The son of the man found dead in Richmond Monday morning has now been charged with murder, state police say.

According to a press release issued Tuesday night by Steve McCausland of the Maine Department of Public Safety, 24-year-old Leroy Smith III was notified of the murder charge at the Cumberland County Jail, where he was being held on an unrelated charge. He was booked into the jail on a fugitive from justice warrant, jail records show.

“The decision to charge him was made by the Attorney General’s Office following today’s autopsy on Leroy Smith Jr.,” said McCausland. “The State Medical Examiner’s Office said the elder Smith died from multiple sharp force injuries. A court appearance for Smith on the murder charge will likely be later in the week.”

State police investigators spent Tuesday continuing to gather evidence from the 16 Cannard St. apartment in Gardiner where the two men lived. Investigators say Smith, 56, was killed in the apartment and his body was later transported to a wooded area off Lincoln Street in Richmond, where it was found Monday morning.

Police have not released many details about the discovery of the remains or the information the younger Smith provided when Westbrook police arrested him early Monday morning, other than to say it led police to be concerned for Leroy Smith Jr. As a result, Gardiner police searched Smith’s home but he was not located, said Lt. Christopher Coleman during a press conference Monday afternoon.

Coleman then said that starting at around 6 a.m. Monday, a wooded area off Lincoln Street in Richmond was also searched by law enforcement officers from the Sagadahoc County Sheriff ’s Department and Richmond Police Department, who uncovered “what were believed to be human remains.”

At that point the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit was called “and we’ve been working on this case with these agencies ever since,” Coleman told news media on Monday. He would not comment on why police used the term “remains” rather than “body,” and said the remains were eventually taken from that wooded area and transported to the medical examiner’s office, and were identified as those of Leroy Smith Jr.

dmoore@timesrecord.com