Community activists still want search for student's remains

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

(3/27/07 - HOUSTON) -- Even though investigators say Tynesha Stewart's ex-boyfriend burned her remains after killing her, some community activists still want the Sheriff's Department to look for her body in a landfill.

"Without a thorough search of the landfill... we don't know if they (the sheriff's office) can make the case," Robert Muhammad of the Nation of Islam said Tuesday at a news conference.

Stewart's ex, Timothy Shepherd, was charged with murder last week after telling authorities he strangled and dismembered Stewart, a Texas A&M University freshman who was home for spring break. She was last seen March 15 and reported missing four days later.

Shepherd, who said he was angry that Stewart had started a new relationship, is being held on $250,000 bond in the Harris County Jail.

Officials first thought Shepherd, 27, had disposed of the 19-year-old's body in a large commercial trash bin that had since been emptied, launching a heated debate over whether the Harris County Sheriff's Office should conduct a massive and expensive search of area landfills for Stewart's remains.

But over the weekend, Sheriff Tommy Thomas said investigators determined that Shepherd burned Stewart's remains on a patio grill.

"There are no remaining body parts," Thomas said.

Although human remains generally require extremely high temperatures to destroy, Thomas would not discuss how he believed the body could be burned to nothing.

The Sheriff's Department had no response to the persisting calls to go forth with a search, spokesman Lt. John Martin said Tuesday. "Nothing the sheriff said has changed."

Stewart's family initially pushed for the search but has since retreated from that position as the investigation unearthed more details about the killing.

Chip Lewis, Shepherd's attorney, said investigators told him Shepherd's life would be in danger if he were released. As a result, Lewis did not seek a bond reduction at a court hearing Monday.

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