[naviga:img class="img-responsive" alt="Kevin Weismore" src="/Assets/news2015/Weismore.jpg"/]

Kevin Weismore

Sterling — State police said they arrested a suspect Friday afternoon in the murder of a Sterling teenager who had been missing for weeks.

Kevin Weismore, 19, of 61 Laiho Road, Sterling, was charged with murder and tampering with evidence.

Todd "TJ" J. Allen was reported missing from Sterling Dec. 26 after he went for a dirt bike ride that afternoon and did not return.

Allen had texted a friend on the afternoon he went missing that he had crashed and hurt his leg, but did not reply to any messages he received afterward.

Police said an investigation that detectives of the Eastern District Major Crime Squad conducted led to information about the 18-year-old Allen's whereabouts.

According to a police affidavit, in a police interview, Allen's father — named Todd D. Allen — told officers that the two of them had grown marijuana on their property and sold it together. Police also contacted another woman who said she had purchased marijuana from Todd J. Allen.

The elder Allen said when they ran out of marijuana as summer ended, he stopped selling it but that the younger Allen continued.

Reviewing the phone records of Todd J. Allen's phone, police determined that the last known location of the phone was in the area of Laiho Road, Margaret Henry Road and Sawmill Hill Road in Sterling.

According to Facebook messages between Weismore and Todd J. Allen, Allen asked to buy $500 in marijuana from Weismore on Christmas Day.

After an initial interview with Weismore, the last known person to contact him, police noted that he was not involved in the search for Todd J. Allen and had not tried to contact him. Police applied for a search warrant to search his house.

Weismore then drove to the state police station in Danielson.

He told police that he sold marijuana and days before Christmas he connected with Todd J. Allen and told him he could sell him a quarter-pound of marijuana.

When they met, Weismore said that Todd J. Allen reached into his backpack and pulled out a silver revolver, pointed it at the ground and told him that he didn't have the money for the marijuana.

Todd J. Allen's mother, Christina Moses, later told police that she and Todd J. Allen's father were "pretty positive" that her son didn't have a gun and that he could have had around $500 from work.

Weismore said he told Todd J. Allen that he couldn't have the marijuana, and Allen then pointed the revolver at Weismore. Weismore then said the two moved toward each other and he hit Allen's hand with the gun in it. He said he then pulled out a pocketknife and stabbed Allen several times until he fell to the ground.

"I knifed TJ, stabbing him in the stomach once using my right hand, and then stabbing him in the neck a few times," Weismore said in a statement to police. "I stabbed him in the neck once, and he kept moving so I did it a couple more times. TJ fell to the ground. He kept trying to get back up, but he fell again because he died."

Weismore told police he then pulled Todd J. Allen's body away from the trail behind a rock pile. He said he grabbed Allen's dirt bike gear and threw it in a well nearby and burned all of his clothes and the drugs. He said he threw the gun off of a cliff.

He said that after he explained what had happened to a friend, they took Allen's bike and submerged it in a pond.

Weismore then brought police to the body of Todd J. Allen, which was in a wooded area across the street from Weismore's home. Despite a map that Weismore drew of the area where he said he threw the gun, police searches did not locate one.

Weismore is being held on a $1 million bond and is scheduled to appear at court in Danielson on Jan. 17.