A man from Washington will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing his ex-girlfriend and sexually assaulting her 7-year-old daughter before killing her too. He then dumped their bodies down a slope off of a rural road just days after being released on bond on domestic violence charges and told not to contact his ex.
He found out on Tuesday that his ex-girlfriend Meshay Melendez, 27, and her daughter Layla Stewart had died. Kirkland Warren, 29, lost his life. He said he was guilty of one count of first-degree severe murder and one count of second-degree murder in September. What The Columbian reported is that Warren also entered an Alford plea, which means he admitted guilt to a charge but maintained his innocence. He did this to first-degree child molestation in the sexual attack of Layla.
Nicholle Norris, Melendez’s mother, told the court about the death in a statement to the Columbian.
She wrote, “The day I lost them, I lost a part of myself.” “Something inside me died when my girls did.” I’m not a girl mom anymore. “I’m no longer a grandmother.”
Portland, Oregon’s Fox station KPTV said that Clark County Superior Court Judge David Gregerson put the defendant in his place.
“The horrible way this defendant disposed of Meshay and Layla’s bodies completely rules out the possibility that this was an accident or could have been worse in any way,” he said.
Law&Crime said that the investigation started when Vancouver police went to the Springfield Meadows apartments in the 4300 block of NE 66th Avenue on March 18, 2023, to check on Melendez and Layla’s welfare. The agency said this in a news release.
Melendez’s family said they hadn’t heard from her since March 11. A friend said the mother and daughter hadn’t been home in a few days and their dog was barking inside the apartment.
The police found the dog in the apartment, but neither the mother nor the girl.
Investigators found out that on March 11, Melendez, Layla, and Warren had stayed at the house of a friend. Melendez and Warren went outside, but Layla stayed there. Authorities say that when Warren came back around 8 a.m., the friend saw Melendez “passed out” in the passenger seat of his car.
Police say Warren went into the house, got Layla, put her in the car, and drove off.
Melendez’s mother found her daughter’s car on March 19. It was taken away by police, who then arrested Warren on charges of tampering with a witness, assault, drive-by shot, and violating a domestic violence order that said he couldn’t talk to Melendez.
When the Dodge Charger that Melendez and Layla were last seen leaving with Warren was searched, blood was found in both the front and back seats. Police said in another news release that they found 22 caliber shell casings, children’s clothes that matched what Layla was wearing on March 12, and Melendez’s ID in a purse.
Later, on March 22, someone walking by in Washougal, a small city on the border with Oregon, saw what looked like two “life-sized mannequins” falling off a road and down a steep slope into thick brush. When deputies arrived, they found the bodies. They got hit in the head.
The Columbian reported that Layla had been found naked below the waist based on court records that came out in October. The newspaper said that DNA samples taken from her matched Warren’s DNA.
Based on evidence from prosecutors, text messages between Warren and a woman on March 13 and March 15 showed that he asked her about safe places to hide a gun and questioned her about them.
It was said that on March 18, Warren texted the friend, “I need to get rid of this stolo,” about having to get rid of Melendez’s car.
Investigators also said he used Melendez’s phone to move $4,200 from her account to his own.
The newspaper said that when police checked Warren’s phone, they found Google searches for “how to get blood out of a car seat,” “how to beat murder,” and “killing the only witness.”
Warren was out on bond at the time of the killings because he was charged with first-degree murder in the 2017 death of a man in Arkansas. Another person was shot in the head, and their body was found in a ditch.
He was caught in Washington, D.C., in December 2022 for assaulting Melendez and firing a gun into her apartment. He posted bail on the charges against him. He had been told he couldn’t talk to her.
The Associated Press said that he was let go from jail four days before Melendez and her daughter went missing.
He has agreed to plead guilty to killing Curtis Urquhart in the Arkansas case. According to The Columbian, officials said that his sentence in that case will run at the same time as his sentence in Washington for killing Melendez and Layla.