Missing Family of 3 Is Found Dead and Burned, Police Believe — and Man Seen Driving Mom's Car Is Charged

A Texas man has been charged with murder for allegedly killing a young family of three whose burned remains are believed to have been found on a rural property in Wharton County on Saturday, say police.

Robert Satterfield, 36, who was already in custody in Fort Bend County, faces three counts of murder in connection with the deaths of Maya Rivera, 24, Ray Shawn Hudson, 28, and their son, Ray Shawn Hudson Jr., 5, of Angleton, the Wharton County Sheriff’s Office announced in a release obtained by PEOPLE.

The charges could be upgraded to capital murder, the sheriff’s office said in the release.

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Satterfield has not yet entered a plea. He remains held in the Fort Bend County jail on a $305,000 bond. It is unclear whether he has retained an attorney who can comment on his behalf.

Authorities did not state why Satterfield was already in custody, and PEOPLE’s inquiry was not immediately answered.

Robert Satterfield, 36
Robert Satterfield, 36

The arrest comes after deputies from the Wharton County Sheriff’s Office and members of the Texas Rangers acted on a tip and visited a privately-owned property in rural Wharton County and determined that a homicide may have been committed there, the Sheriff’s Office said in the release.

After interviewing possible witnesses, the Rangers met with Satterfield, who they believed to be a suspect in the alleged murders. He was taken to the property, where skeletal remains were found.

‘It is believed these remains to be the same of Hudson, Rivera and their child,’ the Sheriff’s Office said in the release. “The remains are at this point unidentifiable as there had been an attempt to dispose of the bodies by burning them.”

Authorities do not yet know where or when the family was last seen, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Rivera’s mother, Frances Rivera, told the Chronicle she last saw the young family on June 10, before they visited Hudson’s family in Missouri City.

“I try not to think about the whys and whens,” Frances Rivera told the Chronicle.

Her grandson, who called her Yaya, loved doing “anything his daddy did,” she told the Chronicle. The little boy often helped his grandfather, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, remember names and find restrooms, she told the outlet.

On Thursday, Satterfield was allegedly seen driving Rivera’s car.