He Allegedly Killed His Fiancée and Kept Her Body Around for Days — Then Offered a Chilling Explanation Why

For days, police say, a Texas man slept next to his fiancée’s corpse after shooting her in the head — only leaving when the smell became unbearable. 

“I wanted to lay with her,” 52-year-old William Joseph Oddo III allegedly told Denton police, according to an affidavit obtained by Fox 4, CBS Texas and WFAA.

The victim, 39-year-old LeVera Wardell, was found shot dead in her apartment on May 19 after a resident reported “a very foul smell,” according to a press release posted to the department’s Facebook page.

Police found Oddo at a Mount Pleasant motel on June 2 and charged him with murder and evidence tampering. After his arrest, Oddo allegedly admitted to killing Wardell during a heated argument on May 6, claiming that she came at him with a knife, per the affidavit.

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A full week after the shooting on May 13, security footage captured Oddo purchasing cleaning supplies. Beforehand, according to the document, he stayed with Wardell’s corpse “for a full three days.”

Oddo fled the apartment soon after a neighbor called police complaining of the foul smell on May `19. 

As of this week, according to an online jail roster, Oddo remains in custody on $160,000 bond. Wardell’s official cause of death has yet to be released pending a full toxicology report from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner.