The son of the former Creedence Clearwater Revival drummer Doug Clifford faces a murder charge after his girlfriend’s remains were found near a Nevada highway on Thursday.
Brent Clifford is also a person of interest in another killing that took place 26 miles away.
Clifford, 55, was booked into South Placer County Jail in the early hours of Thursday and was deemed ineligible for bail.
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The Placer County Sheriff's Office said officers recovered what they believe to be the remains of 48-year-old Patricia Portella-Wright on an embankment off Mount Rose Highway.
Her remains were first spotted by a drone. A final determination from a coroner is pending. Brent Clifford has been charged with homicide.
Police said Portella-Wright was last seen with Clifford on Aug. 4 and was reported missing five days later. “There is apparent foul play involved,” Placer County Lt. Dave Smith said at a Thursday press conference.
A day earlier, Reno police named Clifford as a person of interest in the killing of 68-year-old William Andrews, who was found with a gunshot wound to the head in a residential neighborhood on Sunday. Police said Clifford left the area driving Andrews’ red 2004 Chevrolet Blazer.
When a team of officers from the Reno Police Department, Placer County, and Plumas County Sheriff’s Office arrested Clifford in Portola, California, they found the same red SUV.
Clifford’s father Doug co-founded Creedence Clearwater Revival with brothers John and Tom Fogerty, and Stu Cook, releasing a string of commercially and critically successful heartland rock albums filled with social commentary about America during the Vietnam War era.
In 2013, the Library of Congress added their 1969 hit “Fortunate Son” to the National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that “are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important”.
The group played together from 1959 to 1972, with a handful of limited one-off reunions in the 1980s before animosities and legal feuds drove them apart.
When they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, John Fogerty refused to play with Clifford or Cook.
