A couple suspected in the brutal stabbing death of an elderly woman in Washington state were arrested in California Wednesday, driving the car of a man found slain in Oregon, police said.

David Joseph Pedersen, 31, and Holly Ann Grigsby, 24, were taken into custody on Wednesday near Yuba City, about 45 miles north of Sacramento, following a multi-state manhunt for the pair, Oregon State Police said.

They are suspected in the stabbing death of Pedersen's 69-year-old stepmother, Leslie Pedersen, in Everett, Wash., last Thursday.

Calling the murder especially brutal, Everett Police Sergeant Robert Goetz said the woman's hands were bound with duct tape and a pillow was found soaked with her blood.

Leslie Pedersen's 56-year-old husband, David Jones Pedersen, has been missing since September 26, and his son and Grigsby were wanted for questioning in his disappearance, too.

We are hoping that now that they have been arrested, they can provide us with some information on Mr. Pedersen, Goetz said.

The suspects were driving a white 1999 Plymouth Breeze belonging to Cody Myers, 19, of Lafayette, Ore., who had been missing since Saturday.

A body later found in Oregon has since been positively identified as that of Myers, and an autopsy has determined that he died of homicidal violence, police said at a Wednesday evening news conference in Salem.

Lt. Gregg Hastings of the Oregon State Police declined to say where Pedersen and Grigsby were from, but said they have both served time in Oregon for past convictions and had been convicted for crimes of violence and drug offenses.

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