- Dog lover Mandy Rose spoiled her beloved pooch Titan rotten.
- When she died loyal Titan never left her side.
- The fluffy dog detective repaid her love by helping to solve her murder case.
When officers attended a call out to a bushfire in April 2023, they were shocked to discover a white mini labradoodle pacing and barking among the ashes.
The pup refused to leave the area. Soon, the police uncovered why.
The pooch was guarding the body of a deceased woman who’d been stuffed in a blue storage container. She’d been burned beyond recognition.
A shell casing from a handgun was also found inside the container.
Police deduced the dog was protecting its owner as the fluffy white pup continued to bark at officers and evaded their attempts to capture him.
Even when officers removed his owner’s body, the loyal hound refused to leave.
When he was still in the same spot the following day, a nearby resident called animal control officers who discovered through the dog’s microchip that his name was Titan and he belonged to 26-year-old Mandy Rose Reynolds. Like a dog detective it seemed Titan was determined to help solve Mandy’s murder.
She had moved interstate to be closer to her best friend.. Sadly her plans were dashed when someone had cruelly snatched her life away.
‘Evidence showed that Mandy had been shot in the head before her body was set alight.’
Evidence showed that Mandy had been shot in the head before her body was set alight.
Officers searched her apartment, only to find all her belongings has been removed and her car, a black Honda Accord was missing.
Tracking the vehicle, they found video footage of Mandy’s car leaving a shopping centre, her pooch’s head sticking out the car’s window.
Behind the wheel was a man police determined was her cousin Derek Joseph Daigneault, 29.
He was seen buying a plastic storage container identical to the one his cousin’s body had been found in, along with a shovel and a gas can.
Horrifically, he was on probation with a warrant out for his arrest and had been previously convicted for a multitude of offences, including aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, and criminal discharge of a weapon, among others. The car was tracked and local police tried to pull it over but Daigneault refused to stop.
For almost 30 minutes he led cops on a high-speed chase, traveling over 160kmph.
In the chase he even swiped a police cruiser and slammed into another car before fleeing the crash and sheltering in a supermarket.
‘Sweet Mandy had been killed for her kindness.’
Terrified shoppers scrambled for their cars as police swarmed in after him.
Daigneault was found hiding behind a shelf of canned goods, and a search of the vehicle uncovered his grandmother’s handgun which matched the weapon that had been used in the shooting.
Taken into custody, police pieced together that Daigneault had reached out to Mandy for help a month before her death and so she drove interstate to bring him to back to her home for a brief visit.
Then, about a month into his stay, he shot her in the head, stuffed her body in a blue storage container drove out of town and set the container alight. Sweet Mandy had been killed for her kindness.
‘It’s very heart-wrenching. Heartbreaking because, again, the only reason she did what she did was because it was family,’ Mandy’s stepdad Ron Hardy told KVUE.
‘She had a shining future ahead of her, she had everything to live for.’
Mandy’s mother, Karleen Hardy, shared a GoFundMe post following her daughter’s murder, in an effort to raise money for her family to travel to court to see justice for her girl.
In it she spoke about her ‘beautiful daughter’ and the ‘devastating’ events.
Jurors in Waco’s 19th State District Court in the US deliberated for 40 minutes before Derek Joseph Daigneault, 29, was sentenced in November 2024 to life in prison for murder.
‘He is just an extremely violent individual, and he cannot be trusted with the safety of this or any other community,’ Ryan Calvert, a McLennan County assistant district attorney, said after the trial.
‘So life, we felt, was the only just verdict.’
Even after sentencing, one question remained – why? But it’s one answer Mandy’s family may never have. A motive was never revealed.
‘Mandy’s family say they owe the justice to faithful labradoodle Titan.’
Speaking out after the verdict Mandy’s family say they owe the justice to faithful labradoodle Tita – the super dog detective -, who has since been adopted by Mandy’s best friend.
‘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 in a statement. Like a fluffy dog detective Titan helped solve the case!
‘That combination has delivered justice for Mandy and safety from a violent and dangerous criminal.’.
Mandy doted on her beloved pet and Titan repaid that devotion in spades.
‘She spoiled that dog bad,’ stepdad Ron said. ‘Talking about a loved and spoiled puppy, he was definitely that.’
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