West and Martin were identified not long afterwards as their blue '82 Malibu was seen parked in the vicinity of the Romines's house on March 17. A neighbor reported seeing a car stuck at the end of his driveway. He went outside and noticed one of his fence posts was taken down to help extricate the vehicle from the ditch. They got it out and drove off, and the man recognized West and Martin. The two were quickly apprehended. West denied being a willing participant in the butchery of the two women and claimed Martin did the whole thing and threatened to attack and rape his own mother and sister if he tried to stop him and that he had a gun and two knives with him. His version of events seemed unbelievable; why would a six foot tall ex-Army serviceman have anything to fear from a teenager who was a good 30 pounds lighter and a few inches shorter? Even if West was unwilling to physically intervene to save the two victims, couldn't he have at least fled the house?

West made five different statements about what happened in the Romines' house. Initially he said they had consensual sex with Sheila and left, then they came back and Martin decided to borrow money from them, that Martin was gone about 30 minutes, and when Martin came back to the car they drove off. It was in a later statement that West tried to pin the entire crime on his companion. He claimed Martin demanded that Sheila perform oral sex on him after which he anally sodomized her, and that Martin pointed the gun at his forehead and joked about shooting him. "I saw a man outside the house and I wanted to go out there and tell him what happened, but I kept seeing [my wife] like Sheila there." West went back to his McDonald's shift later that day and did not tell anyone about the murders.