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By Khaleda Rahman and Joshua Rhett Miller
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The remains of two people have been found in the backyard of a missing couple, while their adult son has fled the country and is considered a suspect, Arizona police said.
Officers were called to a home in Litchfield Park to conduct a welfare check for three people—a husband, wife and their son Matthew Flores, 27—on Tuesday, the Avondale Police Department said.
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Officers found the house empty during the welfare check, but found evidence suggesting foul play, Avondale officer Daniel Benavidez said at a news conference on Thursday.
Asked about the evidence of foul play at the home, he said: "What I can say that we identified is a large amount of blood, and we also identified what we believed is evidence in an attempt to conceal that blood."
Police then discovered the bodies buried in the backyard of the home on Thursday. They were in a state of decomposition and have not been identified, Benavidez said. He said the names of the missing couple are not being released at the family’s request.
Benavidez said Flores is now considered a suspect in what remains a missing persons investigation.
He said Flores had fled the country, but declined to provide any further details about him or his whereabouts.
"I can't give you specifics on where to look in the world. All I can say is he fled the country," he said.
Detectives "continue to actively investigate this case," Avondale police told Newsweek in a statement Friday afternoon. It remains unclear how long the unidentified victims had been buried.
"We are not releasing any location-specific information regarding the suspect's whereabouts or any locations to which he may have fled," police spokesperson Sgt. Jenny Chavez wrote in an email. "The suspect resided in the home with the husband and wife."
Three vehicles connected to the ongoing probe have been processed for evidence. The U.S. Marshals Service in Arizona and FBI officials are providing assistance in the search for Flores, Chavez said.
Local television news organization Arizona's Family captured video showing a construction front loader working in the backyard, where law enforcement set up two tents.
The outlet reported that officers were seen going in and out of the home on Wednesday and Thursday, and multiple police vans were seen parked outside the property.
Neighbor Recalls 'Yelling'
Local resident Alec Rogers told Fox 10 that he heard a disturbance in the area of the home on Tuesday morning.
"There was a little bit of yelling and I don't know exactly who from," he said.
Rogers added: "The dad there, we see him every once in a while, he's very, very friendly but we don't talk too much just whenever we see him, we say hello."
Another neighbor, who was not named, told Arizona's Family that she had heard a person scream "please stop" in the area of the home on Tuesday.
"I was on the other side of the sidewalk and I definitely heard it come from that direction. But I was like, ‘OK, we live by a middle school, it might be nothing,’ so I didn’t think more of it," she told the outlet.
Anyone with information about Flores or his whereabouts is asked to contact the Avondale Police Department at (623) 333-7001.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Tony Phillips.
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