Bloodstains in Missing Woman's Reno Home

R E N O, Nev., Jan. 31, 2003 -- Bloodstains and the remains of a ripped-up carpet were found in the bedroom of a missing Reno woman whose toddler son was abandoned in a Salt Lake City store last week, police said.

Investigators said they discovered the stained carpet and carpet pad removed from the master bedroom and rolled up outside on Wednesday when they went to the home that Jeanette Acord shared with her husband, Lyle Montgomery.

"Examination of the carpet revealed two substantial sized red stains which appeared to be blood and which tested positive for blood with a presumptive chemical test," police Detective Ron Chalmers Jr. wrote in an affidavit.

Police said the bed was missing as well as a dresser and other articles of furniture.

Police went to the home after they learned the identity of a 3-year-old boy who had been left in a ShopKo store in Salt Lake City. Surveillance tape showed the boy, Jonathan Jacob Corpuz, being led into the store by a man later identified as Montgomery, who was later seen leaving the store alone.

The little boy was not able to give his full name, but when his photo was shown on national TV, someone in Reno recognized him and contacted authorities.

Reno police went looking for the boy's mother said they found only his stepfather, Montgomery, lying on a bedroom floor with a loaded gun 20 feet away.

Montgomery, 42, was taken into custody Wednesday night, and police are trying to find out what happened to his wife. Acord, 28, has not been heard from in 10 days.

Police in Reno took the boy's stepfather, Montgomery, into custody Wednesday night and are now treating him as a suspect in Acord's disappearance.

Reno Police Chief Jerry Hoover said authorities are treating Acord's case as a possible homicide. Police say they fear for Acord's safety, partly because of evidence recovered during a search of the couple's Reno home.

"He has violence in his background, and we arrested him for assault with a deadly weapon," Hoover said, referring to an incident in October when police arrested Montgomery after a domestic dispute with Acord. "He had access to numerous weapons, firearms and knives."

According to Salt Lake police, little Jonathan Jacob told them he saw his stepfather fire a gunshot at his mother. The boy said the shot didn't hit Acord, but hit a dresser instead.

Montgomery was committed to a psychiatric hospital on Thursday on the orders of an emergency room technician. Also on Thursday, he was charged in Salt Lake with a misdemeanor count of child abuse in the alleged child abandonment.

Father Contacted

The little boy has been placed temporarily with a foster family in Utah. His biological father, who lives in California, has spoken with the child, police said. The boy will eventually be sent to live with his father.

"The last time I spoke to him was just after Christmas," the boy's father, Joel Corpuz, told reporters Thursday. "I am hoping to be in Utah to see him on Saturday,"

Appearing on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America, the boy's uncle, Wayne Davis, said Corpuz was very upset over the whole incident.

"He is pretty emotional and he's taking it pretty hard, because he wants to get his son home," Davis said of his former brother-in-law.

Davis said his nephew had not been able to tell Corpuz much in their phone conversation. "He [Corpuz] tried to talk to him, but I guess his son right now is still pretty devastated from the shock that he was in from being left there in the shopping center," Davis said.

Davis insisted Acord would never leave her son, and that her disappearance doesn't make any sense. "She just all of a sudden up and left, and no one knew why and what happened — why she wanted to leave and why she left so abruptly," he said.

Davis also said the boy had indicated in the past that there were violent episodes in the past between his mother and her new husband.

Acord and Montgomery were married less than two months ago. Marsha Kataner, the owner of the small, family-run wedding chapel where the couple wed, said they brought the little boy along for the ceremony.

The couple walked in on a Sunday with license in hand and wanted to be married that day, she said.

Kataner said she didn't suspect there was anything unusual going on with Montgomery. "He was a gentleman in every way," she said.