Bond set for Middletown man after woman’s body found inside barrel

UPDATED at 2:46 p.m.

Middletown police received a tip about a dead body in a barrel on Tuesday in a call from a relative of a different woman, they said.

Police were called around 1 p.m. Tuesday to a residence in the 3200 block of Yankee Road to investigate the report.

When police knocked on the door and told William Slaton, 35, about the complaint, he refused to let officers inside. He went back into the house, ran out the back and dumped the barrel in a neighbor’s yard, Reeve said.

Another woman claimed Slaton had threatened her in away that indicated he had done harm to someone else. That woman told a family member, who called police.

Reeve said officials believe the woman found Tuesday had been dead for two to three days.

Bond was set at $210,000 this morning for Slaton. He is charged with gross abuse of a corpse, failure to report a crime or death and tampering with evidence, police said. More charges are possible once the autopsy is complete and the case is reviewed by the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office, said Maj. Scott Reeve from the Middletown Division of Police.

RELATED: Woman’s body found inside barrel in Middletown; man jailed

Slaton’s arraignment this morning in Middletown Municipal Court was continued until July 8, and Judge James Sherron set the cash, surety or property bond. Slaton remains in the Middletown City Jail this morning, according to records.

The woman was not identified, and it’s not immediately known how she died, police said.

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