Emilio R. Maturin was last seen on July 19, 2019, in Auburn, Washington, a Hispanic male recorded in missing-person materials as 27 years old, though later reporting based on court documents described him as 36 at the time he was last seen. He was described as having brown eyes and graying brown hair, and early public missing-person notices said he was last seen in a white vehicle in Auburn before he disappeared and was not heard from again.
Those first details were spare, leaving his loved ones with unanswered questions and little public clarity about what had happened after he vanished.
As the investigation developed, a far darker account emerged in court records and news reporting. Prosecutors later alleged that Richard Walter Bradley Jr. had approached Maturin with a story about needing help digging up buried gold in Auburn. According to reporting on the charging documents, Maturin’s girlfriend told detectives she had overheard Bradley make that request; Maturin was reportedly skeptical at first but went along. Court records cited in news reports also said Maturin was known to carry large amounts of cash and had roughly $15,000 with him when he left that day in a recently purchased BMW. His girlfriend later tracked his cellphone to Game Farm Park in Auburn and went there searching for him, but she became frightened and left. Several hours afterward, Auburn police found an unregistered BMW parked near a large field at the park, and when officers later attempted to stop the driver, the vehicle fled; Bradley was arrested after a car and foot chase and initially faced an eluding charge connected to that encounter.
For a time, Maturin’s disappearance remained part of a painful uncertainty, the kind of absence that leaves a family waiting without answers while investigators piece together fragments. The case took on new significance after the 2021 death of Brandi Blake, whose body was recovered at Game Farm Wilderness in Auburn. Reporting based on court records stated that investigators found three human rib bones near Blake’s body, and those remains were later determined through DNA evidence provided by Maturin’s mother to belong to Emilio Maturin. Official reports and court-based reporting therefore indicate that Maturin was located deceased; the exact date when his remains were formally identified is not clearly stated in the available public reporting.
Prosecutors later described Maturin’s death as part of a broader alleged pattern. Bradley had already been charged in Blake’s death, and in December 2023 prosecutors filed additional murder charges connected to the deaths of Maturin, Michael Goeman, and Vance Lakey. According to multiple reports citing the King County Prosecutor’s Office and charging documents, authorities alleged Bradley used a similar lure: telling victims he needed help digging up a stash of buried or stolen gold, taking them to isolated or wooded areas, killing them, and stealing their vehicles or possessions. Maturin’s case was described as the earliest of the four alleged killings, beginning with his disappearance from Auburn in July 2019 and later linked to remains found near the area where Blake was discovered.
The overview of Emilio Maturin’s case is one of a man who disappeared from Auburn, Washington, on July 19, 2019, after reportedly leaving under circumstances that only later became clearer through court records. Early missing-person accounts offered only a last-seen location, a vehicle description, and his physical description, while his family and those who cared about him were left without the certainty they deserved. Years later, investigators connected remains found near Game Farm Wilderness to Maturin through DNA, and prosecutors charged Richard Walter Bradley Jr. in connection with his death as part of a larger alleged pattern involving a false promise of buried gold, isolation, robbery, and violence. What began as a missing-person case became a resolved but deeply tragic homicide case, centered on Emilio’s disappearance, the search for answers, the identification of his remains, and the continuing effort through the courts to account for what happened to him.Last Seen: Jul 19, 2019
