Mooresville Man Taken Into Custody For 1987 Slaying Of His Wife In Guam

Pacific Daily News Photo of Scaggs' body being removed from her third floor apartment

The slaying of Tracey Scaggs, a 20-year old wife and mother, near a U.S. Air Force base in Guam went unsolved for more than 25 years. Earlier this month, a grand jury in Guam returned an indictment against her husband, Gary L. Scaggs, an airman stationed at Anderson Air Force Base at the time, for her murder. News reports out of Guam indicated that officials were working on extraditing Scaggs back to Guam to be tried on a single murder charge but did not indicate Scaggs whereabouts. Today, Advance Indiana has learned that a team of local law enforcement officers working with officials in Guam have taken a Mooresville resident into custody at the Marion County Jail identified as Gary L. Scaggs, who will soon be shipped back to Guam to face charges.

On June 23, 1987, Scaggs told local police in Guam that he had found his 20-year old wife near the front door of their third-floor apartment dead. An autopsy determined that Tracey Scaggs had died from strangulation. Although her husband was the primary suspect in her death, the case soon went cold where it remained for more than two decades. Prosecutors had her body exhumed in 1989 to study a wound on her arm that resembled a human bite mark. Investigators had a mold of her husband's teeth taken, but no further breaks in the case came until investigators in 2011 told the press that a break in the case was within reach, perhaps newly-discovered DNA evidence. A grand jury returned an indictment against Scaggs for his wife's death on April 11. Yesterday, Pacific Daily News reported that the Office of Attorney General in Guam was in the process of extraditing Scaggs back to Guam to face trial. Scaggs, originally from Chrisman, Illinois, worked for an elevator company in Indianapolis according to a law enforcement source and currently resides in Mooresville. Tracey Scaggs is shown with her parents and child in the photo below taken only three months before her death.