The Texas teenager was arrested in Nebraska following a high-speed police chase and his mother's strangled and bludgeoned body was found in the trunk, authorities said.
A Texas teen charged with killing his mother told investigators he "felt no emotion" about her body being discovered in the trunk of a car he crashed during a high-speed chase with Nebraska State Patrol troopers, according to court documents.
Tyler Roenz, 17, was out on bond in an unrelated case — in which he was charged earlier this year with attempted sexual assault — when he killed his mother, Michelle Roenz, said an arrest affidavit filed last Friday in Harris County District Court in Texas that was obtained by Inside Edition Digital.
The teen has been charged with murder, unauthorized use of a vehicle and tampering with a corpse, authorities said. His mother, Michelle Roenz. 49, died from blunt force trauma and strangulation, an autopsy in Nebraska concluded, according to the court document.
He was injured in the car crash that occurred on Oct. 14 and hospitalized, Nebraska police said. He was released last week and is currently being held in Hall County pending an extradition hearing scheduled for Friday, authorities said
In a motion filed separately last Friday by Harris County prosecutors seeking $750,000 bail for Roenz when he is remanded to Texas, the teen was declared a "clear danger to the safety of his family and community." He was also a flight risk, prosecutors said.
Roenz "brutally murdered his own mother and then absconded from Harris County with his mother's body in the car until he was apprehended after a police chase in Nebraska and while on bond for attempted sexual assault," the motion said.
Roenz and his mother were reported missing on Oct. 13 by his father, who called police after returning home from work and finding one of the family's cars missing and blood and human teeth in the garage and in the home's master bedroom, authorities said.
Investigators tracked the woman's credit card and discovered it had been used in Dallas, Oklahoma and Kansas, authorities said. After tracing the car's movements to Nebraska, state officials there were notified by Harris County authorities to stop Roenz's car.
The black Mazda was spotted on an interstate and Nebraska State Patrol troopers said they chased the vehicle at speeds surpassing 100 mph until it crashed into a tree.
A Harris County Sheriff's homicide detective interviewed the teen, with his father's permission, in the 17-year-old's Nebraska hospital room, according to the arrest affidavit.
Roenz said he had not argued with his mother at the family home, where they were the only occupants, on the morning of Oct. 13, the document said. The son refused to discuss his mother's injuries, except to say that "he did not only use his hands," according to the affidavit.
The teen said his mother did not enter the car trunk "on her own," and that he had no destination in mind when he drove north, the document said.
Roenz told the homicide detective "that he felt no emotion," the affidavit said.
The teen does not have an attorney of record.
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