A federal inmate is back in the Bay area to face charges on a pair of infamous murders in 2003.
According to partner newspaper the Tampa Bay Times, Scott Paul Schweickert is accused in the deaths of two men from Seminole Heights.
The men, Michael Wachholtz and Jason Galehouse, both 26, were bound and killed in December 2003. Galehouse was dismembered and his bodies parts were spread across Tampa.
Schweickert, 48, was returned to Tampa on Thursday. A Hillsborough County grand jury indicted him on two first-degree murder charges in 2012. He faces the prospect of a muder trial in Hillsborough County.
Before now, there has been no murder charges in the case, only drug charges. The state also filed notice that it would seek the death penalty.
Schweickert was previously convicted for giving a date rape drug to Wachholtz and had been serving a 40-year prison term in federal prison.
Another man, Steven Lorenzo, 55, also is serving time for distributing drugs to the men.
Schweickert told investigators he and Lorenzo met Galehouse at a gay nightclub on Armenia Avenue in Tampa in late 2003 and went back to his bungalow. Schweickert said later that night, he came out of a bathroom and found Lorenzo with a dead Galehouse.
According to officials, the two dismembered Galehouse and put body parts in trash bins around town. The body parts were not found but blood was located in Lorenzo's garage, according to testimony.
Days after the Galehouse killing, the men brought home Wachholtz, who was killed that same night.
The Hillsborough State Attorney's Office has declined to comment because the case is pending.