A grand jury has indicted a Sanger man on a charge of murdering his estranged wife, nearly five years after she was last seen at his house and never heard from again.

Immediately after the grand jury’s finding, armed with an indictment warrant, officers went to Charles Stobaugh’s farm and arrested him on a charge of murdering Kathy Stobaugh.

Texas Ranger Tracy Murphree and Denton County Sheriff’s Department Investigator Larry Kish arrested Stobaugh at his farm about an hour after the indictment. Though he had not known the case was being actively investigated again, he showed little emotion when he was taken into custody, Murphree said. Stobaugh did not talk to the officers.

“It was good to finally take him in,” Murphree said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

The Texas Ranger said he had always believed the case against Stobaugh was strong, but there was no body, which makes murder a more difficult charge to prove.

“We laid our case out for the grand jury and they agreed with us that there was only one conclusion: that Kathy Stobaugh is dead and that Charles Stobaugh killed her.”

Stobaugh, 54, was being held in the Denton County Jail late Thursday in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Kathy Stobaugh, 43, visited Charles Stobaugh on Dec. 29, 2004, at the farm near Sanger where she formerly lived with him. She did not return to her two children at the house she was renting in Sanger, and her car remained in his driveway. He told the children she had gone on a trip. When she didn’t return to teach her class at a school in Nocona after the holidays, she was reported missing, but she had been gone for several days by that time.

Charles Stobaugh told law enforcement officers that she stayed at the farm only half an hour and drove away, but her car was back in his driveway the next morning. He said they argued over property settlement issues in their divorce and she left angry, saying he might never see her again. He theorized that she had left with someone on a trip.

He said he called her cellphone several times because he was concerned for her. But phone records showed he never called her number. Her bank account was never accessed. He soon stopped cooperating

with the investigation, and Murphree described him as the only suspect in her disappearance and probable death.

Denton County sheriff’s deputies and the Texas Rangers searched extensively on Stobaugh property, in surrounding fields and on land in Cooke County for the missing mother and schoolteacher. They followed numerous leads and made pleas for information from the public. But the leads ran out and there was nowhere left to search, and the case faded from public notice.

Members of Kathy Stobaugh’s family never gave up. Her father, James Munday, her brothers, Chris and Mark, and their wives Keitha and Kim, waited tensely at the courthouse Thursday to find out if the grand jury would hand up an indictment. They sat in the courtroom as Judge Bruce McFarling read off the indictment list and smiled when they heard Charles Stobaugh had been indicted on a murder charge.

Then they waited for his arrest so they could watch him being arraigned.

“They called us a couple of months ago and told us they were working on the case again,” said Fort Worth police Officer Chris Munday, who pushed hard for an arrest over the years.

His brother, Mark, said the family always believed the day would come when there would be an arrest.

“I knew something would happen sometime to bring it out,” said his wife, Kim.

The Stobaughs met when they attended Texas Woman’s University, family members said. They married and she worked for North Central Texas College for a number of years. She had recently returned to TWU and obtained a teaching certificate. She was working in the Nocona school district when she disappeared.

Chris Munday said in an earlier interview that the marriage had always been rocky.

“She finally had enough and was getting out and making a life for her and her children.

He didn’t want the divorce and wouldn’t accept any divorce settlement,” Chris Munday said.

He said Charles Stobaugh told police that she got upset because he offered to sell everything and split it, and that’s why she left.

“Who would get upset about getting $500,000?” he said.

James Munday, Kathy’s father, said Thursday that his wife died a year ago not having seen justice for her daughter.

“It’s been a long time,” the elder Munday said. “Too long.”

The husband and wife team of Cary and Susan Piel will prosecute the case, said First Assistant District Attorney Jamie Beck. They began work shortly after they won a high-profile murder conviction in the Robert “Bobby” Lozano case in August. He also was accused of murdering his wife.

They began talking with Murphree about the old case, and he suggested they look at it, said Beck.

He said the subsequent investigation and review of the evidence did not produce a “smoking gun.”

“We don’t have a body,” Beck said. “But we believe we have enough evidence to go forward. That’s what a grand jury is for. They told us they believed we had a case.”

DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com.