‘Heroic and Loyal’ Dog Helps Solve Owner’s Murder

Texas woman Mandy Rose Reynolds was murdered by a very bad man, prosecutors say—but her very good dog helped them catch the killer. The dog, a labradoodle named Titan, was found at the site in Robinson, Texas, where Reynolds’ body was found “burned beyond recognition” in April last year, the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. The dog “barked frantically at officers and refused to leave the area of the body, but also refused to allow police to capture it,” the DA’s office said. A citizen found the dog at the same spot the next day and called animal control officers, who determined that Titan was microchipped and belonged to Reynolds.

Police went to Reynolds’ home and discovered that all of the 26-year-old’s possessions had been removed. They tracked her Honda Accord to Wichita, Kansas, where her cousin, 29-year-old Derek Daigneault, was arrested after a high-speed chase. Investigators determined that he shot Reynolds before burning her body in a plastic container, NBC News reports. He was sentenced to life in prison last week. “The keys to this case were a heroic and loyal dog named Titan and extraordinary cooperation between law enforcement agencies in multiple jurisdictions and states,” prosecutors Ryan Calvert and Alyssa Killin said.

The jury deliberated for around 40 minutes before sentencing Daigneault to life, KWTX reports. After the trial, Calvert said that what Daigneault did to Reynolds—”shooting her in the head, driving her body here to McLennan County, and setting her on fire like a piece of trash”—was enough to justify a life sentence. But during the penalty phase, he said, jurors learned that he had nine previous felony convictions and had served time in prison for violent crimes, including another shooting. “He is just an extremely violent individual, and he cannot be trusted with the safety of this or any other community,” Calvert said. “So life, we felt, was the only just verdict.” (More murder stories.)