Free Republic

The man accused of strangling his ex-girlfriend, dismembering her body and burning it up on two barbecue grills should stay in jail for his own safety because of public outrage, his lawyer said Monday. Chip Lewis said Harris County sheriff's officials have told him that Timothy Wayne Shepherd's life might be in danger if he were released on bail. "There's no specific threat or specific person," Lewis said. "It's just common sense, given the vitriol in the community. It's a dangerous environment." Shepherd, 27, is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail after being charged with murder in the death...

For at least two days, neighbors at a city apartment complex noticed an acrid aroma, black smoke and leaping flames coming from two barbecue grills on the balcony of a second-floor apartment. What, neighbors at the Red Oak Place apartments wondered, was going on in the unit where 27-year-old Timothy Wayne Shepherd lived? What was he burning at all hours, for days at a time? The answer turned their stomachs. According to law enforcement officials, Shepherd dismembered, and then burned the body of his former girlfriend, Tynesha Stewart, a 19-year-old Texas A&M University student. Nothing remains of Stewart's body, Harris...

The Harris County Sheriff's Office reversed course Friday, agreeing to move forward with a landfill excavation to find the body of Tynesha Stewart, even as investigators acknowledged Friday "there is a good possibility" her suspected killer may have dismembered her body and placed her in several garbage bins. Homicide detectives also revealed more details about Timothy Wayne Shepherd's actions following the slaying, including the mysterious discovery of burnt meat at his apartment and a neighbor's report of smoke billowing from his patio the day after Stewart's disappearance.