The missing man’s mother and wife became central witnesses before deputies searched a Dunnellon home.
DUNNELLON, Fla. — A Florida man’s disappearance became a homicide investigation after relatives reported alarming messages, an alleged confession and a photo that appeared to show the missing father dead, authorities said.
Andres Bahamon, 25, is being held at the Marion County Jail on a tampering with evidence charge in the case of his father, 43-year-old Andres Bahamon-Prada. The father had not been heard from since May 7, when he visited his mother in Williston and then went to the gym. By May 16, family members had turned to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office. Within days, deputies were searching the home where father and son lived and finding human remains in the backyard.
The first known warning signs came through the family. Bahamon-Prada’s mother tried to reach him and then contacted Bahamon, her grandson, to ask where his father was. Court documents said Bahamon answered that he did not know. He also used language that investigators later recorded in the case file, saying his father was keeping a “flower” from blooming. The comment did not answer the family’s main question. Bahamon-Prada had vanished after an ordinary visit with his mother and a trip to the gym, and there was no public sign that he had contacted relatives again.
More than a week after Bahamon-Prada was last seen, the grandmother told deputies that she had seen Bahamon at a store. She said Bahamon told her that he had killed his father. That statement shifted the case from worry over a missing person to a search for evidence. Deputies said they began investigating the disappearance May 16 and soon found evidence that foul play might be involved. The grandmother’s account gave investigators a direct family statement to test against the condition of the shared home in Dunnellon.
Another relative was drawn into the case from overseas. Bahamon’s mother, who lives in Germany, told family she received an image that appeared to show Bahamon-Prada dead. According to court documents, she forwarded the image to Bahamon-Prada’s mother and said Bahamon had warned her not to get in his way. The grandmother then pressed Bahamon for a clear answer about whether her son was alive. Investigators said he responded that he thought his father was dead and added a hostile statement about him. Those messages became part of the evidence described in the arrest paperwork.
After the family accounts were collected, deputies went to the home on Northwest 225th Avenue where Bahamon and Bahamon-Prada lived together. An arrest report described a damaged back glass door with what appeared to be a bullet hole, a casing near the porch, another possible bullet mark near steps and a nearby stain. Detectives obtained a search warrant and examined the yard. In the backyard, they found freshly disturbed soil. Beneath it, they uncovered a large rolled carpet suspected to contain human remains.
The sheriff’s office has not publicly identified the remains. That leaves a key question open even as the case moves forward against Bahamon. Authorities have described him as a person of interest in his father’s disappearance, not as a person charged with murder. The tampering charge ties him to alleged handling or hiding of evidence, but it does not resolve who killed Bahamon-Prada, how he died or whether anyone else was involved. Deputies said Bahamon did not cooperate when they interviewed him after finding him.
The family’s concern also led investigators toward property records and the history of the home. Cindy and Shawn Wilkey, who own the property, told WESH they bought it in 2017 and had rented it to Bahamon-Prada since last November. The same backyard had been tied to another discovery years earlier, when human remains were found there in 2009. In that earlier case, Zachary Snyder first denied killing a woman whose torso was found in a burn pit. He later pleaded guilty to murder. The sheriff’s office said the 2009 case has no connection to Bahamon-Prada’s disappearance.
Deputies were also looking for Bahamon-Prada’s vehicle. The sheriff’s office described it as a silver 2007 Infiniti M35 and said it could contain important evidence. Investigators did not publicly say where the car was last seen or whether relatives had expected Bahamon-Prada to be driving it after May 7. The missing vehicle added another open thread to a case built from phone messages, family statements, physical evidence at the home and the discovery of remains that still required formal identification.
Bahamon remains held without bond while prosecutors consider the evidence gathered by deputies and detectives. His next court appearance is set for June 23. By then, investigators may have more information from the medical examiner, crime-scene processing and any digital records tied to the messages that relatives reported. Until those findings are released, the case remains a homicide investigation with Bahamon-Prada’s family waiting for formal answers.
Bahamon’s June 23 court date is the next scheduled step. The case now rests on several public facts: a father last seen May 7, a missing-person report on May 16, family messages that alarmed relatives and human remains found behind the Dunnellon home.
Author note: Last updated June 19, 2026.