CHELSEA — A 42-year-old Bradford man has been charged with murdering another Orange County man whose sudden disappearance without a trace in January increasingly had been suspected as due to foul play.

James D. Nickles Jr. faces charges of second-degree murder, unauthorized burial or removal of a dead body and providing false information to police in connection with the killing of Corey Crooker, 43, also of Bradford, in January, Vermont State Police announced in a news release on Friday afternoon.

Nickles’ charges, which were filed in Orange County Superior Court in Chelsea, follow by one day the arrest of Lisa Akey. Akey was arraigned in Chelsea on Thursday and charged with being an accessory after the fact, obstruction of justice and false information to a police officer.

This week’s back-to-back criminal charges against Nickles and Akey represent major breakthroughs in the four-month police investigation into Crooker’s disappearance, which police initially deemed not to be suspicious.