Dallas woman stabbed in the head, body stuffed in master bedroom freezer, affidavit says

DALLAS - Dallas police have released more details about the shocking murder of a woman whose body was found frozen and stuffed in a freezer.

Kendrick Brown, 51, was arrested last week for 27-year-old Maria Murray’s death. A newly released arrest warrant affidavit indicates the two were in a romantic relationship plagued by violence.

Woman found in freezer of abandoned home

The backstory:

Murray’s body was found on May 10 inside the freezer of an abandoned home in the 1400 block of Georgia Avenue, which is in East Oak Cliff.

The house is located near the Illinois Avenue DART Station. Neighbors described it as a frequent site for drug activity with people coming and going all day and night.

Dig deeper:

According to court documents, several of those people reached out to detectives with tips.

The affidavit states that a neighbor called 911 on May 10 to report that a lot of people were leaving the vacant residence, saying there was a body in a freezer. The responding officers located the freezer and the body in a master bedroom.

The Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office took the working freezer with the corpse to its offices so the body could thaw out for an autopsy. The ME later determined that Murray died from multiple stab wounds, including a stab wound above her right eye that penetrated her brain.

The affidavit also mentions that detectives found blood on the carpet and walls in the master bedroom, plus a large military-style knife with a brown handle located behind the drywall down a hole in the living room wall. It had been wrapped in a cloth and towel.

Brown told police he didn’t know anything about the master bedroom and the freezer in that room. However, videos on his cellphone showed that he was in a relationship with the victim and had been in the room many times. There were also videos of Brown and Murray arguing, according to the affidavit.

Finally, a witness who was living in the house at the time told detectives, with help from an American Sign Language interpreter, that the two frequently had physical altercations and would threaten each other with knives.

Three days before Murray’s body was found, the witness said he "observed Murray lying on the floor of the closet just inside the master bedroom, at which point suspect Kendrick Brown saw him, yelled at him, and shut the bedroom door."

That witness said Brown never let him into the master bedroom where the freezer was located again, and he never saw Murray again after that incident.

What's next:

Brown is being held in the Dallas County jail on a murder charge. His bond was set at $250,000.

East Oak CliffDallasCrime and Public Safety