BALTIMORE COUNTY, Md. (WBFF) \u2014 A judge ruled that Dwight \u201cDJ\u201d Rust Jr., the former husband of missing woman Michelle Rust, will be held without bail on a murder charge in the 2002 cold case.<\/p>\n
The judge ruled during a bail review hearing on Wednesday that DJ Rust will be held without bail to “promote public safety,” and is considered a flight risk because the charges change the “posture” of this case.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, DJ<\/a> Rust was arrested and charged with the murder of Michelle Rust, nearly 24 years after her disappearance.<\/a><\/p>\n Police said that on Saturday, July 20, 2002, at about 3 p.m., officers responded to the 1800 block of Clarke Boulevard in Halethorpe for a reported missing person. <\/p>\n DJ Rust told authorities at that time that Michelle left their home around 9:30 a.m. to go to the store to pick up items for their son\u2019s third birthday party and never returned. She was last seen driving a green Dodge van, police said.<\/p>\n Investigators said efforts by both the police department and Rust\u2019s family to find her were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n During a search of various neighborhoods, police said her father-in-law found her vehicle in the 2400 block of Zion Road. The van was parked and unoccupied, and a key was broken off in the driver\u2019s door lock, police said.<\/p>\n On April 20, a grand jury indicted DJ Rust on a charge of first-degree murder, police said.<\/p>\n He was arrested on April 21 and is being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center.<\/p>\n In court on Wednesday, the prosecution offered no new evidence that explained why DJ Rust is being charged almost 24 years later.<\/p>\n However, the prosecution said they’ve eliminated the possibility that Michelle committed suicide or disappeared voluntarily, which left them with only DJ as having the means or motive to kill her.<\/p>\n In court, the prosecution revealed that DJ was having an affair with a 19-year-old girl from his church and had plans to leave Michelle suspiciously the same weekend she went missing.<\/p>\n Authorities said that the same woman, named Ashley, is now DJ’s wife, and they have three children together. She was present in the courtroom on Wednesday.<\/p>\n Despite cooperating with investigators for the past 24 years, the state argued that DJ is a flight risk because of the new charges.<\/p>\n DJ’s attorney, Jeremy Eldridge, spoke outside the courthouse after the hearing:<\/p>\n This is a developing story. FOX45 will provide updates as they become available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BALTIMORE COUNTY, Md. (WBFF) \u2014 A judge ruled that Dwight \u201cDJ\u201d Rust Jr., the former husband of missing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":{"0":"post-284208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bakersfield","8":"tag-bakersfield","9":"tag-bakersfield-headlines","10":"tag-bakersfield-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}