In phone calls made from Clark County Jail earlier this month, the boyfriend of Meshay Melendez repeatedly blamed her for the domestic violence charges against him and insisted she needed to “figure out” how to get them dropped, court records say.
Police believe two bodies found Wednesday off a rural roadside embankment in Washougal are those of Melendez and her 7-year-old daughter, Layla Stewart. They had been missing since March 12.
Authorities have not said whether Melendez’s boyfriend, 27-year-old Kirklan C. Warren, will face charges in the deaths. Police earlier named Warren, who was released from jail March 8, as a person of interest in the disappearances and said he is believed to be the last person who was in contact with Melendez and her daughter.
The discovery of the bodies has turned the missing persons case into a homicide investigation led by Vancouver police.
A medical examiner must make a positive identification of the bodies, expected to come early next week, authorities said.
A Clark County Superior Court judge on Tuesday set Warren’s bail at $1 million on a series of charges against him; he’s scheduled to appear in court again April 21.
Court records reveal that police considered Warren to be a dangerous threat to Melendez.
He had been arrested March 2 after being accused of shooting at Melendez’s apartment in Vancouver’s Minnehaha neighborhood in December. He was charged with drive-by shooting, second-degree assault with a deadly weapon, gross misdemeanor harassment with bodily injury and two counts of fourth-degree assault.
At a court hearing the next day, he was ordered not to have contact with Melendez. Warren pleaded not guilty, posted the $10,000 bail and was released from jail March 8 without an ankle monitor, though state prosecutors requested one.
While in custody, he called Melendez from a jail phone, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Investigators didn’t appear to check the jail calls until after Melendez disappeared.
Vancouver police say Meshay Melendez, 27, and her daughter Layla Stewart, 7, have been missing since March 12.
“I became concerned by the nature of the defendant’s conversations with the victim … (Warren) continuously blames (Melendez) for his incarceration, and suggests she isn’t working hard enough in contacting lawyers, prosecutors and defense attorneys,” a Vancouver police sergeant wrote in a probable cause affidavit.
In the phone calls, Melendez said, “Just tell me what to do,” according to the affidavit. Warren responded: “Brah, I don’t know, it’s all on you. Are you going to get this (expletive) dropped?”
Warren chastised Melendez for showing police screenshots of threatening text messages he sent her before allegedly shooting at her apartment building, according to the affidavit.
“So my life is over,” Warren said in one of the calls, according to the affidavit. “There is no way I’m going back to Arkansas.” Warren faces a first-degree murder charge in Arkansas in the homicide of 57-year-old Curtis Urquhart, who was shot in the head and found in a ditch on Dec. 11, 2017.
On March 18, 10 days after Warren’s release from jail, Melendez’s mother reported her missing.
When a friend of Melendez’s learned she was missing, she called 911 to report that Melendez, her daughter and Warren visited her home in the 7800 block of Northeast Loowit Loop on Saturday night, March 11. Warren left the friend’s home – which is about a half-mile from Melendez’ apartment – at some point in the night, the affidavit said.
About 5 a.m. March 12, Melendez left the home and told her friend she was “going out to make some money,” according to the affidavit.
At 8 a.m., Warren returned to the home in his car, a Dodge Charger, “blasting music,” the friend told police. When the friend yelled at him to turn the music down, she saw Melendez “passed out” in the passenger seat, unclothed from the waist down.
Warren came inside to get Melendez’ daughter, Layla, put her in the sedan and left, the friend said.
On March 17, an Arkansas judge revoked Warren’s bond, issuing a fugitive warrant for his arrest in the 2017 murder case.
This past weekend, Melendez’ mother filed a missing person’s report when she realized no one had heard from or seen her daughter or granddaughter in a week. She found Melendez’s car on Sunday near the friend’s house on Loowit Loop; police seized it for evidence.
Later Sunday, around noon, investigators served a search warrant at the apartment where Warren lived with his wife in the 3700 block of Northeast 109th Avenue. He was taken into custody “without incident,” police said.
Warren was charged with tampering with a witness and violating the no-contact order based on calls he had made to Melendez from jail earlier in the month.
Police said they also seized his car, found a gun and took a DNA sample. They found two phones in Warren’s possession. One of them belonged to Melendez, according to the affidavit.
By 11 p.m. Sunday, Vancouver police put out a public request for help in the search for Melendez and her daughter.
A memorial of flowers, balloons and candles appeared the day after two bodies matching the descriptions of missing Vancouver mother Meshay Melendez, 27, and her 7-year-old daughter Layla Stewart, were found down a steep embankment along a rural Washougal road.
On Wednesday, somebody walking down Southeast Woodings Road, a private dead-end residential lane in Washougal, called police when they saw what looked like “two life-sized mannequins” in brush down a steep slope next to the rushing Gibbons Creek.
By Thursday, a memorial of flowers, colorful balloons and candles dotted the road, dampened by the rain.
– Savannah Eadens; seadens@oregonian.com; 503-221-6651; @savannaheadens
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