A Texas man was arrested after his ex-girlfriend’s deceased corpse was found inside his refrigerator in his home after she went missing.
Chad Christopher Stevens, 42, was accused of tampering with evidence and fabricating evidence by disposing of the dead body of his ex-girlfriend Heather Louise Schwab.
Investigators with a search warrant entered Stevens’ home and soon discovered a refrigerator wrapped in copious amounts of plastic wrap.
An officer said, “When we got inside we noticed Stevens’ kitchen was suspiciously closed off with a piece of sheetrock. Once we made our way through, we discovered the refrigerator which was wrapped in multiple layers of plastic.”
“Once we opened the refrigerator, that’s when we found a small saturated human body. The body was later identified by the Collin County medical examiner and we found that it was indeed Heather,” the officer concluded.
A spokesperson for Heather’s family released a statement saying they were beyond grief-stricken and broken-hearted by the news of what happened to Heather.
“We appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers that our family is receiving. We are so grateful to the McKinney Police Department for their hard work and dedication in finding Heather. We would appreciate privacy for her family and children as we process through this devastating time,” they said in the statement.
Heather’s mother, Tammra Schwab, was the one that reported her daughter missing on June 28. She had told investigators that despite her not talking to her daughter in a year, she would check in with a neighbor to hear how Heather was doing.
However, when she had last checked in, the neighbor claimed they had not seen Heather in months.
This alerted Tammra to be concerned because she knew Heather had been living with Stevens and their relationship was full of abuse.
Tammra said, “He was known to assault my daughter. We tried to help her, but she just would not leave the relationship. Heather even told me at one point that Chad would kill her and hide the body somewhere if she ever tried to leave him.”
An investigator took on the case, and interviewed Stevens who claimed that Heather had left him the year prior and hadn’t seen or heard from her since then. The investigation came to a standstill as the detective was unable to find out any leads about Heather’s last whereabouts or where she was last seen.
However, on Nov. 3, Tammra went to the police department to report that she had heard from Stevens’ ex-wife that he had “killed Heather and buried her in his backyard.” The information was traced to the ex-wife’s daughter who said she had spoken to her father, Stevens, the day prior on Nov. 2.
She told the investigator, that Stevens had “sarcastically” stated that he had killed Heather and buried her in his backyard.
On Nov. 6, the investigator obtained a search warrant to use a drone from the McKinney Police Department to obtain photographs of Stevens’ property, finding “several anomalies” in the backyard of his home.
During the investigation, another one of Stevens’ ex-girlfriends came forward regarding an assault offense in January, which led to an arrest warrant being issued for Stevens as well as a search warrant for his home, when the body was then found.
After Stevens was taken in for questioning, he finally admitted to hiding Heather’s body in the refrigerator after she died in his home on July 26, 2022.
Stevens said, “I didn’t know what to do when she died, so I just shoved her inside the refrigerator. We had been fighting off and on several times before she died. I threatened to kill her different times. I just snapped, I guess.”
Detectives also noted that they got a call around Aug. 12, 2022 at Stevens’ residence about a “woman waving a firearm” and a “male screaming” at the location, so they believe that Heather’s death may have occurred around this time.
Stevens, who has been previously booked for theft, driving while intoxicated and assault, was arrested on a charge of tampering with evidence and booked at the Collin County Detention Facility.
His bond is set at $150,000. It is unclear if he’s retained an attorney to speak on his behalf.
