A loyal labradoodle helped solve the murder of his owner after he refused to leave the side of his burned corpse.
Derek Joseph Daigneault, 29, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for murdering his cousin Mandy Rose Reynolds, 26.
Prosecutors say he had been living in his apartment in San Marcos, Texas, for about a month while on felony probation with an arrest warrant when he was shot in the head on April 4, 2023. according to KWTX.
He then put her body in a blue container, drove to the town of Robinson, just south of Waco, and set the container on fire.
But he left his dog, Titan, at the crime scene.
Derek Joseph Daigneault, 29, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday for murdering his cousin Mandy Rose Reynolds, 26.
He had been with Reynolds for about a month before killing her.
When police finally responded to the scene of a wildfire on April 5, they found a body burned beyond recognition.
They also found a white dog that was barking at officers and refused to allow officers to capture it, according to a McLennan County District Attorney’s Office news release.
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 the dog was microchipped and belonged to Reynolds.
From there, officers decided to search Reynolds’ apartment, where they noticed that all of his belongings had been removed and his Honda Accord was missing. WKRC Reports.
A later investigation showed Daigneault leaving a Walmart in Reynolds’ car, with his dog sticking his head out the car window.
Officers eventually tracked his car to Wichita, Kansas, where local police spotted the Accord on April 8 and attempted to pull it over. according to Fox 4 KC.
Daigneault, who was found driving the vehicle, then led police on a high-speed chase, traveling more than 100 mph in the chase that lasted nearly half an hour.
At one point, he hit a police cruiser and collided with another car.
Daigneault then fled the crash and ran into a busy grocery store, causing shoppers to run to their cars as police stormed the store in pursuit.
He was then found 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 his dog, Titan, with helping solve his 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,” said the McLennnan County District Attorney’s Office.
“That combination has brought justice to Mandy and safety from a violent and dangerous criminal.”
Daignault was finally sentenced Thursday, in a court hearing marked by drama when he yelled at the victim’s brother and was escorted away, and a fight broke out between members of Daignault’s family and Reynold’s family.
Jurors deliberated for about 40 minutes before agreeing to put him behind bars for life, KWTX reports.
“As I told the jury, if they didn’t know anything 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 she was a piece of “That’s all they knew about him, that would have been enough to justify a life sentence,” McLennan County Assistant District Attorney Ryan Calvert said after the trial.
“But once we got to the punishment phase, the jury learned that he had been in trouble all his life, that he was a multiple convicted felon, that he had been to prison in Kansas before for violent crimes, they even found out that He had shot another individual as a minor.
He is simply an extremely violent individual and cannot be trusted with the safety of this or any other community.
“So we felt that life was the only fair verdict.”
