She left a bar with an accused stalker. Hours later, police found her burned body in a park.
The night of Sept. 13, Jacqueline Vandagriff wrote on Twitter that she was at a bar near her place in Denton, Tex.
“I’m glad I decided to get off Tinder and (walk) to a bar,” she tweeted at 9:44 p.m.
Around that time, Vandagriff and a man were seen on a surveillance camera leaving Shots and Crafts in Denton’s Fry Street bar district.
That was the last time the 24-year-old Texas Women’s University student was seen alive.
She was found the following morning off of a trail in a park in Grapevine, Tex., several miles away. Her body had been dismembered and burned, according to an arrest affidavit.
Earlier that morning, a witness saw a man standing near the fire and driving away in a light-colored SUV, the affidavit said.
The man Vandagriff was with the night before, 30-year-old Charles Dean Bryant — who is also accused of repeatedly stalking and harassing an ex-girlfriend — is now facing a capital murder charge. It’s unclear whether the two had known each other before or whether they met at the bar that night.
Bryant initially denied going home with Vandagriff, according to the affidavit. But cellphone data showed that several hours after they were seen leaving the bar together, Vandagriff’s phone was in the area where Bryant lives, about 25 miles away in Haslet, Tex.
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Police also found Vandagriff’s purse in a trash can in Bryant’s home, and a blue plastic kiddie pool similar to the one in which the woman’s body was wrapped, the affidavit said. Bryant’s roommate later told police that there used to be two kiddie pools in their back yard, where detectives also noticed that someone had started digging a hole.
Surveillance video at a nearby Walmart store shows Bryant buying a shovel several hours after he was seen with Vandagriff.
In the weeks before Vandagriff’s death and even a few days after, Bryant repeatedly stalked and harassed a student at the University of North Texas in Denton — an ex-girlfriend who broke up with him almost a month ago.
A campus police officer first received a complaint from the young woman Aug. 24. She told police that Bryant had been sending her text messages, and she was concerned that he was angry about the breakup, according to an arrest affidavit.
A few days later, Bryant showed up at his ex-girlfriend’s place of work to give her a letter. The following week, the woman called police again, saying she was in fear for her safety because Bryant was outside her dorm, the affidavit said. Bryant told police that he wanted to bring the woman some flowers.
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Bryant was later charged with criminal trespassing and stalking. A judge also had issued a protective order against him.
But on Saturday — three days after Vandagriff was killed — Bryant contacted his ex-girlfriend again. He’d sent her five emails telling her that he missed her and asking her to drop the charges, the affidavit said.
Bryant was arrested the following day. He’s being held on a $1 million bond. It’s unclear whether he has an attorney.
A friend of Vandagriff’s recently started a GoFundMe account to help pay for funeral costs. More than $3,000 has been raised so far.
Jackie Ton wrote that Vandagriff was a nutrition major at Texas Women’s University in Denton and studied cosmetology at Paul Mitchell Schools.
“Her spirit was one of a kind. One that will be remembered forever,” Ton wrote. “That little strawberry red head girl will always be in our hearts.”
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The investigation of her killing is continuing.
A spokesman for the Grapevine Police Department said detectives are investigating a tweet that was sent from Vandagriff’s Twitter account at 11:22 p.m. last Thursday — the day after her body was found.
The tweet reads: “Never knew I could feel like this.”
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