Arraignment set in case of faked death

Karen Zekan

Wednesday, Oct. 14, 1998 | 11:09 a.m.

A former Marine sergeant accused of faking his own death in a 1994 trailer explosion at Lake Mead has been returned to Las Vegas to face felony charges of murder and arson.

Arthur Bennett, 45, will be arraigned Thursday before District Judge Donald Mosley. Bennett will also answer allegations of first-degree kidnapping, felony theft, two counts of sexually assaulting a victim under 14 and filing a false insurance claim that reportedly netted him $200,000.

Bennett was brought to the Clark County Detention Center in shackles Oct. 8. He was extradited from Utah, where he had pleaded guilty in April to sexually abusing several minors including his own daughters and received a 45-year sentence.

Prosecutors contend in February 1994, Bennett, then a sergeant in the Marine Corps, staged his own death in a trailer fire while being investigated for allegedly molesting another service member's child.

A body burned beyond recognition was found in the charred trailer in a remote area near Gypsum Wash and later identified by U.S. Marine Corps investigators as Bennett. Life insurance benefits were paid to his family and the remains buried in the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City.

Bennett, meanwhile, assumed the identity of a man named Joe Benson -- the man who some speculate may have died in the fire -- and started a new life with his ex-wife and three daughters in Hurricane, Utah, where he was arrested in 1996 on the molestation charges that landed him in prison there.

The connection to the Lake Mead fire was made after the arrest, when Utah authorities ran his fingerprints through a national database.