Murder of Robert Wykel

At sentencing, Wynn continued to insist on his innocence. "I'm not going to beg forgiveness for something I did not do," he told Craighead. She sentenced him to 20 years, the minimum for first-degree murder in Washington. As of 2023, Wynn is serving his time at the Washington Corrections Center, located in Shelton.

In June 2013, a panel of three judges unanimously upheld Wynn's conviction. Judge Mary Kay Becker wrote for herself, Linda Lau and Anna Schindler that a jury could have reasonably concluded from the evidence presented, interpreted in the light most favorable to the state, that Wynn killed Wykel at least in part to keep the money he had already obtained fraudulently. As for the ring and any cash Wykel had, the jury had had the option to convict him merely of theft, since taking property from a deceased person is not by itself robbery.

A few months later in early 2011, a new jury was impaneled and Wynn was tried again. During the trial, there were allegations of juror misconduct. One alternate juror had "kept bumping into" both prosecutors and defense lawyers, and had at one point been caught looking at state evidence in the elevator. Two others, the bailiff said, had begun deliberating before the case was submitted. Superior Court Judge Susan Craighead dismissed them both and seated two alternates, one of whom was the juror alleged to have attempted to look at the prosecution evidence.

Wynn went on trial in mid-2010. He continued to profess his innocence. In addition to the missing body and the lack of any evidence suggesting Wykel was dead, Wynn argued that the police had not adequately explored the possibility they originally entertained that the older man might have suddenly decided to visit Argentina. The court declared a mistrial when the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

The case was treated as a missing person investigation for years, despite early suspicion centering on Wynn, whom police named as a person of interest shortly afterwards. Prosecutors charged him with the crime in 2009, although they had not found Wykel's body. They relied on his conflicting and evasive statements to police during the initial investigation, and a diamond Wynn gave to his then girlfriend shortly after Wykel's disappearance. Police believed the diamond belonged to Wykel, suggesting robbery as his motive for the murder. After Wynn's first trial in 2010 ended in a hung jury, he was retried, convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The verdict was sustained on appeal. The case has been featured in an episode of the Investigation Discovery series Disappeared. Wykel's body remains undiscovered.

The break that finally gave the detectives the evidence they needed to arrest Wynn came from Texas. A friend of Wynn, with whom he had apparently discussed the case, told them Wynn said that "nothing's gonna happen. They're not even looking in the right ballpark for the body," suggesting to Holland and Peters that not only did Wynn know there was a body, but where it was. In 2009, authorities in Texas arrested Wynn and extradited him to Washington to stand trial on a charge of first-degree murder.

The detectives felt they had enough circumstantial evidence to charge Wynn with Wykel's murder. They still did not have a body, and prosecutors were uncertain they could convict Wynn without finding Wykel's body. They decided to try to find the body, searching a number of places in and around Thurston County where Wynn could have disposed of a body. They were unsuccessful. In the meantime, Wykel's family had him declared legally dead in 2003, seven years after he had last been seen.

Peters and Holland wondered if this could be Wykel's diamond. In 2000, they interviewed the woman Wynn had been living with, four years earlier, but now no longer in a relationship with him. She said that in late February 1996, shortly after Wykel disappeared, Wynn gave her a diamond pendant as a birthday gift.

For the next three years the KCSO detectives worked mostly on other cases, but never quite left the Wykel case behind, staying in touch with the family infrequently. Lee said later she felt they had given up on her father. In 1999, one detective, Jon Holland, took over the case and took a more aggressive approach, putting up flyers in the area that made clear the police thought Wykel had come to harm.

He often met with other retirees mornings to socialize over coffee at a White Center McDonald's . In early 1996, the men were joined by Myron Wynn, a younger man who sometimes went by the name of Myron Holdredge or Michael Holdredge. He gravitated toward Wykel, seeking out opportunities to associate with him. At the time Wynn was unemployed, supported by a girlfriend, with whom he lived.

In the early 1990s, he settled in the Seattle suburb of Burien, where he had had a successful career as a sheet metal worker and was able to take advantage of the area's abundant opportunities for the outdoor recreation activities he enjoyed. His former wife still lived in Illinois, near their daughter and her family, but the two had been talking about reconciling and reuniting.

After retiring, he supplemented his pension by buying classic cars at auto auctions, restoring them, and reselling them for a profit. He restored a 1989 Mercedes Benz, which he drove as his own. His other passion, fine jewelry, showed in a ring with a 1.25-carat diamond in a distinctive European cut, which he wore constantly, even when working on cars.

Wynn told Wykel that he had learned that a soldier at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, was offering a mid-1950s Ford Thunderbird for sale. Wykel, who had long been looking for one, gave Wynn a thousand dollars as a deposit on the eventual sale of the car. Bank records show that Wykel also withdrew $5,200 from his account in cash, the way he preferred to pay, to complete the transaction.

Robert James Wykel (born May 18, 1930; disappeared February 23, 1996) was a retired sheet metal worker from Burien, Washington, United States, who restored classic cars. He has not been seen by anyone who could positively identify him since 1996, when he went to see a Ford Thunderbird he was interested in purchasing. Myron Wynn, who accompanied him at that time, was convicted 15 years later of murdering Wykel. Wynn maintains that he is innocent and that Wykel went to Argentina.