home.

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