MARION COUNTY — Bail has been set at $1 million for the last of five Centralia residents charged in Marion County Court with first-degree murder for the December 3, 2019, death of a 39-year-old East St. Louis man whose remains were found last week in a wooded area outside Central City.

Thirty-year-old Krystal Scerba was arrested last week along with 53-year-old Cardell Thomas, 28-year-old Blake Shahan, 27-year-old Darleedria Flippen and 26-year-old Mantez Duncan in connection with the murder of Clendar Edmund.

Flippen has been charged with first-degree murder and armed robbery with a firearm for allegedly robbing Edmund of cash prior to his death. Duncan has been charged with two counts first-degree murder, while Thomas, Shahan and Scerba have been charged with one count each first-degree murder.

The other four were formally charged in court Monday but Scerba, who remained in custody, was at the hospital undergoing surgery. She had been expected to appear in court Tuesday and then on Wednesday but had not been released from the hospital following her surgery.

She did appear in court Thursday to be formally charged in the case. Like the other four, Scerba’s bail was set at $1 million and she was scheduled for a January 7, 2020, preliminary hearing where the details of what appears to have been a gruesome crime could be presented.