Bastrop, Tx–An 18-year-old from Smithville and his 14-year-old McDade girlfriend were charged Monday with the murder, possibly on Aug. 14, of the juvenile’s 42-year-old mother at their McDade home.
Joseph Dwayne Douglas is being held in the Bastrop County Jail under $500,000 bail, said Bastrop County Sheriff Terry Pickering at a news briefing Tuesday afternoon. Following a detention hearing Monday, the 14-year-old was sent to a juvenile detention facility in Seguin, authorities said.
The case unfolded beginning Friday after a sister called the sheriff’s department to report that Tracy Lynn Bellard had gone missing because she failed to show up for work that day at the family restaurant, Mimi G’s, on FM 1441 north of Bastrop. Evidently Bellard’s vehicle was also missing.
The investigation moved quickly, according to court records and law enforcement reports, after Bastrop County patrol deputies located Bellard’s vehicle late Sunday or early Monday on the property on Lakeview Drive near Smithville where Douglas lived with his grandparents. Investigators said Douglas and the 14-year-old were also at the property, and both were taken for questioning about the disappearance of Bellard.
Douglas declined to talk to investigators and asked for an attorney, said officials. But Bellard’s daughter told investigators she had seen Douglas shoot and kill her mother Friday at the McDade residence, according to court records.
A 13-year-old brother of Douglas also told investigators he had brought a 22-caliber rifle to McDade and witnessed the shooting of Bellard, court documents assert.
Pickering said investigators executed a search warrant at the Lakeview Drive property Monday evening and about 9 p.m. located “charred human remains” on the five-acre site. The remains were near what the sheriff described as “a burnt brush pile.”
The sheriff said investigators believe the remains are likely those of Bellard, but positive identification is pending further examination by the Travis County Medical Examinr’s office in Austin. Results could take “weeks–or months,” said Pickering.