FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - A bullet taken from the skull of a woman whose body was discovered in northern Arizona was fired from a rifle owned by an Air Force airman charged in her death, authorities said Wednesday.

Mark Gooch has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges in the death of Sasha Krause, a 27-year-old who disappeared from the Mennonite community where she lived near Farmington, New Mexico, on Jan. 18.

Her body was found off a forest road north of Flagstaff more than a month later. An autopsy determined Krause, who previously was a school teacher in Texas, died of a gunshot wound to the head and had suffered blunt force trauma.

Results from state crime lab testing indicate the bullet matches a .22-calibre rifle that belonged to Gooch, the Coconino County Sheriff's Office said.

Gooch's attorney, Matthew Springer, didn't immediately respond to a message left at his office Wednesday.

Gooch's older brother, Samuel, was arrested in the Phoenix area in early May after he flew to Arizona from Wisconsin to pick up what he thought was the rifle used in the killing, authorities said. A grand jury in Coconino County later indicted him on a single felony charge of attempting to hinder prosecution.

Samuel Gooch is not in custody. It's unclear whether he has an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

Jon Paxton, a spokesman for the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, said Samuel Gooch recently was served with the indictment and no court dates have been set.

One of Mark Gooch's friends told authorities that Mark Gooch asked him to store a .22-calibre rifle because he wasn't allowed to have it at Luke Air Force base where he was stationed. Authorities seized the weapon, replaced it with a nearly identical one and waited for Samuel Gooch to pick it up before arresting him, the sheriff's office said.

Samuel Gooch told a sheriff's detective after his arrest that Mark Gooch never asked him to get rid of the gun.

“I made some hard decisions and we'll see where this goes,” Samuel Gooch said, according to an audio recording of the interview.

News from © The Associated Press, 2020