A Vancouver man is in police custody and considered a person of interest in the disappearance of Meshay Melendez and her 7-year-old daughter.
Vancouver police believe Kirkland Warren, 28, was the last person who was with Melendez, 27, and her daughter, Layla Stewart, before they vanished. The mother and daughter have been missing since March 12.
Police on Sunday arrested Warren, who has been described in previous court documents as Melendez’s boyfriend. He is facing charges of tampering with a witness, violating domestic-violence no-contact orders and unlawfully possessing a firearm. Warren was arraigned in Clark County Superior Court on Tuesday.
The Vancouver Police Department is asking anyone with home-surveillance cameras to check their footage in case they captured between March 11 and March 18 images of cars possibly connected to Melendez and her daughter’s disappearance. Police have not specified a specific area or neighborhoods from which they’re seeking footage.
Investigators are looking for a 2021 maroon Dodge Charger with Oregon license plate 812 MWM, a 1999 white Chevrolet Lumina with Washington license plate 3A68206 and a 2011 white Chrysler 200 with a Washington license plate.
Police have also not said why they’re looking for those particular cars.
Court documents show that Warren was arrested in December and accused of shooting at Melendez’s apartment in Vancouver’s Minnehaha neighborhood. 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. He pleaded not guilty.
Warren was also ordered not to have contact with Melendez, according to a probable-cause affidavit. He was released from jail March 3 after posting bail.
Warren appeared in court again on March 6 — about a week before Melendez was last seen — because he violated the domestic-violence protection order by calling Melendez twice while he was in Clark County Jail.
It’s unclear if Warren was required to wear a post-supervision electronic monitoring device after that hearing.
Julie Ballou, a sergeant who works in the Vancouver Police Department’s missing persons unit, said in an email to The Oregonian/OregonLive on Monday that investigators believed Melendez’ disappearance has a “criminal nexus.”
“It doesn’t appear Meshay and Layla just left on their own or are choosing to be away,” Ballou said. “Often people leave on their own and that doesn’t seem to be what’s happened here.”
The mother and daughter were last seen in the 7700 block of Vancouver Mall Drive, police said. A car police believe belonged to Melendez was found nearby a week later, on March 19. They were reported missing by Melendez’s mother when she learned that friends of her daughter and granddaughter hadn’t seen them for a week.
— Savannah Eadens; seadens@oregonian.com; 503-221-6651; @savannaheadens
