Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Missing Texas Mom Found Dead in Boyfriend’s Refrigerator Wrapped in Plastic

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

Heather Schwab was reported missing in June 2023 after she hadn’t been heard from in several months. Her body was found wrapped in plastic inside her boyfriend’s McKinney home just this week. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy explains what else investigators found in the house on this episode of “Crime Fix,” a daily show that covers today’s trending true crime stories.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. We have a disturbing story out of Texas. Police found a woman's body in a refrigerator wrapped in plastic at her boyfriend's home more than three months after her mother reported her missing. Police in McKinney, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas, say they found the body of 35-year-old Heather Schwab at the home of her boyfriend, Christopher Stevens, on Sunday. He's charged with tampering with evidence and he's in jail. You see his mugshot right there. An arrest affidavit reveals some really disturbing details. It shows there were signs that Schwab

was in danger. Schwab's mom reported her missing back in June and told police that her daughter's relationship with Stevens was full of abuse and that Schwab feared he might kill her. Despite the apparent abuse in the relationship, Schwab wouldn't leave Stevens, according to her mom. Police wrote in the affidavit that Stevens told them he hadn't seen Schwab in a year after she left him. Schwab had a history of drug abuse, according to the document, which complicated the investigation because her mother said it wasn't uncommon that she wouldn't hear from her for long periods of time. The investigation stalled until earlier this month when police wrote that Stevens' ex-wife told them that he

confessed to her that he actually killed Heather Schwab and buried her body in his backyard. The investigation heated up and police say Stevens, in an interview, eventually admitted to putting Schwab's body in the refrigerator after she died. That fridge was then wrapped in plastic and hidden in the house. Now, there are some pretty lurid details in that affidavit, including Chad Stevens admitting to choking Heather Schwab during rough sex. He said he went overboard at times and veins would actually pop out of her neck. Stevens is now being held in jail on that tampering with evidence charge. We still don't know how Heather Schwab died.

I'm Antoinette Levy. It's Wednesday Wednesday and this is Crime Fix. This is law and crime's rundown of the top stories in crime for the day. Another woman found dead, this time in a California alley behind an old movie theater, and police are treating it like it's a homicide. Laguna Beach police say a construction worker found Tatum Goodwin's body Sunday in a secluded area behind the old theater and the Carmelita's restaurant where Goodwin was the assistant manager for four years. Police say Goodwin's body showed obvious signs of trauma and now they're trying to figure out who killed her and why. Photos of Goodwin show her smiling on Instagram and happy with her dog.

A friend of hers actually posted a video showing Tatum happy as she was surprised on her birthday. Take a look. The restaurant where Tatum Goodwin worked set up a GoFundMe for her memorial service, and so far it's raised more than $20,000. Anyone who knows anything about how she died should call Laguna Beach Police. We have another story with some really disturbing details. This one in Idaho, as a 36-year-old woman is in jail, accused of getting a teenage boy high and drunk and then raping him.

Jessica Lawson used to be a teacher at South Fremont High School, but her name isn't on the school's website anymore. East Idaho News reports that on November 6th, police pulled over Lawson's car because they couldn't see a visible taillight. They found a teenage boy driving that car with Lawson in the passenger seat. Court records show the teen said he had to drive because Lawson was too drunk and high. The boy told police in an interview that Lawson gave him pot and they had sex at her house. But Lawson told the boy's parents she only gave him alcohol and nothing else happened, as if that wasn't bad enough.

Police, of course, didn't buy it, obviously. Now Lawson's being held in jail on a $250,000 bond. He swore he would kill me. Those words were written by a woman named Catherine Dean back in 2020 about her estranged husband, Ben Wynkoop. Less than two years later, she was dead. We now know that Catherine Dean had at least four criminal complaints against Wynkoop, where she described violence, death threats, and abuse. Wynkoop went to trial in June, claiming self-defense in the murder of Catherine Dean.

But the jury didn't buy it, convicting him of second-degree murder, use of a firearm in the commission of a murder, armed burglary, and violation of a protective order. Now we have another guy who's been convicted of murdering a loved one. His name is Dustin Tinkleberg. He was sentenced for the murder of his 93-year-old grandmother, Stella Anderson. He pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder in August. When he was arrested, authorities say Tinkleberg made some really bizarre statements, including that his grandmother had sexually abused him when he was a child and that he was being followed by drones and that he had been subjected to surgeries he didn't consent to. Law enforcement says eventually Tinkleberg told them he believed his grandmother had somehow, quote,

altered the bacon he was eating and he, quote, lost it. Anderson died from sharp force injuries to her head, including seven cuts from a tomahawk style hatchet. Another suspect apparently dealing with some sort of psychosis. This time it's a California woman and her murder charges were actually downgraded to involuntary manslaughter after a psychiatrist testified that cannabis-induced psychosis caused her to kill. Brynn Specher was an audiologist with UCLA Health and she allegedly smoked marijuana from a bong before stabbing her boyfriend, Chad Amelia,

get this, 108 times. Prosecutors say she then killed her dog before stabbing herself. According to police, she even kept stabbing herself after the officer used his stun gun to try to stop her. And you can see all these really crazy cuts all over her face and her neck. Surgeons managed to save her life, but Amelia did not survive. Spetcher's defense team says she was in the middle of a marijuana induced psychosis when she went on the rampage. She told police she had an out of body experience and thought she was dead. She confessed and was charged with murder, but prosecutors agreed to drop that charge to involuntary manslaughter, and the judge approved it. Amelia and Specher had only been dating a few weeks when the stabbing happened.

We have an update now on another woman who appears to have lost it. We've told you about Tiffany Lucas, the Kentucky mom who shot her two sons in the head. Well, a detective who interviewed her says Lucas actually claimed the double homicide was an accident. The detective told the judge presiding over Lucas's case that she said she fired four shots within 30 seconds and those rounds hit her son's head, but she said she wouldn't have done it unless she was being manipulated. Detective Richard Beal testified at a hearing that Lucas claimed she was being manipulated through her Wi-Fi and Facebook and said, quote, I'm so stupid. A week ago, deputies found Maurice Peanut Baker Jr. and Jaden Howard covered in blood in a bedroom in Lucas's home, and a gun was found on the bed,

according to a criminal complaint. A Bullitt County sheriff's official spoke to Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast about the crime. You can have an individual who is suffering from some type of mental illness. You can have an individual who has some type of substance abuse problem, or that individual can simply be just that evil, or it can be a combination of those things. I haven't seen any other outliers other than those three. And so right now, I guess it's, you know, anybody's guess as to which one of those she covers. Lucas is in jail now on a $2 million bond and family members of her sons told local news outlets they don't believe

she had mental health problems. We have a really big update for you now on a big story we're following out of Florida. If you watched Charlie Adelson's trial, you heard him and his mom, Donna Adelson, talking on the wiretaps about the murder of Dan Markell. Well, Donna may have sealed her fate with conversations she had with her son after he was convicted of murdering Markell, while Donna may have sealed her fate with conversations she had with her son after he was convicted of murdering Markell. A probable cause affidavit made public after Donna's arrest Monday night says, quote, jail calls after Charlie's guilty verdict include Donna telling Charlie she was getting things in order, creating trust and making sure her grandchildren are taken care of. Donna discusses plans for a suicide, but also discusses plans to go to a non-extradition

country. An FBI agent arrested Adelson Monday night at the International Airport in Miami as she was trying to get on a flight to Vietnam with her husband. Donna Adelson's accused of taking part in a plot to murder Dan Markell back in 2014 in Tallahassee, Florida, so she could have her grandkids all to herself in Miami, eight hours away. Dan Markell was the ex-husband of Donna's daughter, Wendy, and they were fighting in court about where their kids would live. Donna's son, Charlie, was found guilty of arranging the hit on Markell last week. Donna is now in jail in Miami, and Leon County deputies have about two weeks to pick her up. She's being held without bail.

So she is not going anywhere anytime soon. I bet you didn't know that you could kill somebody with eye drops, but a jury in Wisconsin says that's happened. We the jury find the defendant, Jesse R. Kershefsky, guilty. Jesse Kershefsky cried and sobbed as that jury's guilty verdict was read on Tuesday in Waukesha County, that's just west of Milwaukee. The jury found Kershefsky murdered Lynn Hernan, a wealthy 62-year-old woman who was supposed to be her friend back in 2018. The DA argued successfully at trial that Kershefsky stole thousands of

dollars from Hernan and then poisoned her with eye drops. Here's the DA after the verdict. We stand before you today on behalf of the victim Lynn Hernan, her close friends, and the community as a whole seeking justice for a life that was unjustly taken. Our hearts are with them. Lynn Hernan was loved by many people. She had a lot of friends, and one of those friends spoke about what kind of person she was. I would like to note that Lynn was not a loner. She was the life of most get-togethers when she was around. I would also like to note that she was a compassionate, humble, and very generous person.

Jesse Krzyzewski could spend the rest of her life in prison when she's sentenced next month. Now we have a couple of crimes for you that were caught on camera, including a guy with a neck tat that says, all gas, no brakes, and guess what? He crashed his car. Deputies in Polk County, Florida posted video

from a surveillance camera that recorded Timothy Hogue crashing his car in a residential neighborhood. You see him try to speed away. And then seconds later, bang, the car, which deputies say was going 80 miles per hour, stopped after the crash. Hogue was pretty branged up. You can see him in his

mugshot there. His passenger, Rebecca Kozub, is in the hospital with a broken leg. Now, deputies said they found meth and marijuana in the car. There's really no surprise there. A deputy had tried to stop them because they got a report that a woman was breaking into cars in the neighborhood. We got another heavily tattooed suspect for you. This one also caught on camera on a city-owned surveillance system police say he stole. Joseph Martinez was arrested in San Antonio on Monday on unrelated charges,

but authorities in Bexar County believe he stole a public camera because it continued to snap his photo. You can see those photos right there. The camera was intended to take photos of local game and wildlife, not Martinez sitting shirtless on his bed. Police say those photos were still being sent to the police department. A fact Martinez likely didn't know. He's locked up right now on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. And I bet he'll eventually be charged with stealing the camera too.

And finally, family members of a woman murdered back in 1996 think an old police sketch of the suspect looks just like accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Horman. Alyssa Showalter Reynolds was a 25-year-old PhD student at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. She was driving to Charlottesville, Virginia in March of 1996 to go dress shopping with her mom, but she never made it. Her car

was found abandoned in Culpeper, Virginia, possibly after having car trouble. Witnesses reported seeing a tall white man in the area driving a dark colored pickup truck. They were able to provide enough information for police to make a sketch. A couple of months after she went missing, Reynolds' body was found in a shallow grave about 10 miles away from her car. The family points out that Horman's mother had moved to Palmyra, Virginia in 1994,

not far from Culpeper, so there could be a connection. Rex Horman is an architect who was based in New York City and lived on Long Island. He was arrested in July in connection with the deaths of at least three sex workers whose bodies were found in the Gilgo Beach area more than a decade ago. And he's the prime suspect in the murder of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainerd Barnes, so he could be charged with that crime coming up anytime.

Jorman has pleaded not guilty, and he was actually in court today for a status hearing. And get this, his estranged wife, Asa Ellerup, was there. She filed for divorce right after his arrest in July. Her attorney actually confirmed to Law and Crime that Ellerup and her two children are working with a streaming service on their life story. And that's it for your Crime Fix for Wednesday, November 15th, 2023. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for joining us. Remember, you can watch Crime Fix every night at 6pm Eastern on Law & Crime's YouTube channel, and you can download it wherever you get your favorite podcasts. We'll see you tomorrow.