It wasn’t like them.
Patrick Shunn, 45, missed work. His wife Monique Patenaude, 46, missed an Iron Maiden concert, a friend told the CBC. Their chickens and dogs were left untended. Their phones were off, and their cars were missing, Shunn’s uncle told the Seattle Times.
Authorities found the cars last week near the couple’s home in Washington state, but the search for their bodies continues. Both are now believed to be dead, victims of the “armed and dangerous” brothers John Blaine Reed, 53, and Tony Clyde Reed, 49, police said on Sunday.
“The recovery of Patrick and Monique is our agency’s number one priority right now, for the sake of their families,” Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said in a Sunday statement. “Our second priority is getting the Reed brothers into custody and off the streets.”
Shunn was last seen at work on April 11. Patenaude was last seen around 1 p.m. that afternoon. Neighbors alerted the police on Tuesday.
For two days, there were few signs of the couple. Then, on Thursday, police found the missing cars with the help of a rescue helicopter, the SnoHAWK10. The Jeep and Land Rover were about 200 feet apart, just a few miles from the couple’s Arlington, Wash., home. Both were in a remote, wooded area. Both appeared to have gone over an embankment.
Evidence at the scene and at the former home of John Reed allegedly implicated the brothers, convicted felons authorities consider to be armed and dangerous. Surveillance footage also shows the Reeds disposing off the vehicles, police say.
Court records show that Shunn and Patenaude had a history of legal battles with neighbors over access to and use of the nearby Stillaguamish River, King 5, a local TV station, reports. Snohomish County Sheriff Trenary acknowledged a dispute between the couple and one of the brothers, but offered no other detail, the station reported. John Reed is a former neighbor to the couple, according to local reports.
Patrick Shunn’s brother Eric Shunn, in a TV interview, described fighting with his brother about a year ago for not calling the police after an unnamed neighbor allegedly sexually harassed Patenaude and her friend.
“My brother wouldn’t call the cops, and so I got p— and I went to the guy’s house to, you know, to call him out,” he said on Thursday’s episode of CNN’s “Nancy Grace.” The neighbor never came out, and Eric Shunn ended up fighting with his own brother, Patrick Shunn, over the incident.
“My brother and I got in a fistfight about it,” he said. “And so you can honestly understand, I feel pretty bad about the last time I left the situation.”
Patenaude and Shunn met at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada, her friend Cynthia Fawcett told the CBC. For years, they commuted between Canada and the United States until Patenaude finally moved to Washington state about three years ago, she said.
In a Sunday statement published by King 5, Patenaude and Shunn’s families described them as a loving couple.
“Their 20 acre farm and animals are their passion,” the statement read. “They love the outdoors, love their family and friends and, most of all, love life. Wherever they are, they are together.”
Police believe the Reed brothers were both recently in Ellensburg, Wash., but do not know where they are now. They say they are in possession of a red Volkswagen EOS Coupes, a car belonging to their parents.
