Vancouver police received a suspicious call from a local resident reporting “two life-sized mannequins” abandoned in a rural area. Police later confirmed they were actually the bodies of a mother and her 7-year-old daughter. After months of an agonizing investigation, the family knows who was behind the crime.
In March 2023, Vancouver police officers said they discovered the bodies of 27-year-old Meshay Melendez and 7-year-old Layla Stewart.
About ten days before Melendez was found dead, a friend saw her “passed out” in the passenger seat of 28-year-old Kirkland Warren’s car, per KOIN-TV. He then took Layla from the friend’s home and drove off.
The report says when Melendez was found, police said she had a gunshot wound to her left temple. When Layla was found, investigators said she had two gunshot wounds to the head and was undressed from the waist down. Samples taken from her body were linked to Warren and led police to believe she was sexually assaulted before she died, per KOIN’s report.
Warren was charged with second-degree murder, first-degree aggravated murder as well as first-degree child molestation.
However, this wasn’t Warren’s first encounter with the law. Prior to the killing, Warren was arrested in connection to a homicide in Arkansas but released on bond, per The Columbian. Following that, KGW-TV reports he got into an argument with Melendez and shot at her balcony window. He then returned to assault Melendez, threatening her to drop the charges filed after she called the police. Melendez eventually recanted her statement about the shooting and he was released again from police custody, per The Columbian.
The reports say the court filed a no-contact order based on the suspicions of domestic abuse. However, Vancouver police still arrested Warren on a parole violation, witness tampering and violating the no-contact order.
Obviously, the court order wasn’t enough to keep Melendez and her daughter safe.
Warren pleaded guilty to the murder charges in Clark County Superior Court last month. He also entered an Alford plea to the child molestation charges. He will serve life in prison.