The body of Heather Schwab had been in Chad Stevens refrigerator for over a year before it was discovered by police, according to an arrest warrant.
Police in Texas discovered the body of a missing woman in a refrigerator that had been covered in plastic wrap and hidden away in a walled-off kitchen.
The McKinney Police Department opened an investigation into the whereabouts of Heather Schwab, 35, after her mother reported her missing in June of this year.
Tammra Schwab said that while the two did not have a close relationship, a neighbor who lived near the home Heather shared with her boyfriend, Chad Stevens, would provide her with periodical updates about her daughter, according to an arrest warrant obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
The warrant says that this neighbor had recently told Tammra that they had not seen Heather for several months, which made Tammra think that Chad may have done something to her daughter.
"Tammra stated that on multiple occasions in the past, Heather had stated to her that Chad would kill her and hide the body somewhere," according to the warrant.
The relationship between Chad and Heather was also "full of abuse" but Heather would not leave, said Tammra, according to the warrant.
Police launched an investigation but found no leads, and Chad said that Heather had left him a year prior, and he had not seen or heard from her since, according to the warrant.
Tammra did her own detective work in the interim and in early November provided police with a possible lead.
According to the warrant, Chad's ex-wife told Tammra that Chad said he "killed Heather and buried her body in his backyard."
Police then reached out to the ex-wife, who said that she learned the information from her and Chad's daughter, according to the warrant.
A detective then drove to meet Chad's ex-wife and daughter in Oklahoma the following day, according to the warrant, at which time the daughter explained how she came to learn this information.
The daughter said she called Chad to inform him she was pregnant, and that he "threatened to kill the baby if she did not have an abortion and even threatened to kill her," according to the warrant.
His daughter told the detective that she then told her father he should be careful about making threats like that since his girlfriend had been missing, to which her father then responded by asking "how she knew about his backyard and a bunch of other random things Briana had not brought up," according to the warrant.
The detective then spoke with another ex of Chad's, who accused him of assault, thus allowing police to obtain both an arrest and search warrant for his house, according to the warrant.
Once Chad was in custody, police began to search the house.
That is when they discovered "a refrigerator which was wrapped in copious amounts of plastic wrap in the kitchen of the residence," according to the warrant.
The warrant also alleges that "the sole entrance to the kitchen had been suspiciously closed and concealed from the rest of the residence with a piece of sheet rock."
When police looked inside the refrigerator they discovered a body that was later determined to be that of Heather Schwab, according to the warrant.
Chad admitted to hiding the body when confronted with the evidence and claimed that Heather had died in July 2022 while at his house and he did not know what to do, according to the warrant.
He told police that Heather died three days after hitting her head in the shower, according to the warrant.
Police now believe Heather may have died in August however, based on a call to 911 that month involving Chad and Heather, according to the warrant.
Chad is currently charged with tampering with evidence with intent to impair human corpse, as well as the count of assault causing physical harm, which allowed police to make the arrest.
He has yet to enter a plea in either case and more charges could come down after the medical examiner completes Heather's autopsy, according to police.
Chad's lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
