Texas Man Showed Off 24-Year-Old Wife's Corpse In Freezer Then Shot Himself, Authorities Say

A Texas man allegedly killed his 24-year-old wife, then stored the body in a freezer for eight days before killing himself.

Police discovered Edward Rogers Jr., 66, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his bedroom early on Monday. The body of his wife, Alyssa Marie Mejia Rogers, had been stuffed into a freezer, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Authorities believe the 24-year-old native of the Philippines — who met Rogers online — had been left in the freezer for days.

Rogers’ friend and former coworker later told police that Rogers confessed that he had killed his wife last week while sitting outside his home. When the friend expressed disbelief, Rogers led him inside to a freezer in his garage and showed him the body, authorities said.

The man later told police Rogers “grabbed the buttocks of the deceased person, smirked and stated that it was cold,” according to an affidavit obtained by the local paper.

Edward Rogers Jr. Photo: Tarrant County Sheriff's Department

An autopsy is being conducted to confirm the cause of death for Alyssa, but investigators are treating it as a murder-suicide investigation. Edward had reportedly told his friend that she died after he pushed her and she fell and hit her head on the corner of an object during an argument, the affidavit said.

The couple had reportedly been going through a heated divorce at the time of her death, ending a marriage marked by violence.

Edward was accused of choking his wife on two occasions — Oct. 11, 2018, and Jan. 14 — and was charged with two counts of family-violence assault, one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of interfering with an emergency call. Alyssa filed a protective order against him after the arrests.

He pleaded guilty in June to all the charges, and was scheduled to be sentenced later this month.

Edward’s former mother-in-law, Jackie Lee, 71, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that Edward was a “very angry and manipulative man."

“I want to say it wasn’t a surprise,” she said after hearing the news. “I was afraid that one day this was going to come to somebody was going to die.”

Her daughter, Jennifer Rogers, was married to Edward Rogers for about a decade before he married Alyssa. He was also abusive to her, Jackie Lee said. 

Lee said she and her family witnessed Edward beating Alyssa and throwing her across the room during their two-year-marriage. She told the paper that police had responded to domestic abuse calls at the home at least six times.

Edward also pleaded guilty to manslaughter in May 2006, after stabbing and killing Dwight Dorough at a pool party two years earlier over a work dispute. He received eight years of deferred-adjudication probation, and the case was later dismissed after he met all the conditions of probation.

Lee said that after Alyssa was killed, Edward kept her in the freezer for eight days. Before killing himself, he made a series of calls to his family members to tell them that he loved them.

Lee heard the news from Edward’s son in California, who had spoken to his father shortly before he died.

Lee is currently raising another son of Edward’s, who she has not yet told of his father's death.  

“He’ll carry this forever,” she said. “It makes me angry.”