Police make arrest in 2002 disappearance case
Kevin Wade Moroz, 54, charged with assault in connection with Gerald Geake's vanishing more than two decades ago.
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Edmonton police have charged a man in connection with an assault on Gerald Geake, who vanished in May 2002 and is believed dead.
Kevin Wade Moroz, 54, was arrested Wednesday in Two Hills County and charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon. Police say Geake endured two serious assaults before leaving his south Edmonton home in the Avonmore neighbourhood for the last time, departing in a 1992 black GMC Sierra pickup truck with Moroz and another person.
"This was directly after the assault," Det. Bryan Kincheloe with Edmonton Police Service's Historical Crimes Section told reporters Wednesday. "And when he left his residence with these two people in this truck, he was never seen again by his friends or family."
Geake was 37 at the time and was reported missing to police in 2003. Police say he may have appeared injured or incapacitated when he left.
Kincheloe said the breakthrough came through a combination of geospatial technology and reinterviewing witnesses who felt more comfortable sharing information as time passed. Moroz has a prior conviction for aggravated assault in 2002 — he struck a woman six times with a ball peen hammer at an automotive shop while high on crack cocaine.