Recent federal case documents reveal that the remains of a McKinney woman were found stashed inside her boyfriend's refrigerator several months after she was reported missing.
Chad Christopher Stevens, 42, is charged with tampering with evidence with the intent to impair a human corpse in connection with the death of 35-year-old Heather Louise Schwab.
McKinney Police discovered the woman's body Sunday morning while executing a search warrant at a home in the 600 block of Pearson Avenue.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Tammra Schwab, Heather's mother, went to the McKinney Police Department on Wednesday, June 28, to file a missing person report for her daughter. Schwab told authorities that she unfortunately did not have a close relationship with Heather, and it had been over a year since they last spoke to each other. The mother also told authorities that Heather was known to be living with her long-time boyfriend, Stevens.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
In the federal complaint, Tammra told police that Heather and Chad's relationship was full of abuse, but Heather would not leave him. Heather's mom stated that on different occasions in the past, her daughter told her that Stevens would kill her and hide her body somewhere.
Investigators said that one of Heather's neighbors would periodically contact Tammra to update her about her daughter's well-being and to let her know that she was alive. The neighbor eventually told the mother that they had not seen Heather for several months, which prompted her to file the missing person's report.
In the probable cause statement made by Detective Monte Robertson and signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa Bronchetti, Heather Schwab was entered into NCIC/TCIC as a missing person. Robertson worked endlessly to track down any information about her whereabouts.
U.S. & World
The report said Robertson then interviewed Stevens, who told him he had not heard from or seen Schwab since she left him a year prior. Stevens also stated that he did not know where Heather was but would inform Robertson when he heard anything.
According to the affidavit, authorities did not have any leads in the missing person's case until Friday, Nov. 3, when Tammra contacted Detective Robertson and told him that Steven's ex-wife said to her that Chad killed her daughter and buried her in his backyard.
After reaching out to the ex-wife himself, Robertson stated in the report that the woman received the information from her daughter, who spoke with Chad the night before on Thursday, Nov. 2. In the documents, Detective Robertson stated he went to their home in Oklahoma on Saturday, Nov. 4, and learned that Chad "sarcastically" told his daughter that he killed Schwab and buried her body in his backyard.
During the investigation, a warrant for Stevens' arrest was secured after detectives spoke with his ex-girlfriend, who reported to them that Stevens assaulted her after she tried to leave him in January 2023. The information from that case led to authorities obtaining a search warrant for Stevens' home on Pearson Avenue.
On Sunday, Nov. 12, Stevens was arrested for assault causing bodily injury to a family member and taken to the McKinney Police Department's headquarters. McKinney Police officers and detectives executed the search warrant at Stevens's home, where they found a refrigerator wrapped in "copious" amounts of plastic wrap in the kitchen.
The affidavit said the sole entry of the kitchen had been suspiciously closed and concealed from the rest of the home with a piece of sheet rock. When investigators opened the refrigerator, they found a small-statured human body, later identified by the Collin County Medical Examiner's Office as Heather Schwab.
Stevens admitted to detectives that after Schwab died at his home on Tuesday, July 26, 2022, he hid her body in the refrigerator because he didn't know what to do, according to the report. The police department believes Schwab's death happened around the time of Aug. 12, 2022, when they received a call about a woman waving a firearm and a man screaming at Stevens' address.
Stevens is booked at the Collin County Detention Facility on his charges. His bond is set at $150,000. Officials did not say if Stevens received an attorney.
According to the Collin County Sheriff's Office, Stevens has been arrested 24 times in Collin County, including for theft, DWI, assault, and engaging in criminal activity.
Stevens was previously arrested in July 2020 for failure to appear, assault causing serious bodily injury, criminal mischief, and parole violation.
