A loyal labradoodle helped solve his owners murder, after he refused to leave the side of her burnt corpse.
Derek Joseph Daigneault, 29, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for murdering his cousin Mandy Rose Reynolds, 26.
Prosecutors say he had been living at her apartment in San Marcos, Texas for about a month while he was on felony probation with a warrant out for his arrest when he shot her in the head on April 4, 2023, according to KWTX.
He then stuffed her body in a blue storage container, drove to the town of Robinson, just south of Waco, and set the container on fire.
But he left her dog, Titan, at the scene of the crime.
Derek Joseph Daigneault, 29, was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for murdering his cousin Mandy Rose Reynolds, 26
He had been staying with Reynolds for about a month before he killed her
When police eventually responded to the scene of a brush fire on April 5, they found a body that was burned beyond recognition.
They also found a white dog that was barking at officers and refused to allow cops to capture it, according to a news release from the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office.
The dog was still at the spot where the burning body was found the next day, and a resident called animal control officers – who discovered that the dog was microchipped and belonged to Reynolds.
From there, officers decided to search Reynolds’ apartment, where they noticed that all of her belongings had been removed and her Honda Accord was missing, WKRC reports.
An ensuing investigation showed Daigneault leaving a Walmart in Reynolds’ car, with her dog sticking his head out the car’s window.
Officers eventually tracked her car to Wichita, Kansas, where local police spotted the Accord on April 8 and tried to pull it over, according to Fox 4 KC.
Daigneault, who was found driving the vehicle, then led cops on a highspeed chase, traveling over 100mph in the chase that lasted nearly half a hour.
At one point, he swiped a police cruiser and slammed into another car.
Daigneault then fled the wreck and ran into a busy grocery store, sending shoppers scrambling for their cars as police flooded into the store in pursuit.
They then found him hiding behind a shelf of canned goods, and a search of the vehicle uncovered his grandmother’s .380 pistol that was used in the shooting.
McLennan County prosecutors credit her dog, Titan, with helping to solve her murder
‘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,’ the McLennnan County District Attorney’s Office said.
‘That combination has delivered justice for Mandy and safety from a violent and dangerous criminal.’
Daignault was ultimately sentenced on Thursday, in a court hearing marked by drama as he yelled at the victim’s brother and was escorted out, and a fight broke out between members of Daignault’s family and Reynold’s family.
Jurors had deliberated for just about 40 minutes before agreeing to put him behind bars for life, KWTX reports.
‘Like I told the jury, if they knew nothing else about Derek Daigneault other than what he did to Mandy Rose Reynolds – shooting her in the head, driving her body here to McLennan County and setting her on fire like a piece of trash – if that’s all they knew about him, that would have been enough to justify a life sentence,’ Ryan Calvert, a McLennan County assistant district attorney, said after the trial.
‘But once we got into the punishment phase, the jury learned he had been in trouble his whole life, he was a multiple-time convicted felon, he had been in prison in Kansas before for violent offensses, they even learned he had shot another individual as a juvenile.
‘He is just an extremely violent individual, and he cannot be trusted with the safety of this or any other community.
‘So life, we felt, was the only just verdict.’
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