Cops: Texas Man Killed, Cooked Girlfriend

A man arrested in the death of his 21-year-old girlfriend tried to cook parts of her body and may have eaten some of them before deputies arrived, authorities said Sunday.

Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, called 911 on Saturday and told an emergency dispatcher he had killed his girlfriend and was boiling parts of her, said Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith.

When authorities arrived at the home, they found Jana Shearer's mutilated body, one ear boiling in a pot of water on the stove and a fork sticking out of some human flesh sitting on a plate on the kitchen table.

Authorities believe Shearer was abducted from her home Friday night and killed. The assailant then stabbed the boyfriend of his estranged wife and broke into a business. The stabbing victim is in critical condition at an area hospital, officials said.

McCuin, of Tyler, was charged with capital murder in the killing, which was first reported in the Tyler Morning Telegraph. He was in solitary confinement in the Smith County Jail on a $2 million bond Sunday and did not have an attorney, officials said. He will be arraigned Monday, Smith said.

Before he called 911, McCuin told his mother and her boyfriend to look in their garage, authorities said. There the couple saw the remains of Shearer, McCuin's girlfriend. McCuin's mother and her boyfriend fled the home and flagged down a police officer. McCuin dialed authorities after they left.

Authorities say it is unclear whether McCuin consumed any part of Shearer's body.

"We cannot prove that he did," Smith told The Associated Press. "He was either going to, had been or led us to think that he was doing it."

A man who answered the door Sunday night where the body was found declined to talk. Nobody answered a knock at the door of the home of the victim.

Shearer appeared to die from blunt trauma to her head, Smith said. She may have been kidnapped Friday night, when her mother witnessed her get into McCuin's truck.

"There was no struggle but she could see the girl left with no shoes, no purse and no cell phone," Smith said.

Smith said McCuin then drove to his estranged wife's home, where he stabbed William Veasley, 42. Veasley remains in intensive care at a Tyler hospital.

McCuin was still in that home when deputies arrived, but he jumped into his car and escaped after a short chase, Smith said.

"We did not know at the time that he had murdered anyone," Smith said. "We thought it was a disturbance or an assault."

McCuin wasn't seen again until Saturday morning, when he arrived at his mother's home and called her into the garage so she could "come see what he had done," Smith said.

When sheriff deputies arrived, McCuin barricaded himself in the home for a short time before coming out. After he emerged, a tactical team entered and found Shearer's body, Sgt. Gary Middleton said.

After McCuin was arrested and placed in the back of a patrol car, he kicked out the vehicle's side window before being put in additional restraints, Middleton said.

Detectives were trying to determine where the murder happened. They think McCuin drove to his mother's home with the dead woman in the back seat of his extended-cab pickup, Smith said.

McCuin has a criminal record that includes driving while intoxicated and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charges, according to court records. When he was arrested, McCuin had an outstanding felony retaliation warrant.

Smith said McCuin was known to authorities and had "a history of violence," including assaulting his estranged wife, his girlfriend and his sister.

Neighbors in Tyler, about 110 miles east of Dallas, said they believed McCuin was on drugs and had acted strangely. Freddy Castillo, who lives two houses down, said he would frequently hear McCuin and his girlfriend argue in the house and the yard.

"They would get pretty loud," Castillo said. "They'd yell back and forth and then he would just get in his car and leave."