HASTINGS, Minn. — The Dakota County Attorney announced on Friday that a 33-year-old Hastings man has been charged in connection to a dead body that was found in a park back in July.
Timothy Lee Otto was charged with felony second-degree arson and felony interference with a dead body or scene of death, Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena said on Friday in a press release.
Otto's bond is set at $200,000 without conditions and he is due back in court on Jan. 6, 2022 at 9 a.m. in Hastings.
According to the statement of probably cause, first responders were sent to a fire in Jaycee Park, which is found along the Mississippi River in Hastings, on July 10, 2021. There, they found a portable restroom and a partial enclosure near it that were destroyed by the fire. Once the fire was put out, a burned dead body was found under the the enclosure.
The body was later identified as 30-year-old Kyle David Hamilton of Hastings and an autopsy found a fatal amount of methamphetamine and fentanyl in his system, according to court documents.
After an investigation, the State Fire Marshal found an accelerant in the soil found under where the body was, officials say. Soil samples were then tested by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and found gasoline in the soil.
Police investigated where the victim was leading up to his death and officers found that he often stayed at a residence called the "Doghouse." There, officials say they met a man who said he saw the victim during a FaceTime call on July 7, 2021 as they were slumped up against a bedroom wall which Otto resided in.
Investigators also spoke with a woman who said they saw the victim slumped on the floor, snoring on July 6. Court documents say the next day, a man walked into the bedroom and found the victim dead and "began to freak out." After not finding a pulse, the three of them assumed he was dead. Otto then allegedly covered the body with a blanket and went to work.
The woman then reported that on the night of July 9, Otto asked her if she “wanted to see fireworks" and told her to go to the boat launch at the park to see them. Documents say she never went to the boat launch and returned to the Doghouse, and Otto soon returned there too, where he invited the woman into his bedroom.
The woman told police that when she went into Otto's bedroom, the body was gone. Otto then told the woman that he moved the body to the boat launch using the bike path and lit the garbage can on fire with the body inside of it, according to officials.
When police interviewed Otto, he told them that the victim had come over and used drugs in his bedroom and later learned he had overdosed and did not know what to do.
“On behalf of my office and the Hastings Police Department, our deepest sympathy is extended to the family and friends of Kyle Hamilton for their great loss," Keena said in a statement.
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