Suspect detained minutes before body’s discovery at Sonoma City Hall

A Sonoma resident suspected of killing a Cazadero man and putting his body in a barrel before dumping it near Sonoma City Hall was stopped late Friday for speeding by a Sonoma County sheriff’s deputy just prior to the barrel’s discovery, according to a sheriff’s official.

Deputy Alan Collier was detaining Christopher McNatt, 40, of Sonoma in a traffic stop before midnight Friday when word went out over the deputy’s police radio about a suspicious 55-gallon barrel found at City Hall.

“The deputy was pretty sharp to put this together,” Lt. Carlos Basurto said Monday.

Inside the plastic barrel was the body of Ronald Gordon Sauvageau, 64.

Detectives suspect the slaying occurred at a mobile home park off Highway 12 not long before the body was found. Deputies learned of the barrel and its gruesome contents through a call at 11:48 p.m. that someone had dumped a barrel at City Hall about 15 minutes earlier.

Officials said they believe McNatt killed Sauvageau and put his body into the barrel, then drove to Sonoma Plaza with the barrel in the back of his pickup before leaving it there.

The suspect never said why he picked that location, and why the barrel ended up there remained unknown, said sheriff’s Sgt. Shannon McAlvain, who is supervising the investigation.

“We really don’t know why that exact location,” McAlvain said.

Some details came to light Monday, as across town, Sonoma resident Ronnie Arrasmith was cleaning up the grisly aftermath at his home, where deputies suspect the slaying occurred.

Arrasmith had removed the yellow tape that sheriff’s deputies used to cordon off the crime scene around his mobile home at the Acacia Grove Mobile Home Park on the outskirts of Sonoma. His backyard was littered with broken planter pots, an overturned patio umbrella and a pile of empty soda bottles and beer cans - what Arrasmith said was evidence that “something really bad happened.”

Arrasmith said he was friends with both men, but the two hadn’t met through him. McNatt was staying at Arrasmith’s home Friday night when Sauvageau stopped by on an unannounced visit, according to interviews at the mobile home park Monday.

“I wasn’t here that night, but all this stuff is thrown all over, and Chris was here watching my house,” said Arrasmith, 69. “I came home and I kept saying, ‘What’s going on, what happened?’?”

Basurto declined to discuss a motive for the slaying and wouldn’t say what information led the deputy to suspect McNatt could be connected to the barrel.

Arrasmith said the empty bottles and cans that littered his backyard were dumped out of the plastic barrel he used for recycling.

Authorities have not released other details of the slaying, including how or if the two men knew each other, the type of weapon used to kill Sauvageau or whether the body had been dismembered, but Arrasmith said police confiscated from his home frying pans, a hammer, a hand saw, towels and a bedspread.

“I guess because everything had blood on it,” Arrasmith said.

Inside Arrasmith’s mobile home, where he’s lived for the past 15 years, there were other signs of violence. A substance that appeared to be blood was still spattered on a closet mirror and down a wall along its baseboards.

Arrasmith initially was detained and questioned by deputies to determine whether he was involved. He was subsequently released, and Basurto said detectives don’t believe the man was at the residence at the time of the slaying. Arrasmith’s comings and goings over the weekend, however, shed some light on the events that unraveled Friday night.

He said he left his home at about 4 p.m. to visit a woman friend who had recently had a heart attack, then he visited another friend to have sandwiches and watch a movie. Arrasmith said he made it clear to McNatt that he had no plans to return home that evening.

McNatt had been visiting, and asked to stay overnight when Arrasmith left.

Sometime over the next eight hours, Sauvageau, another friend of Arrasmith’s, stopped by, Arrasmith said.

“I don’t know what happened then. They didn’t know each other through me, so I have no idea,” Arrasmith said. “I’m still in shock. I can’t believe this.”

Arrasmith said he was McNatt’s sponsor in a treatment program for people addicted to narcotics. He said the two have been friends for more than a decade and spent time together often, though they are no longer in regular treatment, Arrasmith said.

Arrasmith said in the past week or so, McNatt was starting to act strange, though Arrasmith said hurting another person was unlike McNatt.

“He wasn’t the same Chris I knew in recovery,” Arrasmith said. “But I don’t understand why he would do something like that.”

Arrasmith described his other friend, Sauvageau, as a kind, gentle man. “He was sort of a hippie,” Arrasmith said. “And he was such a giver.”

It isn’t clear what led to the crime Friday night. Accounts from police and people at Arrasmith’s house offered no further insight, but authorities said the two could have known each other in some other way.

What is clear is that there was a physical encounter. Arrasmith pointed to the mess in his backyard, blood in his trailer and the tool box pulled out onto his kitchen floor as signs of a struggle.

McNatt has had run-ins with the law in the past. His criminal history in Sonoma County shows a misdemeanor conviction in 2008 involving willful cruelty to a child and two felony convictions for burglary and theft going back to 1993. Several misdemeanor arrests through the years have been dismissed.

McNatt is being held in Sonoma County Jail without bail on suspicion of homicide and a drug-related offense. He was expected to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, friends of both McNatt and Sauvageau are trying to piece together what happened Friday night.

“This is just so tragic,” said Don Scott, who said he and Sauvageau had been friends since high school.

Scott said his friend had wrestled with alcoholism throughout his life. He lived in a small, modest trailer in Cazadero near the Russian River and often took trips to Sonoma to help friends with housework and other chores. Sauvageau stayed over at Arrasmith’s trailer when it got too late to take the bus home, friends said.

Scott and others remembered Sauvageau as a giving man who loved the outdoors, reading and growing tobacco plants. Scott said Sauvageau earned money by building barrels to age wine and also received Social Security income.

“He led a very minimalist life, and he was always doing things for others,” Scott said. “I still can’t believe this happened. He was not a violent or mean person.”

Detectives don’t think anyone else was involved in the incident, Basurto said.

An autopsy was expected to be performed Tuesday. Until that occurs, Basurto said he wouldn’t discuss cause of death or possible weapon involved. He said detectives have recovered a possible weapon, but he withheld details about that weapon pending results from the autopsy.

You can reach Staff Writer Angela Hart at 526-8503 or angela.hart@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ahartreports.