As law enforcement continues searching for the remains of a man believed to have been murdered this past December in Paige, investigators are now indicating the body of 23-year-old Michael Van Dyke was likely burned and will not be recovered intact.
The search – begun almost two weeks ago after Van Dyke’s 24-year-old roommate Dustin Dickman was arrested and confessed to the killing – initially focused on a number of stock ponds in Bastrop County.
By this Wednesday, however, the focus had shifted to a piece of property in Hays County just outside San Marcos. Sgt. Rick Cole with the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office said a red Suburban was recovered there “that appeared to have evidence related to crime” and pointed towards the body being burned.
Additionally, Cole said investigators are now looking into a third suspect being involved in the murder besides Dickman and Dennis Leetch, a 25-year-old San Marcos man and high school friend of Van Dyke, who was arrested soon after Dickman.
“We received information that the body had been burned and that another person was possibly linked to the case,” Cole said on Wednesday. “We are interviewing people out there and still looking hard at different things but we are close to satisfied that a body as a whole will not be recovered.”
A 2004 graduate of San Marcos High School, Van Dyke enlisted in the U.S. Army immediately out of high school and served with the 181st Transportation Battalion in Iraq between 2005 and 2006, according to his mother, Belinda Van Dyke. He had lived in several locations in the San Marcos area since his military service ended in 2007 but was living at 325 County Line Road in Paige with Dickman and working as a cook at a The Old Frontier restaurant at the time of his disappearance in mid-December. After not seeing or hearing from their son over the Christmas holidays, Belinda Van Dyke and her husband reported Michael missing to the BCSH on Dec. 27. The case was initially handled as a missing person’s investigation until evidence began to emerge that pointed towards possible murder and Van Dyke’s roommate as a suspect.
Dickman was arrested in late January and subsequently offered a confession to the murder, according to an arrest affidavit. Leetch was arrested soon after.
Cole said investigators believe Van Dyke was killed on Dec. 15, 2009 as a result of blunt force trauma to the head using a piece of wood from a construction site that has since been recovered as evidence. Cole said an argument over missing property instigated an argument between Van Dyke and his roommate. Van Dyke’s body is thought to have initially been buried at the County Line Road address in Paige and then transported elsewhere where it was likely burned, according to Cole.
Both Dickman and Leetch are currently being held in the Bastrop County Jail on $500,000 bonds.
Belinda Van Dyke said on Friday that the arrests and developments in the investigation have only been possible through the dedication of the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office.
“Their guys have not stopped looking for Michael and we are forever grateful,” Van Dyke said. “They totally believed what we told them when we reported him (Michael) missing and got the ball rolling.”
Van Dyke says she is still in a state of shock over why her son was killed.
“He was a good kid,” Van Dyke said. “He had his issues and his struggles as we all do when we’re young and figuring out what to do with our lives, but he had such a good heart.”