How a Family Dog Helped Solve His Beloved Owner's Murder

The 2023 murder of an Idaho woman was solved with the help of an unlikely source: the victim’s dog.

Mandy Rose Reynolds, 26, was found burning and “dead beyond recognition” in April 2023 by authorities responding to a brush fire in Robinson, Texas, according to the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office. 

Her cousin, 29-year-old Derek Daigneault, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, Nov. 7, for her murder, the DA’s office said in a release last week. 

The investigation began on April 5, 2023, after police found Reynolds’ body, initially unrecognizable, burning in a field next to a white dog that “barked frantically at officers and refused to leave the area of the body, but also refused to allow police to capture it,” according to the DA’s press release. 

The next day, the dog was still at the location after the body had been removed, when a citizen notified animal control who tracked the dog’s owner through a chip on him. Police were then tipped off that the corpse likely belonged to Reynolds and learned the dog’s name is Titan.

This information led police to Reynolds’ residence, where they found all her belongings missing and her home completely empty, the DA’s office said. The victim’s car was also missing, prompting police to run her vehicle information on a license plate database. They determined that the car was in Wichita, Kan. 

Wichita police, upon being notified about the vehicle, spotted Reynolds’ car on April 8, 2023, and encountered Daigneault, per the DA’s office. He fled the scene on foot and hid on a shelf in a grocery store where he was caught, police said.

Investigators discovered a handgun inside the car which matched the shell casing found inside the container where police say Reynolds’ body was burned. 

Meanwhile, Walmart security footage obtained by police in San Marcos, Texas, showed the killer buying a plastic storage container — “identical” to the one Reynolds was later found in, a shovel and a gas can the day before Reynolds’ body was found. The footage also captured Titan with his head sticking out Reynolds’ car window, police say. 

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In a GoFundMe set up after her murder, Reynolds’ mother said the victim had moved from Idaho to San Marcos and was thinking about starting college before the murder. Daigneault reached out to Reynolds, her mother says, under “false pretenses.” 

This “resulted in Mandy traveling to Kansas to bring Derek to Texas for a brief visit,” her mother, Karleen Hardy, wrote in the fundraiser. 

Further details surrounding the circumstances of the murder, such as motive, were not revealed.