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10/8/2010

By ERIN MATHEWS Salina Journal

Remains of a former rural Clifton man’s body had been located in three different Arizona counties six months before law enforcement was notified that he was missing, a public information officer with the Scottsdale Police Department announced Thursday.

Authorities allege that after rural Clifton native Shari (Girton) Tobyne shot her husband, Dwight Tobyne, 57, in November 2009, she dismembered his body with a saw-type tool and scattered his remains in the desert.

The couple, who had been married for 35 years, started their married life in Salina before moving to Denver and then the Phoenix area in 2004.

“At this point we have not found Dwight’s entire body, and out of respect for the family we will not discuss the specific remains that were recovered,” Public Information Officer David Pubins, of the Scottsdale Police Department, said at a press conference Thursday.

Pubins published his remarks from the press conference on the department’s website.

He said that on Dec. 20, 2009, a person involved in outdoor activities off of U.S. Highway 60 in Pinal County happened upon human remains and notified the local sheriff’s office. On Dec. 23, 2009, additional remains were found off Interstate Highway 10 by a different person involved in a recreational activity in La Paz County.

On Dec. 26, a traveler near Sugarloaf got out of his or her vehicle and noticed what appeared to be partial human remains near the Beeline Highway in Maricopa County, he said.

Officials from the three separate medical examiner’s offices involved networked, and it was determined that the remains all came from the same person, he said. A DNA profile was developed from the La Paz County remains.

After the adult children of Dwight Tobyne reported him missing on July 21, Scottsdale police initiated an investigation and developed a DNA profile for him utilizing DNA from his parents.

A sample of the remains from Pima County was acquired, and on Sept. 30 the police department’s crime lab confirmed the DNA of the remains matched Tobyne’s DNA profile, he said.

Shari Tobyne was arrested Aug. 14 and charged with abandoning a human body and first-degree murder. A police investigation uncovered evidence that implicated her, and she admitted to police that she accidentally shot her husband and then discarded his body in the desert east of Phoenix.

She told investigators that she had been trying to kill herself, but accidentally shot Dwight when he tried to take the gun, according to information released by the department. Shari Tobyne said she did not think police would believe the shooting was accidental, so she discarded his body in the desert.

Family members had not had contact with Dwight Tobyne since November 2009 but initially thought he was missing by his choice, relatives said. The couple was divorcing after 35 years of marriage, and Shari told family members he had gone to stay with a friend in Mexico.

However, after Dwight Tobyne made no contact at Christmas and missed the birth of a grandchild, the couple’s adult children filed a missing-person report in July.

n Reporter Erin Mathews can be reached at 822-1415 or by e-mail at [email protected].