April 18, 2025 • 37 mins
Join us as we discuss the murder of Mandy Reynolds and how her dog, Titan, helped investigators. We’ll discuss Mandy’s life, the time leading up to her murder, as well as the evidence that police used to catch her killer.
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- Vigil held for woman whose body was found in south Wichita, loved ones want answers | Crime | kake.com
- Wichita News Network
- Wichita News Network
- Affidavit for Derek Daigneault - Police Chase 4.8.23 - 2023-CR-0007 71.pdf
- Mandy Rose Reynolds (1996-2023) - Find a Grave Memorial
- Burning body found in Robinson identified
- Burning body found in Robinson identified
- Loyal dog helped solve owner’s grisly murder as cousin jailed for life – NBC Bay Area
- Body Cam footage/Call with "Mandy"
- Family Dog Named Titan Helped Solve Owner's Gruesome Murder - Newsweek
- KBI Profile
- Robinson Police Dept Fb Page
- Officers from...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hi. Welcome to True Creeps,where the stories are true and the
creeps are real.
We'll cover stories fromgrotesque gore to.
The possibly plausibleparanormal to horrifying history
to tense and terrible truecrime and.
Everything else that goes bumpin the night. We're your hosts, Amanda.
And I'm Lindsay, and we wantyou to join us.
While we creep, we covermature topics. Listener discretion
(00:25):
is advised. Hello, everyone.Today we are going to be talking
about the murder of a womannamed Mandy Rose Reynolds and how
her dog may have helped in theinvestigation. If you've listened
to us for a while, you knowthat we are animal people. So when
we heard about this case andthat a dog assisted in the investigation,
(00:48):
we really wanted to get moredetails. Now, of course, we're going
to talk about Mandy first. AndMandy was born on August 2nd of 1996.
She was only 26 years old whenshe was killed. Her mother, Carlene
Hardy, said that she was afriend to many. She had moved from
Idaho to San Marcos, Texas, tobe near her best friend. Mandy was
(01:11):
also very excited about herfuture, and she was considering college,
so she had a lot of plans. Herstepfather, Ron Hardy, said Mandy
was active and generous. Shewas always eager to help others,
and she was very outgoing.Also, she didn't really like staying
in one place for too long. Soshe was originally from Idaho, but
she had lived in Tennessee andLouisiana before she moved to Texas
(01:34):
a few months before her death.So she liked to do new things.
Yeah.
Another thing that I saw thatI just wanted to include is Ron was
doing an interview, and he wastalking about how much Mandy loved
her dog, Titan. And he said,quote, spoiled that dog bad. And
as he said it, he had this,like, giant smile, and he was kind
(01:55):
of chuckling.
Yeah.
So you knew, like, this girlwas about her dog.
Yeah. Her baby.
Right. Those two versus theworld. Yeah. I loved it. I loved
that her family couldrecognize how much she loved her.
Her puppy.
Yeah.
So her family just loved herso much. And honestly, she seemed
like such an amazing person.On her gravestone, it says, quote,
(02:16):
our Rosebud once lived onearth as a lovely free spirit. Today,
she dances with angels. That'svery sweet.
Sounds like she was justfantastic and a great dog mom. Because
all puppies should be spoiled.
Yes. Yes, they should.
So let's talk about whathappened to Mandy. On the night of
April 5, 2023, Robinson Policeresponded to a reported brush fire
(02:39):
that was near a subdivision onHeston Circle in Robinson, Texas,
which was just south of Waco.Amanda called it in and he told 911
that he wasn't sure if it wassomeone burning brush because they
had been building housesnearby or if the brush had been struck
by lightning. So when lawenforcement arrived around 10pm they
(03:01):
found that a body was on fire.The body was burned beyond recognition.
We watched police body camfootage, and the arriving officer
recognized what was happeningpretty quickly as he approached.
And he mentioned later that itkind of looked like logs were burning
until he got close andrealized it was a leg. So he called
it in and he put the fire outwith a fire extinguisher. When another
(03:25):
officer arrived, he said thatthe body was likely female because
he could see a bra strap. Now,while all this was happening, there
was also rain and hail.
I felt really bad for theseofficers for what they were seeing
here, because that's not whatthey were expecting. So while they
were out there, they also sawa white mini Labradoodle frantically
barking at the officers. Andthis whole case is just horrific
(03:49):
and sad. But this next partreally got me as I was watching the
body cam footage. It just hurtmy heart, the whole situation, and
just. You'll see why. So theofficers were extremely kind to the
dog, and they kept calling forhim to come, like, closer to them.
One officer in the footagecould be heard saying, you sure are
hanging around here. Is thatyour person over there?
(04:10):
You can tell that that personwas likely a dog parent.
Yes.
There's only one reason why adog would be doing this particular
type of action.
Yes. Ugh. My eyes werewatering the whole time watching
this.
Yeah.
It was just watching the dog'smannerisms that got me. But the same
officer was later talking toanother officer near the police car.
So not like at the scene, butkind of.
(04:30):
Mm.
Off of it. And he starts tosay, hey, the way that dog's hanging
around, it makes me think.Then he asked someone, hey, does
anyone have a chip checker?Can someone bring a chip checker?
Because, like, you know, thathe understood it too.
Yeah.
He also said, quote, is thedog trying to be protective or is
it trying to lead us overthere? Because it looks like she's
trying to lead us over there.So dog people doing good in this
(04:54):
world, right? Mm. So theytried to catch the dog, and they
were worried, too, that itmight walk through the crime scene.
So they're really, reallytrying to get it near them. The fire
at one point had also flaredup again. And you can hear one of
the officers radioing thathe's entering the scene again so
that he could put it Out.Unfortunately, they tried so much,
but they were unable to catchthe dog that night. I believe it
(05:16):
ran off at one point. Theywere able, you know, crime scene
cleanup, they. They took thebody but couldn't get the dog. The
police were able to determinethat the body was burned in a large
plastic storage container.They also found a shell casing that
was burned inside thecontainer. The following day, after
the body had been removed,someone in the area saw the dog sitting
(05:38):
in the field where it had beenthe night before. And that individual
contacted Robinson AnimalControl, and they were able to catch
him this time. Once they wereable to check the dog for a chip,
they found out that his namewas Titan and that he belonged to
Mandy Rose Reynolds.
So given the way the dog wasacting, police suspected that the
body was likely Mandy's. Butshe didn't live there. She lived
(06:00):
in San Marcos, Texas. And thatwas about 125 miles away, which ended
up being about two hours.We're going to bring up something
that's fucking wild that cameabout about this chip later in the
episode, too. So just tuckchip in your head. But the microchip
company sends out alerts viatexts and emails to owners when lost
dogs are found. And we alsobelieve that police called the number,
(06:23):
linked the tag, and left amessage. Authorities reached out
to San Marcos police, who thenwent to Mandy's apartment to look
for her. When they arrived onApril 7, they found her place to
be empty. Like, empty empty.All of her processions were no longer
there. Her car, a black HondaAccord, was also missing. Police
ended up running her vehiclethrough a license plate reader database
(06:45):
and saw that her car wassomewhere in Wichita, Kansas. So
they reached out to Wichitapolice to look for her car. So on
April 7th of 2023, San MarcosPolice found all of Mandy's belongings
in an abandoned truck severalmiles from her apartment. Then the
next day, on April 8, Wichitaofficers saw that car that we mentioned
(07:06):
earlier and attempted to pullit over, and it turned into a high
speed police chase. And whenwe say high speed, we mean it was
over 100 miles per hour. Itlasted about 30 minutes. And the
body camera footage is online,and it is stressful. The car ended
up crashing into anothervehicle, but during the chase, he
rammed into multiple policeunits. Everything else aside, that's
(07:28):
just dumb behavior.
It is like, what do youthink's gonna happen?
Yeah. Do you think you'regonna win? Do you think you're gonna
get away in the Honda? Yeah.
Come on.
Then after the crash, thedriver of Mandy's Car took off running.
He ran into a nearby grocerystore, Dylan's, and he hid on a bottom
shelf behind canned food. Now,I will say he clearly planned that.
(07:51):
That's not a spur of themoment hiding place. That's like
you thought about where youwould hide and that's a weird fucking
place to decide.
I don't know, because it waslike that's where they crashed though.
So I don't know if he'd like.
I mean, being like, I'm gonnahide in a store on a shelf. Oh, not
behind the canned foodspecifically. I'm just saying, like,
that feels like you thoughtabout like, where would I go? What
(08:12):
would I do?
Ye bizarre. And the, thefootage of this too is online.
And yeah, my gosh, it's. It'ssomething also, even just the idea
of you are a shopper and youlook at a shelf, you're picking up
a can of beans. Because it'swhat I buy in terms of canned vegetables
and there's a man behind it.They're gonna get hit with that can.
(08:33):
Yeah, I'm not gonna respondwell, but anyway, so they had to
lock the store down and theysurrounded it. I can't even imagine
how scary that would be forthe people who worked there and people
who were shopping there.Because you're just there to pick
up your stuff. You don't wet.
No, no. And there's policeeverywhere and sirens and like, it's
scary.
Yeah. And on the footage youcould see employees and shoppers
(08:53):
running out. Law enforcementfound the guy after a few minutes
and they identified him asMandy's cousin who was 27 year old
Derek Dagnolt. Now, we'veheard his last name pronounced several
ways, so but we're going to gowith Diagno because we're pretty
sure that's what it is. Theydragged him out of the cans because
they literally had to drag himout. And they asked him what he took
(09:14):
because he seemed like he wasout of it, he was under the influence
of something. They basicallyhad to carry him out of the store.
And he went to the hospitaland was then interviewed by police.
Now, per the affidavit, hetold them that he was driving his
cousin's car because he hadbeen with her in San Marcos, Texas,
and he believed that she hadbeen killed or kidnapped by a drug
cartel. He said he also knewthat the Wichita Police Department
(09:38):
was wanted to talk to himabout his girlfriend's death in February
and that he had warrants outfor his arrest. He went on to say
that he fled because he didn'twant to go to jail and he wasn't
going to stop as long as thepolice were chasing him, sir. You
don't get a choice in that.
Right.
They're not going to be like,you know what? This is tough.
Right. We'll let him go this time.
A little off with a warning.Even though he smashed into our cars,
(10:00):
clearly under the influence of substances.
But so this, I thought, wasjust. He blamed the police for all
of us.
He's banging into police cars.He's like, well, if you wouldn't
have stopped chasing me, Iwouldn't have had to do what I had
to do to get away, sir. That'snot how this works.
What?
That's not how any of this works.
Yeah.
So he claimed that he had hadmethamphetamine, a cell, cash, THC
(10:22):
cartridges, and a handgun andammo in the Honda. It's a packed
car. There's a lot happeningin there.
Yes.
When they searched the car onApril 11, they found a handgun that
matched the caliber of theshell casing they found with Mandy's
body. Daganal was on a felonyprobation at the time and had an
active arrest warrant in Wichita.
So then authorities were ableto get a surveillance video from
(10:46):
a Walmart in San Marcos thatwas recorded on the morning of April
4th of 2023. In the video, itshows Dagnall buying a large plastic
container very similar towhere Mandy was found. A shovel and
a gas can at self checkout.And the container that he bought,
the only way that I candescribe it is that it was one of
(11:07):
those heavy duty storagecontainers. And typically, the ones
that I see, like when I go toHome Depot or Lowe's, is like the
black and yellow thick storage containers.
Oh, yeah, yeah. They're theCostco ones.
Yeah. But this one was blackand blue. Another video shows him
leaving the store in Mandy'scar. And you can clearly see Titan
(11:27):
sticking his head out thewindow. When the autopsy was done
on Mandy's body, the medicalexaminer was able to confirm Mandy's
identity with dental records.They were also able to determine
that she died from a gunshotwound to the head. And they also
recovered a bullet from herbody. Also to note, she was identified
later in April after Dagnalwas already caught. So, like, it
(11:50):
was a little bit after that.The Texas Department of Public Safety
crime lab confirmed that thebullet found in Mandy's body and
the shell casings were bothfired by a handgun that was found
in the car. Dagnall wasultimately extradited to McLennan
County Jail from Kansas. And Ijust thought this part, next part
was interesting. But under theterms of the extradition warrant,
(12:12):
his case had to be resolvedwithin 180 days. So his trial ended
up happening November 4th inWaco's 19th state district court.
And according to that samewarrant, if the case had not been
resolved within 180 days, itwould have been dismissed.
That could have had somethingto do with his right to a speedy
trial. It could have happenedbecause administratively they had
other warrants out for hisarrest. So you've got a warrant out
(12:34):
for your arrest until you'rearrested, you aren't charged. Then
you get arrested, you haveyour arraignment, you're told what
the charges are. So once thatarraignment happens, the clock starts.
It's like we're ticking.Everything needs to be done in a
certain period of time. Iwould imagine that they were like,
you can't delay your case andit affect his right to a speedy trial
(12:55):
in these other cases. Well,that's what my guess would be.
Right. So he had severalthings going.
Right.
He already had the warrant. Hejust went on a high speed chase.
And then now we're seeing thathe bought things that were used to
dispose of Mandy's body.
Yeah.
So, you know, not a greatperson. Now let's, let's talk about
that background a little bit.This is not the first time that he's
(13:15):
gotten in trouble. Surprise,surprise. In Kansas, there were charges
for aggravated burglary,attempted aggravated robbery and
aggravated assault. Use of adeadly weapon. He was already a multiple
time convicted felon. Nine tobe exact. He had been in prison in
Kansas for the offenses wejust mentioned. And he had also shot
another person as a juvenile.Yeah, a lot. A lot. He also had convictions
(13:39):
for methamphetaminepossession. And it seems like there
may have been more seriousoffenses throughout his life, starting
from when he was a teenager.He's also listed on the Kansas Bureau
of Investigations site as aviolent offender. And just to paint
a picture of the site, itlooks like a site that you typically
see like registered sexoffenders, but this is a registered
(14:00):
offender website.
That is interesting.
It is. We don't like, we don'thave something like that here that
I've seen, but it includes sexoffenders, violent and drug offenders,
and just any violent offensethat they could have, which I thought
was interesting.
I will tell you that Marylanddoesn't have it that clear, but we
do have Maryland judiciarycase search where you can just type
(14:20):
in anybody's name and it willshow you everything. It'll show you
if they've gotten pulled over.It'll show you if they're in any
civil litigation. They'll tellyou if there's any criminal charges.
Interesting.
You can, like, do a lot withcriminal case searches, but this
one's particularly user friendly.
It is. It is very userfriendly. So when you pull up his,
like, profile for it, it namessome of his Kansas offenses, his
(14:44):
addresses, like, where he'sbeen, vehicle information, and tattoos.
And one that just, like. Itjust made me so mad to see is apparently
he had a tattoo that saysfamily on his right forearm.
Get fucked.
It just. It made me so upset.
As it should. The motive forMandy's murder is ultimately unknown,
but many theorize that it wasfor money. Now, there are some other
(15:07):
theories, one of which is thatperhaps she had found out about another
crime. But we'll talk moreabout that later. According to Mandy's
mother, Dagonault had reachedout to Mandy under false pretenses,
and that led to Mandy drivingto Kansas to bring him back to Texas
for a brief visit. So he hadsomehow persuaded Mandy to go pick
him up about a month beforethe murder, and she had allowed him
(15:28):
to stay with her. So she'sbeing kind to her cousin, and then
this is what fucking happens.
Yes.
There's no information as to,like, exactly why he did it or what
was the reason that she wentto go get him. There was a GoFundMe
that was set up by Mandy'smom, Carlene, to help pay for the
family to travel to Texas toattend the court proceedings. And
again, we've talked about thisin other cases, too. Like, we recently
(15:49):
talked about it with SamNorquist's family that when the family
doesn't live in the samestate, it's expensive. Like, you
have to travel, you have toget lodgings. You're off of work.
So it's expensive.
It is.
And that fucking sucks. You'realready grieving and dealing with
this horrible thing, andthey're being a fiscal burden on
top of. It just fucking sucks.
Yeah, but.
So Kathleen also describes theseries of phone calls she received,
(16:11):
with the first being the titanwas found then from law enforcement
agencies and then a coroner.She ended the GoFundMe page saying,
Our family is very gratefulfor any donations received. Please
forward Mandy's story to allyou know from our hearts. Thank you.
I would think that the firstcall about Titan being found, there
had to be this feeling in thepit of her stomach, like, that's
(16:34):
not my daughter. What Happened.
Yeah.
If my dog was missing andsomeone called my mom to be like,
hey, the owner of this dogneeds to come get her, she'd be like,
something is wrong.
Right. Right. And first, whywould they not know that that dog
was missing if that's your baby?
Mm. Yeah.
The world would know if one ofmy dogs was missing.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Sowe're gonna get into the trial. We
(16:56):
also want to mention we werejust talking about Titan. He was
present at the trial, was veryloving to everyone. I am so sure
that that was at least alittle bit of comfort that her family
could have is having him there.
Yeah.
On November 7th of 2024, Derekwas sentenced to life in prison after
a jury convicted him ofMandy's murder. It took them just
(17:16):
35 fucking minutes to deliberate.
That's pretty quick.
That's pretty quick. And itmeans that it was super clear.
Yeah.
Now, the trial, though, itselfwas four days, and we're going to
talk about a few things thatwere notable that happened during
the trial. Mandy's fathertestified that she had fears about
Dagonalt and that she hadshared those fears with him. Her
father also had urged her tocut ties with Dagonalt for safety
(17:37):
reasons. He's a relative.Like, you know the dangerous shit
he's gotten into, you're like,you know, he. He's not safe. Even
though you're a relative,you're still not safe.
Yeah.
It's so hard to imagine justhow hard and heavy that would be,
knowing that she was worriedabout her cousin, and he was probably,
like, saying all the rightthings to manipulate her. And her
(17:59):
dad was doing his best to tryto get her to see the danger of the
situation, but sometimes youjust can't convince people it's such
a horrific fucking outcome.
Yes. Yeah. And, like, her dadwas also saying all the right things.
Right. To keep her safe andgoing. Cut ties like, let's take
some. Make some distancebetween them, and he still got this
outcome, and it just breaks myheart for him.
Yeah. The medical examineralso testified that a bullet fragment
(18:22):
and shell casings that werefound near Mandy's body matched the
caliber of the pistol that hadbelonged to her grandmother. And
it was the same gun that wasrecovered from Mandy's car when Dagonel
was called. It's believed thatDagonel shot her, put her body into
that storage container, droveto Robinson, then set her body on
fire. But authorities aren'tsure, and they really can't determine
(18:44):
where exactly Mandy waskilled, but they think it may have
happened in her own home.
So sad.
Yeah.
And I. I do want to note, too,that this. I. I think they're deliberating
for 35 minutes is because howmuch evidence they were able to have
for this case. Yeah, it'spretty cut and dry. They're like,
look what he did. He did thisthe day before. Like, come on. There's
(19:06):
more to this, too. There'smore evidence. So Robinson police
detective Whitney Mathistestified about tracking Mandy's
cell phone by using multiplecell towers and locations. She basically
provided that Dagnall was inpossession of Mandy's phone, Titan,
her car, and the gun afterMandy was murdered. Also, she confirmed
(19:26):
that Mandy's phone pinged inthe area of the San Marcos Walmart
when he bought the supplies onApril 4th. And then it was at a Lowe's
in San Marcos about 45 minuteslater. The next day, it showed her
phone on Interstate 35 around6:25pm with additional pings going
northbound until it eventuallypinged where Mandy's body was ultimately
discovered. And it pingedthere around 9:05pm Also, there's
(19:51):
ring footage from thesubdivision, and it showed a black
car matching Mandy's Hondadrive by at 9:07. So, like, it's
pretty accurate where herphone was. Yeah, the witness of the
fire saw it around 9:20pmlike, that's when he initially started
seeing it. So after this, thephone pinged, returning southbound,
and it stopped near aWalgreens in South Austin for about
(20:13):
an hour around 11:13pm Therewas a Walgreens receipt found in
Mandy's car with the timestampof 11:37.
They're just confirming everything.
Everything. And I. I love thatyou can pinpoint it so accurately
now, because we saw it with,like, the Valo case, too.
Yeah.
How they found the kids,essentially. So just wild. The phone
(20:34):
arrived back in San Marcosaround 12:28am and that would have
been on April 6th. Strangely,the phone last pinged at a tower
near Hillsborough. Thefollowing day, near a Cricket Wireless
store, authorities found areceipt for a prepaid cell phone
in Mandy's car. And this wasreally strange to me. Evidence showed
that the phone was paid with acard belonging to Dagnolt's brother.
(20:59):
Mandy's phone was neverrecovered either.
Interesting.
Now, this next part is what wereferred to when we first brought
up that Titan had a chip andthat the company sends out the alerts,
you know, when a lost dog isfound. Detective Marshall Perry testified
during the trial, and he hadspent about four hours at the crime
scene the night that Mandy'sbody was discovered the following
(21:21):
morning. He was at his deskwhen he got a very fucking weird
call.
Yeah.
This phone call was played atthe trial, and we were able to listen
to it. It's a little lengthy,and there ended up being a couple
calls. So we're going tosummarize a lot of it, but it's bizarre.
So the caller opens up with,hi, my name's Mandy Reynolds, and
I got a message that you guysfound my dog. We want to note that
(21:43):
the voice definitely does notsound like what you think Mandy should
sound like.
The caller seemed to soundlike a man to me. Their voice was
significantly deeper. I wouldalso just say the cadence of speech
sounded like a man.
Yes, I agree. It sounded likehe was trying to raise his voice
up a little bit.
Yeah, it sounded suspicious.
As the detective was on thecall, a crime scene tech named Kayla
(22:04):
Williams was also in the roomwith Perry. They were both looking
at Mandy's Facebook page andimmediately did not believe the voice
that they were talking tomatched who they were looking at.
As they were looking at theFacebook page, the pictures began
to disappear, and then thepage was deactivated.
Perry was also a little bitsuspicious of the caller. By a little
bit, I mean, a lot, by theway. So he began asking a lot of
(22:26):
questions. Most the callerended up getting right. The call
is redacted a little bit. Sosome of the info is coming from what
was heard and reported onduring the trial, and some of the
questions were likely answeredbetween multiple calls. One thing
we noticed was that the callercalled Titan a poodle retriever mix.
But a labradoodle is a labpoodle mix, and you don't get that
(22:47):
wrong.
No, a dog owner wouldn't gettheir dog wrong.
I'm just being so real.Labradoodle people are not going
to get a labradoodle wrong.
That's true. That's true.
And they're also simply notgoing to call them a mix. That's
a labradoodle.
No, no.
So the caller in this storysaid that she was on her way to Wichita,
Kansas, from San Marcos whenshe stopped at the rest area near
Robinson and Waco. And that'swhen Titan jumped out and ran off.
(23:10):
Perry asked if it was a gasstation or a truck stop and asked
them to describe it, and thecaller responded that they really
couldn't, and it was just youraverage gas station. Okay, I'm gonna
be real with you. You'retelling me my baby jumps out of the
car, I'm gonna Search thatentire place. I'm gonna remember
every single detail, and it'sgonna stay in my brain like a steel
trap. I'll be able to tell youwhat color the doors were. Yes, I'm
(23:33):
gonna know that place.
Exactly. Exactly.
So as Perry's asking morequestions, the caller started to
get a little bit like, oh,you're asking a lot of questions,
considering I'm just callingto pick up my dog. Yes, but. So Perry
was like, I'm just trying tosee how far the dog went. And the
caller stated it was about 1amon April 6, and the detective knew
(23:55):
that this had to be a liebecause the authorities had seen
Titan at the crime scene at10pm the caller asked what time they
found Titan, and Perry wasquick to say they ran the chip this
morning.
Yeah.
The caller also said they hadlooked for Titan for a couple hours,
but they just had to keepcontinuing on their trip. No, I don't.
No, I don't. Do I have to goto the hospital? Nope. I'm going
(24:18):
to keep looking for my dog.The caller then went on to say that
they were on their way toWichita to see their boyfriend's
sick grandmother. Perrycontinued to ask more and more specific
questions, and the callereventually got agitated and hung
up. Perry tried to confirm, soyour name is Mandy Rose Reynolds.
And the caller says, sure.
It was so weird.
Yeah, it was unnerving becauseyou're like, well, you're lying.
(24:41):
Yes. Yes.
Even the way that theyintroduce themselves, like, all of
it. Even the beginning of thecall, they're saying they're calling
to get their dog back, but itdoesn't feel like they're calling
to get their dog back. I don'tknow how else to describe it other
than that.
Right.
So Perry goes on to confirmthe details. And that's when the
caller gets pissed and says,what is this interrogation about?
That's my dog. You guys have.Let's get that straight, Detective,
(25:03):
before saying, I'll just cometo the pound. Goodbye.
So fucking weird.
It is so fucking weird. Also,dude, you're talking to a detective
about your dog that went missing.
Why?
I would have been like, whythe. Am I talking to the police?
Yeah. Would have been thefirst thing I said.
Right.
Oh, they have dog detectivesnow? I would love that. Every time
a dog goes missing.
Yeah.
You're gonna tell me they'regonna find its owner. But police
(25:25):
don't even have time to dopolice work.
Right.
They can't even help missingpeople, let alone missing dogs. We
understand that. Anyway, allI'm saying is that the person who
called, perhaps not that bright.
Right. Exactly. Now, less thanan hour later, Perry calls them back,
and he's like, hey, we mighthave gotten off on the wrong foot.
And he lets that person knowthat Titan was found near a crime
(25:48):
scene of a deceased person,and that's why he was asking so many
questions. Now, the callersounds stunned, but then says that
they've really been stressingabout Titan and that they paid a
lot of money for him, and thatwas, like, the biggest red flag,
right?
Like, mm, mm.
No concerned dog parent wouldever mention that they paid a lot
of money for their missingdog. The first questions out of their
(26:10):
mouth would be, how's the dog?Is he okay? Where is he? When can
I get him?
That also is just so at oddswith who Mandy was that it doesn't
even feel like this caller wastrying to pretend.
Yes.
That they were Mandy. Theywere just like, I don't have to.
That's a lot of fuckingaudacity. That also points out to
me that their plan wasprobably to sell Titan.
Yeah. Maybe Titan wouldn't getback in the.
(26:31):
Car or tried to bite them,which would have been very smart.
I hope so. I hope Titan bit them.
I hope Titan fucking took abite at a crime.
So Perry tries to confirmdetails again, and the caller sounds
a little distraught and saysthat they don't know some of the
details. Perry does a greatjob digging for information, though.
I will give that to him. Andhe stayed calm the entire time, even
(26:53):
though he knew that the callerwas, like, blatantly lying to him.
The caller then says somethingabout not being able to spend the
whole day speaking to Perryand that they'll just go to get Titan
and they don't want to beinterrogated when their puppy ran
off.
No.
Ultimately, the call ends withthe person claiming to be Mandy saying
something like, they will havetheir attorney call them because
Perry informed them that Titanwas on a police hold, and either
(27:17):
way, they can't come get him.He's on the hold.
Mm.
Surprisingly, an attorneynever called. Authorities used a
license plate reading systemknown as FLOCK to trace Mandy's car
to Aquarena Springs Drive inSan Marcos at the time of the call.
The photo of the car showsheavy rain, and when the call was
played in court, Ryan Calvert,one of the prosecutors, pointed out
(27:40):
the rhythmic squeaking soundof the car's windshield wipers. So
he's like, he's calling fromthe car. It's raining out. Do you
hear it? Perry said during thetrial that he is convinced that it
was Dagnalt who was pretendingto be Mandy. And like, to me, that
makes sense. Like, when youlook at his picture, you're like,
that's the voice I was hearing.
Yeah.
I just don't even know whathis plan was, though.
(28:02):
Yeah.
Was he going to say, I'm gonnasend my cousin to go pick up my dog?
Yeah. It doesn't make sense.It doesn't make sense.
That would have been weird too.
Yeah. Yeah. So the sending wasalso wild. Dagnaut ended up yelling
at Mandy's brother and had tobe escorted out. And this was during
Manny's brother's victim'simpact statement. Daganal kept interrupting
him and even accused him of acrime. Then he even talked back to
(28:25):
the judge. This guy hasaudacity. For days.
Yes.
Then a fight broke out betweenthe Daggernaut family and the Reynolds
family. And remember, they'reall family, but just because you're
a Reynolds doesn't mean thatyou're necessarily related to a Dagonal.
But anywho, one of the thingsthat, like we were thinking about
when we were researching washow difficult it would be for an
(28:46):
intra family violence in thisway where this is your sibling's
kid who did this to your baby.That's. That's fucking hard. You
lose your kids bad enough, butit's somebody in your family that
did it.
Yeah, right. Well, that andevery family member had tie in that
courtroom, at least had tiesto both people for, you know, different
reasons. They were both theirfamily members and both of them are
(29:07):
now gone, essentially.
Yeah. So Dagonalt's brother inlaw, M.K. herzberg, ended up trying
to hit someone on the Reynoldsside of the family. And he was taken
away in handcuffs. He was thenreleased 30 minutes later and no
charges were filed. Dagnottealso made a very bizarre statement
to a reporter. So he's beingled to jail. And he told a reporter
that he wanted to make astatement, and he reiterated that
(29:29):
his cousin had committed acrime. And then the reporter asked,
well, what about you? And hisresponse was, I guess I'm just a
murderer.
What?
What? During the punishmentphase, the jury learned that Dagnault
had been in trouble many timesin his life. So everything we talked
about earlier also, generallyyou can't bring up all of the crimes
that a person has committedforever in their life in a trial
(29:52):
unless that person is like, Icouldn't have done this. I'm a good
person. Once you startbringing in who you are as a person,
then they can do it. But notbefore then.
Yeah. And the prosecutor,even, I think, in a lot of the interviews
said something along the linesof, even if we hadn't brought this
up, he would've gotten thesame sentence like we had so much
evidence.
Yeah. Additionally, In Marchof 2024, he also received a combined
(30:15):
111 month sentence in Kansasfor multiple charges. So 52 months
for attempting to eludepolice, aggravated battery and criminal
possession of a weapon by afelon after the high speed chase.
So remember his hiding behindthe cans? 52 months for that. Then
he received 17 months fortheft linked to him stealing two
(30:35):
chainsaws, a vacuum cleaner, atoolkit, and a trash can from Lowe's
in Derby.
What? Why?
What an assortment. What doyou need two chainsaws for? Then
another three and a half yearswas added for a 20, 21 methamphetamine
possession charges. And hislife sentence requires him to serve
at least 30 years before he'seligible for parole, which hopefully
(30:58):
he never gets fucking paroled,because I think he just needs to
just stay locked away. Awayfrom everyone.
Yeah. He's where he. He shouldbe. Yes. So there's another just
terrible crime that he mightbe linked to as well. Friends and
family of a woman namedShenoah Hansell suspect that Dagnalt
(31:19):
may have been involved withher death as well. Now, she died
on March 1st of 2023.Reminder, Mandy was murdered just
a little over a month later onApril 5th of 2023. As of now, Dagnolt
has not been charged inconnection with her case. But on
one of the local news posts,we saw people who may have known
Chenoa mention that her andDagnalt were dating and that he said
(31:44):
some awful things to herbefore she passed. Someone else also
mentioned that he wasaggressive and threatened her. Another
said that she told people ifsomething happened to her, it was
him.
He does not seem like a personwho I would rule out in any way whatsoever.
Right. And I did see a fewother comments, too, that said they
(32:05):
suspect that maybe Mandy foundout about Chenoa and that's why he
killed her. Yeah. Again, wecan't confirm who knew who if it's
all factual, but interestingthat he mentioned that someone wanted
to question him about hisgirlfriend's death. I believe he
said February. She died March1. But maybe it was a late night,
(32:25):
you know, in February.
And why would that be relevantto bring up in terms of why you were
evading police? I'm not abeliever in just because you ran.
You're guilty, right? In thissituation, it Was true. But he's
listing all of the things thathe's done and, like, things that
he was in trouble for. Yes.And he lists his girlfriend as part
(32:45):
of that.
Exactly. So Lindsay and I werevery interested in what happened
to Chenoa because there's notreally much out there. There's very
lovely things that her friendsand family have said about her in,
like, her obituary and justwhat a great person she was. But
unfortunately, they stilldon't have any closure on this case.
We have requested somedocuments from the local government,
(33:08):
and we'll be looking into it alittle bit more. If we find something,
we'll bring it up in our TrueCrime Digest. But interesting. He
could be linked to anotherpotential murder.
Yeah.
So let's bring it back toMandy's case. When you look into
the case, most articles showyou this adorable picture of both
the prosecutors, Ryan Calverand Alyssa Killen. The investigator,
Keith Koons. And they're allthree crouching down with Titan for
(33:32):
this picture. Like, you know,the four of them got justice for
her and her family.
Yeah.
And just, I don't know, thelove that a dog can show for humans
is incredible. And he helpedthem to solve her murder so much
quicker than they likely wouldhave otherwise without him.
Yeah.
And Alyssa Killen said, quote,titan was key to investigating this
(33:53):
case. She didn't have any tiesto the area, so there really would
be no reason to think that shewould have ended up here. And just
from what we've seen, too,Dagnall also had no ties to that
area. So putting both of themthere would have been difficult.
We're not sure why he broughther body there. The only thing that
we saw is it was kind of anopen space, and it was on the way
(34:15):
to Wichita.
Yeah.
So it was just, I think, outof convenience for him. We do want
to end this with some goodnews, though. Titan was adopted by
Mandy's best friend, and fromsome of the sources we've seen, he's
doing great.
I'm glad that he is well lovedand doing okay.
Thinking about Titan andMandy, I think about it often with
my dogs, but, like, some ofthe best relationships we have in
(34:38):
our lives are with creaturesthat don't even speak the same language,
you know? Yeah. So just giveyour pup some extra love this week
for Mandy.
I would also like to requestthat you give your cat some extra
love.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's just because she was adog person. For all animals. Yes.
I will request cats as well.
I think she would have likedthat, too. Between Titan helping
(35:00):
to identify his person and howit seems like multiple police departments
in multiple jurisdictions andstates were able to work together
quickly. We're just so gladthat Dagnal was found and detained
fairly quickly. Like, in thiscase, usually we're like, ugh, this
jurisdiction should havetalked with this one and they should
have done this. This seemedlike it was flawlessly. Yeah.
(35:21):
Yeah.
And I'm just happy for that.We also hope that friends and family
of Shenoah are able to get thejustice and closure that they deserve
in the future as well.
Yeah, we. We know that lawenforcement can do good work. We
just like that to do it foreverybody. Even when they maybe make
judgments about that person orX, Y, Z. There's a. There's many
(35:41):
reasons why conclusions mightnot be reached, why justice might
not be received. And when youknow it can happen, it makes it even
more frustrating when itdoesn't. Because you're like, it's
not that you can't.
Yeah.
It's that you're. You won't.
Right. Right. You're notdedicating time to certain people
for silly things.
Yeah. And so if there's anycases that you're aware of that you
(36:04):
think need some more exposure,they need a little bit more pressure
in the world. Let us know.We'd love to cover them again. Love
your babies. Human and Furiousor scales. We'll include them. Why
not? Feathers, even.
Oh, yeah.
Well, with that, have a great weekend.
Thanks for creeping with us.
Thanks for listening and asalways, a special thank you to our
(36:25):
patrons who support us via Patreon.
Please see the link in ourshow notes to learn more about how
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Also in our show notes you canfind the link to our website, more
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(36:46):
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I beg of.
Hi. Welcome to True Creeps,where the stories are true and the
creeps are real.
We'll cover stories fromgrotesque gore to.
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to tense and terrible truecrime and.
Everything else that goes bumpin the night. We're your hosts, Amanda.
And I'm Lindsay, and we wantyou to join us.
While we creep, we covermature topics. Listener discretion
(00:25):
is advised. Hello, everyone.Today we are going to be talking
about the murder of a womannamed Mandy Rose Reynolds and how
her dog may have helped in theinvestigation. If you've listened
to us for a while, you knowthat we are animal people. So when
we heard about this case andthat a dog assisted in the investigation,
(00:48):
we really wanted to get moredetails. Now, of course, we're going
to talk about Mandy first. AndMandy was born on August 2nd of 1996.
She was only 26 years old whenshe was killed. Her mother, Carlene
Hardy, said that she was afriend to many. She had moved from
Idaho to San Marcos, Texas, tobe near her best friend. Mandy was
(01:11):
also very excited about herfuture, and she was considering college,
so she had a lot of plans. Herstepfather, Ron Hardy, said Mandy
was active and generous. Shewas always eager to help others,
and she was very outgoing.Also, she didn't really like staying
in one place for too long. Soshe was originally from Idaho, but
she had lived in Tennessee andLouisiana before she moved to Texas
(01:34):
a few months before her death.So she liked to do new things.
Yeah.
Another thing that I saw thatI just wanted to include is Ron was
doing an interview, and he wastalking about how much Mandy loved
her dog, Titan. And he said,quote, spoiled that dog bad. And
as he said it, he had this,like, giant smile, and he was kind
(01:55):
of chuckling.
Yeah.
So you knew, like, this girlwas about her dog.
Yeah. Her baby.
Right. Those two versus theworld. Yeah. I loved it. I loved
that her family couldrecognize how much she loved her.
Her puppy.
Yeah.
So her family just loved herso much. And honestly, she seemed
like such an amazing person.On her gravestone, it says, quote,
(02:16):
our Rosebud once lived onearth as a lovely free spirit. Today,
she dances with angels. That'svery sweet.
Sounds like she was justfantastic and a great dog mom. Because
all puppies should be spoiled.
Yes. Yes, they should.
So let's talk about whathappened to Mandy. On the night of
April 5, 2023, Robinson Policeresponded to a reported brush fire
(02:39):
that was near a subdivision onHeston Circle in Robinson, Texas,
which was just south of Waco.Amanda called it in and he told 911
that he wasn't sure if it wassomeone burning brush because they
had been building housesnearby or if the brush had been struck
by lightning. So when lawenforcement arrived around 10pm they
(03:01):
found that a body was on fire.The body was burned beyond recognition.
We watched police body camfootage, and the arriving officer
recognized what was happeningpretty quickly as he approached.
And he mentioned later that itkind of looked like logs were burning
until he got close andrealized it was a leg. So he called
it in and he put the fire outwith a fire extinguisher. When another
(03:25):
officer arrived, he said thatthe body was likely female because
he could see a bra strap. Now,while all this was happening, there
was also rain and hail.
I felt really bad for theseofficers for what they were seeing
here, because that's not whatthey were expecting. So while they
were out there, they also sawa white mini Labradoodle frantically
barking at the officers. Andthis whole case is just horrific
(03:49):
and sad. But this next partreally got me as I was watching the
body cam footage. It just hurtmy heart, the whole situation, and
just. You'll see why. So theofficers were extremely kind to the
dog, and they kept calling forhim to come, like, closer to them.
One officer in the footagecould be heard saying, you sure are
hanging around here. Is thatyour person over there?
(04:10):
You can tell that that personwas likely a dog parent.
Yes.
There's only one reason why adog would be doing this particular
type of action.
Yes. Ugh. My eyes werewatering the whole time watching
this.
Yeah.
It was just watching the dog'smannerisms that got me. But the same
officer was later talking toanother officer near the police car.
So not like at the scene, butkind of.
(04:30):
Mm.
Off of it. And he starts tosay, hey, the way that dog's hanging
around, it makes me think.Then he asked someone, hey, does
anyone have a chip checker?Can someone bring a chip checker?
Because, like, you know, thathe understood it too.
Yeah.
He also said, quote, is thedog trying to be protective or is
it trying to lead us overthere? Because it looks like she's
trying to lead us over there.So dog people doing good in this
(04:54):
world, right? Mm. So theytried to catch the dog, and they
were worried, too, that itmight walk through the crime scene.
So they're really, reallytrying to get it near them. The fire
at one point had also flaredup again. And you can hear one of
the officers radioing thathe's entering the scene again so
that he could put it Out.Unfortunately, they tried so much,
but they were unable to catchthe dog that night. I believe it
(05:16):
ran off at one point. Theywere able, you know, crime scene
cleanup, they. They took thebody but couldn't get the dog. The
police were able to determinethat the body was burned in a large
plastic storage container.They also found a shell casing that
was burned inside thecontainer. The following day, after
the body had been removed,someone in the area saw the dog sitting
(05:38):
in the field where it had beenthe night before. And that individual
contacted Robinson AnimalControl, and they were able to catch
him this time. Once they wereable to check the dog for a chip,
they found out that his namewas Titan and that he belonged to
Mandy Rose Reynolds.
So given the way the dog wasacting, police suspected that the
body was likely Mandy's. Butshe didn't live there. She lived
(06:00):
in San Marcos, Texas. And thatwas about 125 miles away, which ended
up being about two hours.We're going to bring up something
that's fucking wild that cameabout about this chip later in the
episode, too. So just tuckchip in your head. But the microchip
company sends out alerts viatexts and emails to owners when lost
dogs are found. And we alsobelieve that police called the number,
(06:23):
linked the tag, and left amessage. Authorities reached out
to San Marcos police, who thenwent to Mandy's apartment to look
for her. When they arrived onApril 7, they found her place to
be empty. Like, empty empty.All of her processions were no longer
there. Her car, a black HondaAccord, was also missing. Police
ended up running her vehiclethrough a license plate reader database
(06:45):
and saw that her car wassomewhere in Wichita, Kansas. So
they reached out to Wichitapolice to look for her car. So on
April 7th of 2023, San MarcosPolice found all of Mandy's belongings
in an abandoned truck severalmiles from her apartment. Then the
next day, on April 8, Wichitaofficers saw that car that we mentioned
(07:06):
earlier and attempted to pullit over, and it turned into a high
speed police chase. And whenwe say high speed, we mean it was
over 100 miles per hour. Itlasted about 30 minutes. And the
body camera footage is online,and it is stressful. The car ended
up crashing into anothervehicle, but during the chase, he
rammed into multiple policeunits. Everything else aside, that's
(07:28):
just dumb behavior.
It is like, what do youthink's gonna happen?
Yeah. Do you think you'regonna win? Do you think you're gonna
get away in the Honda? Yeah.
Come on.
Then after the crash, thedriver of Mandy's Car took off running.
He ran into a nearby grocerystore, Dylan's, and he hid on a bottom
shelf behind canned food. Now,I will say he clearly planned that.
(07:51):
That's not a spur of themoment hiding place. That's like
you thought about where youwould hide and that's a weird fucking
place to decide.
I don't know, because it waslike that's where they crashed though.
So I don't know if he'd like.
I mean, being like, I'm gonnahide in a store on a shelf. Oh, not
behind the canned foodspecifically. I'm just saying, like,
that feels like you thoughtabout like, where would I go? What
(08:12):
would I do?
Ye bizarre. And the, thefootage of this too is online.
And yeah, my gosh, it's. It'ssomething also, even just the idea
of you are a shopper and youlook at a shelf, you're picking up
a can of beans. Because it'swhat I buy in terms of canned vegetables
and there's a man behind it.They're gonna get hit with that can.
(08:33):
Yeah, I'm not gonna respondwell, but anyway, so they had to
lock the store down and theysurrounded it. I can't even imagine
how scary that would be forthe people who worked there and people
who were shopping there.Because you're just there to pick
up your stuff. You don't wet.
No, no. And there's policeeverywhere and sirens and like, it's
scary.
Yeah. And on the footage youcould see employees and shoppers
(08:53):
running out. Law enforcementfound the guy after a few minutes
and they identified him asMandy's cousin who was 27 year old
Derek Dagnolt. Now, we'veheard his last name pronounced several
ways, so but we're going to gowith Diagno because we're pretty
sure that's what it is. Theydragged him out of the cans because
they literally had to drag himout. And they asked him what he took
(09:14):
because he seemed like he wasout of it, he was under the influence
of something. They basicallyhad to carry him out of the store.
And he went to the hospitaland was then interviewed by police.
Now, per the affidavit, hetold them that he was driving his
cousin's car because he hadbeen with her in San Marcos, Texas,
and he believed that she hadbeen killed or kidnapped by a drug
cartel. He said he also knewthat the Wichita Police Department
(09:38):
was wanted to talk to himabout his girlfriend's death in February
and that he had warrants outfor his arrest. He went on to say
that he fled because he didn'twant to go to jail and he wasn't
going to stop as long as thepolice were chasing him, sir. You
don't get a choice in that.
Right.
They're not going to be like,you know what? This is tough.
Right. We'll let him go this time.
A little off with a warning.Even though he smashed into our cars,
(10:00):
clearly under the influence of substances.
But so this, I thought, wasjust. He blamed the police for all
of us.
He's banging into police cars.He's like, well, if you wouldn't
have stopped chasing me, Iwouldn't have had to do what I had
to do to get away, sir. That'snot how this works.
What?
That's not how any of this works.
Yeah.
So he claimed that he had hadmethamphetamine, a cell, cash, THC
(10:22):
cartridges, and a handgun andammo in the Honda. It's a packed
car. There's a lot happeningin there.
Yes.
When they searched the car onApril 11, they found a handgun that
matched the caliber of theshell casing they found with Mandy's
body. Daganal was on a felonyprobation at the time and had an
active arrest warrant in Wichita.
So then authorities were ableto get a surveillance video from
(10:46):
a Walmart in San Marcos thatwas recorded on the morning of April
4th of 2023. In the video, itshows Dagnall buying a large plastic
container very similar towhere Mandy was found. A shovel and
a gas can at self checkout.And the container that he bought,
the only way that I candescribe it is that it was one of
(11:07):
those heavy duty storagecontainers. And typically, the ones
that I see, like when I go toHome Depot or Lowe's, is like the
black and yellow thick storage containers.
Oh, yeah, yeah. They're theCostco ones.
Yeah. But this one was blackand blue. Another video shows him
leaving the store in Mandy'scar. And you can clearly see Titan
(11:27):
sticking his head out thewindow. When the autopsy was done
on Mandy's body, the medicalexaminer was able to confirm Mandy's
identity with dental records.They were also able to determine
that she died from a gunshotwound to the head. And they also
recovered a bullet from herbody. Also to note, she was identified
later in April after Dagnalwas already caught. So, like, it
(11:50):
was a little bit after that.The Texas Department of Public Safety
crime lab confirmed that thebullet found in Mandy's body and
the shell casings were bothfired by a handgun that was found
in the car. Dagnall wasultimately extradited to McLennan
County Jail from Kansas. And Ijust thought this part, next part
was interesting. But under theterms of the extradition warrant,
(12:12):
his case had to be resolvedwithin 180 days. So his trial ended
up happening November 4th inWaco's 19th state district court.
And according to that samewarrant, if the case had not been
resolved within 180 days, itwould have been dismissed.
That could have had somethingto do with his right to a speedy
trial. It could have happenedbecause administratively they had
other warrants out for hisarrest. So you've got a warrant out
(12:34):
for your arrest until you'rearrested, you aren't charged. Then
you get arrested, you haveyour arraignment, you're told what
the charges are. So once thatarraignment happens, the clock starts.
It's like we're ticking.Everything needs to be done in a
certain period of time. Iwould imagine that they were like,
you can't delay your case andit affect his right to a speedy trial
(12:55):
in these other cases. Well,that's what my guess would be.
Right. So he had severalthings going.
Right.
He already had the warrant. Hejust went on a high speed chase.
And then now we're seeing thathe bought things that were used to
dispose of Mandy's body.
Yeah.
So, you know, not a greatperson. Now let's, let's talk about
that background a little bit.This is not the first time that he's
(13:15):
gotten in trouble. Surprise,surprise. In Kansas, there were charges
for aggravated burglary,attempted aggravated robbery and
aggravated assault. Use of adeadly weapon. He was already a multiple
time convicted felon. Nine tobe exact. He had been in prison in
Kansas for the offenses wejust mentioned. And he had also shot
another person as a juvenile.Yeah, a lot. A lot. He also had convictions
(13:39):
for methamphetaminepossession. And it seems like there
may have been more seriousoffenses throughout his life, starting
from when he was a teenager.He's also listed on the Kansas Bureau
of Investigations site as aviolent offender. And just to paint
a picture of the site, itlooks like a site that you typically
see like registered sexoffenders, but this is a registered
(14:00):
offender website.
That is interesting.
It is. We don't like, we don'thave something like that here that
I've seen, but it includes sexoffenders, violent and drug offenders,
and just any violent offensethat they could have, which I thought
was interesting.
I will tell you that Marylanddoesn't have it that clear, but we
do have Maryland judiciarycase search where you can just type
(14:20):
in anybody's name and it willshow you everything. It'll show you
if they've gotten pulled over.It'll show you if they're in any
civil litigation. They'll tellyou if there's any criminal charges.
Interesting.
You can, like, do a lot withcriminal case searches, but this
one's particularly user friendly.
It is. It is very userfriendly. So when you pull up his,
like, profile for it, it namessome of his Kansas offenses, his
(14:44):
addresses, like, where he'sbeen, vehicle information, and tattoos.
And one that just, like. Itjust made me so mad to see is apparently
he had a tattoo that saysfamily on his right forearm.
Get fucked.
It just. It made me so upset.
As it should. The motive forMandy's murder is ultimately unknown,
but many theorize that it wasfor money. Now, there are some other
(15:07):
theories, one of which is thatperhaps she had found out about another
crime. But we'll talk moreabout that later. According to Mandy's
mother, Dagonault had reachedout to Mandy under false pretenses,
and that led to Mandy drivingto Kansas to bring him back to Texas
for a brief visit. So he hadsomehow persuaded Mandy to go pick
him up about a month beforethe murder, and she had allowed him
(15:28):
to stay with her. So she'sbeing kind to her cousin, and then
this is what fucking happens.
Yes.
There's no information as to,like, exactly why he did it or what
was the reason that she wentto go get him. There was a GoFundMe
that was set up by Mandy'smom, Carlene, to help pay for the
family to travel to Texas toattend the court proceedings. And
again, we've talked about thisin other cases, too. Like, we recently
(15:49):
talked about it with SamNorquist's family that when the family
doesn't live in the samestate, it's expensive. Like, you
have to travel, you have toget lodgings. You're off of work.
So it's expensive.
It is.
And that fucking sucks. You'realready grieving and dealing with
this horrible thing, andthey're being a fiscal burden on
top of. It just fucking sucks.
Yeah, but.
So Kathleen also describes theseries of phone calls she received,
(16:11):
with the first being the titanwas found then from law enforcement
agencies and then a coroner.She ended the GoFundMe page saying,
Our family is very gratefulfor any donations received. Please
forward Mandy's story to allyou know from our hearts. Thank you.
I would think that the firstcall about Titan being found, there
had to be this feeling in thepit of her stomach, like, that's
(16:34):
not my daughter. What Happened.
Yeah.
If my dog was missing andsomeone called my mom to be like,
hey, the owner of this dogneeds to come get her, she'd be like,
something is wrong.
Right. Right. And first, whywould they not know that that dog
was missing if that's your baby?
Mm. Yeah.
The world would know if one ofmy dogs was missing.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Sowe're gonna get into the trial. We
(16:56):
also want to mention we werejust talking about Titan. He was
present at the trial, was veryloving to everyone. I am so sure
that that was at least alittle bit of comfort that her family
could have is having him there.
Yeah.
On November 7th of 2024, Derekwas sentenced to life in prison after
a jury convicted him ofMandy's murder. It took them just
(17:16):
35 fucking minutes to deliberate.
That's pretty quick.
That's pretty quick. And itmeans that it was super clear.
Yeah.
Now, the trial, though, itselfwas four days, and we're going to
talk about a few things thatwere notable that happened during
the trial. Mandy's fathertestified that she had fears about
Dagonalt and that she hadshared those fears with him. Her
father also had urged her tocut ties with Dagonalt for safety
(17:37):
reasons. He's a relative.Like, you know the dangerous shit
he's gotten into, you're like,you know, he. He's not safe. Even
though you're a relative,you're still not safe.
Yeah.
It's so hard to imagine justhow hard and heavy that would be,
knowing that she was worriedabout her cousin, and he was probably,
like, saying all the rightthings to manipulate her. And her
(17:59):
dad was doing his best to tryto get her to see the danger of the
situation, but sometimes youjust can't convince people it's such
a horrific fucking outcome.
Yes. Yeah. And, like, her dadwas also saying all the right things.
Right. To keep her safe andgoing. Cut ties like, let's take
some. Make some distancebetween them, and he still got this
outcome, and it just breaks myheart for him.
Yeah. The medical examineralso testified that a bullet fragment
(18:22):
and shell casings that werefound near Mandy's body matched the
caliber of the pistol that hadbelonged to her grandmother. And
it was the same gun that wasrecovered from Mandy's car when Dagonel
was called. It's believed thatDagonel shot her, put her body into
that storage container, droveto Robinson, then set her body on
fire. But authorities aren'tsure, and they really can't determine
(18:44):
where exactly Mandy waskilled, but they think it may have
happened in her own home.
So sad.
Yeah.
And I. I do want to note, too,that this. I. I think they're deliberating
for 35 minutes is because howmuch evidence they were able to have
for this case. Yeah, it'spretty cut and dry. They're like,
look what he did. He did thisthe day before. Like, come on. There's
(19:06):
more to this, too. There'smore evidence. So Robinson police
detective Whitney Mathistestified about tracking Mandy's
cell phone by using multiplecell towers and locations. She basically
provided that Dagnall was inpossession of Mandy's phone, Titan,
her car, and the gun afterMandy was murdered. Also, she confirmed
(19:26):
that Mandy's phone pinged inthe area of the San Marcos Walmart
when he bought the supplies onApril 4th. And then it was at a Lowe's
in San Marcos about 45 minuteslater. The next day, it showed her
phone on Interstate 35 around6:25pm with additional pings going
northbound until it eventuallypinged where Mandy's body was ultimately
discovered. And it pingedthere around 9:05pm Also, there's
(19:51):
ring footage from thesubdivision, and it showed a black
car matching Mandy's Hondadrive by at 9:07. So, like, it's
pretty accurate where herphone was. Yeah, the witness of the
fire saw it around 9:20pmlike, that's when he initially started
seeing it. So after this, thephone pinged, returning southbound,
and it stopped near aWalgreens in South Austin for about
(20:13):
an hour around 11:13pm Therewas a Walgreens receipt found in
Mandy's car with the timestampof 11:37.
They're just confirming everything.
Everything. And I. I love thatyou can pinpoint it so accurately
now, because we saw it with,like, the Valo case, too.
Yeah.
How they found the kids,essentially. So just wild. The phone
(20:34):
arrived back in San Marcosaround 12:28am and that would have
been on April 6th. Strangely,the phone last pinged at a tower
near Hillsborough. Thefollowing day, near a Cricket Wireless
store, authorities found areceipt for a prepaid cell phone
in Mandy's car. And this wasreally strange to me. Evidence showed
that the phone was paid with acard belonging to Dagnolt's brother.
(20:59):
Mandy's phone was neverrecovered either.
Interesting.
Now, this next part is what wereferred to when we first brought
up that Titan had a chip andthat the company sends out the alerts,
you know, when a lost dog isfound. Detective Marshall Perry testified
during the trial, and he hadspent about four hours at the crime
scene the night that Mandy'sbody was discovered the following
(21:21):
morning. He was at his deskwhen he got a very fucking weird
call.
Yeah.
This phone call was played atthe trial, and we were able to listen
to it. It's a little lengthy,and there ended up being a couple
calls. So we're going tosummarize a lot of it, but it's bizarre.
So the caller opens up with,hi, my name's Mandy Reynolds, and
I got a message that you guysfound my dog. We want to note that
(21:43):
the voice definitely does notsound like what you think Mandy should
sound like.
The caller seemed to soundlike a man to me. Their voice was
significantly deeper. I wouldalso just say the cadence of speech
sounded like a man.
Yes, I agree. It sounded likehe was trying to raise his voice
up a little bit.
Yeah, it sounded suspicious.
As the detective was on thecall, a crime scene tech named Kayla
(22:04):
Williams was also in the roomwith Perry. They were both looking
at Mandy's Facebook page andimmediately did not believe the voice
that they were talking tomatched who they were looking at.
As they were looking at theFacebook page, the pictures began
to disappear, and then thepage was deactivated.
Perry was also a little bitsuspicious of the caller. By a little
bit, I mean, a lot, by theway. So he began asking a lot of
(22:26):
questions. Most the callerended up getting right. The call
is redacted a little bit. Sosome of the info is coming from what
was heard and reported onduring the trial, and some of the
questions were likely answeredbetween multiple calls. One thing
we noticed was that the callercalled Titan a poodle retriever mix.
But a labradoodle is a labpoodle mix, and you don't get that
(22:47):
wrong.
No, a dog owner wouldn't gettheir dog wrong.
I'm just being so real.Labradoodle people are not going
to get a labradoodle wrong.
That's true. That's true.
And they're also simply notgoing to call them a mix. That's
a labradoodle.
No, no.
So the caller in this storysaid that she was on her way to Wichita,
Kansas, from San Marcos whenshe stopped at the rest area near
Robinson and Waco. And that'swhen Titan jumped out and ran off.
(23:10):
Perry asked if it was a gasstation or a truck stop and asked
them to describe it, and thecaller responded that they really
couldn't, and it was just youraverage gas station. Okay, I'm gonna
be real with you. You'retelling me my baby jumps out of the
car, I'm gonna Search thatentire place. I'm gonna remember
every single detail, and it'sgonna stay in my brain like a steel
trap. I'll be able to tell youwhat color the doors were. Yes, I'm
(23:33):
gonna know that place.
Exactly. Exactly.
So as Perry's asking morequestions, the caller started to
get a little bit like, oh,you're asking a lot of questions,
considering I'm just callingto pick up my dog. Yes, but. So Perry
was like, I'm just trying tosee how far the dog went. And the
caller stated it was about 1amon April 6, and the detective knew
(23:55):
that this had to be a liebecause the authorities had seen
Titan at the crime scene at10pm the caller asked what time they
found Titan, and Perry wasquick to say they ran the chip this
morning.
Yeah.
The caller also said they hadlooked for Titan for a couple hours,
but they just had to keepcontinuing on their trip. No, I don't.
No, I don't. Do I have to goto the hospital? Nope. I'm going
(24:18):
to keep looking for my dog.The caller then went on to say that
they were on their way toWichita to see their boyfriend's
sick grandmother. Perrycontinued to ask more and more specific
questions, and the callereventually got agitated and hung
up. Perry tried to confirm, soyour name is Mandy Rose Reynolds.
And the caller says, sure.
It was so weird.
Yeah, it was unnerving becauseyou're like, well, you're lying.
(24:41):
Yes. Yes.
Even the way that theyintroduce themselves, like, all of
it. Even the beginning of thecall, they're saying they're calling
to get their dog back, but itdoesn't feel like they're calling
to get their dog back. I don'tknow how else to describe it other
than that.
Right.
So Perry goes on to confirmthe details. And that's when the
caller gets pissed and says,what is this interrogation about?
That's my dog. You guys have.Let's get that straight, Detective,
(25:03):
before saying, I'll just cometo the pound. Goodbye.
So fucking weird.
It is so fucking weird. Also,dude, you're talking to a detective
about your dog that went missing.
Why?
I would have been like, whythe. Am I talking to the police?
Yeah. Would have been thefirst thing I said.
Right.
Oh, they have dog detectivesnow? I would love that. Every time
a dog goes missing.
Yeah.
You're gonna tell me they'regonna find its owner. But police
(25:25):
don't even have time to dopolice work.
Right.
They can't even help missingpeople, let alone missing dogs. We
understand that. Anyway, allI'm saying is that the person who
called, perhaps not that bright.
Right. Exactly. Now, less thanan hour later, Perry calls them back,
and he's like, hey, we mighthave gotten off on the wrong foot.
And he lets that person knowthat Titan was found near a crime
(25:48):
scene of a deceased person,and that's why he was asking so many
questions. Now, the callersounds stunned, but then says that
they've really been stressingabout Titan and that they paid a
lot of money for him, and thatwas, like, the biggest red flag,
right?
Like, mm, mm.
No concerned dog parent wouldever mention that they paid a lot
of money for their missingdog. The first questions out of their
(26:10):
mouth would be, how's the dog?Is he okay? Where is he? When can
I get him?
That also is just so at oddswith who Mandy was that it doesn't
even feel like this caller wastrying to pretend.
Yes.
That they were Mandy. Theywere just like, I don't have to.
That's a lot of fuckingaudacity. That also points out to
me that their plan wasprobably to sell Titan.
Yeah. Maybe Titan wouldn't getback in the.
(26:31):
Car or tried to bite them,which would have been very smart.
I hope so. I hope Titan bit them.
I hope Titan fucking took abite at a crime.
So Perry tries to confirmdetails again, and the caller sounds
a little distraught and saysthat they don't know some of the
details. Perry does a greatjob digging for information, though.
I will give that to him. Andhe stayed calm the entire time, even
(26:53):
though he knew that the callerwas, like, blatantly lying to him.
The caller then says somethingabout not being able to spend the
whole day speaking to Perryand that they'll just go to get Titan
and they don't want to beinterrogated when their puppy ran
off.
No.
Ultimately, the call ends withthe person claiming to be Mandy saying
something like, they will havetheir attorney call them because
Perry informed them that Titanwas on a police hold, and either
(27:17):
way, they can't come get him.He's on the hold.
Mm.
Surprisingly, an attorneynever called. Authorities used a
license plate reading systemknown as FLOCK to trace Mandy's car
to Aquarena Springs Drive inSan Marcos at the time of the call.
The photo of the car showsheavy rain, and when the call was
played in court, Ryan Calvert,one of the prosecutors, pointed out
(27:40):
the rhythmic squeaking soundof the car's windshield wipers. So
he's like, he's calling fromthe car. It's raining out. Do you
hear it? Perry said during thetrial that he is convinced that it
was Dagnalt who was pretendingto be Mandy. And like, to me, that
makes sense. Like, when youlook at his picture, you're like,
that's the voice I was hearing.
Yeah.
I just don't even know whathis plan was, though.
(28:02):
Yeah.
Was he going to say, I'm gonnasend my cousin to go pick up my dog?
Yeah. It doesn't make sense.It doesn't make sense.
That would have been weird too.
Yeah. Yeah. So the sending wasalso wild. Dagnaut ended up yelling
at Mandy's brother and had tobe escorted out. And this was during
Manny's brother's victim'simpact statement. Daganal kept interrupting
him and even accused him of acrime. Then he even talked back to
(28:25):
the judge. This guy hasaudacity. For days.
Yes.
Then a fight broke out betweenthe Daggernaut family and the Reynolds
family. And remember, they'reall family, but just because you're
a Reynolds doesn't mean thatyou're necessarily related to a Dagonal.
But anywho, one of the thingsthat, like we were thinking about
when we were researching washow difficult it would be for an
(28:46):
intra family violence in thisway where this is your sibling's
kid who did this to your baby.That's. That's fucking hard. You
lose your kids bad enough, butit's somebody in your family that
did it.
Yeah, right. Well, that andevery family member had tie in that
courtroom, at least had tiesto both people for, you know, different
reasons. They were both theirfamily members and both of them are
(29:07):
now gone, essentially.
Yeah. So Dagonalt's brother inlaw, M.K. herzberg, ended up trying
to hit someone on the Reynoldsside of the family. And he was taken
away in handcuffs. He was thenreleased 30 minutes later and no
charges were filed. Dagnottealso made a very bizarre statement
to a reporter. So he's beingled to jail. And he told a reporter
that he wanted to make astatement, and he reiterated that
(29:29):
his cousin had committed acrime. And then the reporter asked,
well, what about you? And hisresponse was, I guess I'm just a
murderer.
What?
What? During the punishmentphase, the jury learned that Dagnault
had been in trouble many timesin his life. So everything we talked
about earlier also, generallyyou can't bring up all of the crimes
that a person has committedforever in their life in a trial
(29:52):
unless that person is like, Icouldn't have done this. I'm a good
person. Once you startbringing in who you are as a person,
then they can do it. But notbefore then.
Yeah. And the prosecutor,even, I think, in a lot of the interviews
said something along the linesof, even if we hadn't brought this
up, he would've gotten thesame sentence like we had so much
evidence.
Yeah. Additionally, In Marchof 2024, he also received a combined
(30:15):
111 month sentence in Kansasfor multiple charges. So 52 months
for attempting to eludepolice, aggravated battery and criminal
possession of a weapon by afelon after the high speed chase.
So remember his hiding behindthe cans? 52 months for that. Then
he received 17 months fortheft linked to him stealing two
(30:35):
chainsaws, a vacuum cleaner, atoolkit, and a trash can from Lowe's
in Derby.
What? Why?
What an assortment. What doyou need two chainsaws for? Then
another three and a half yearswas added for a 20, 21 methamphetamine
possession charges. And hislife sentence requires him to serve
at least 30 years before he'seligible for parole, which hopefully
(30:58):
he never gets fucking paroled,because I think he just needs to
just stay locked away. Awayfrom everyone.
Yeah. He's where he. He shouldbe. Yes. So there's another just
terrible crime that he mightbe linked to as well. Friends and
family of a woman namedShenoah Hansell suspect that Dagnalt
(31:19):
may have been involved withher death as well. Now, she died
on March 1st of 2023.Reminder, Mandy was murdered just
a little over a month later onApril 5th of 2023. As of now, Dagnolt
has not been charged inconnection with her case. But on
one of the local news posts,we saw people who may have known
Chenoa mention that her andDagnalt were dating and that he said
(31:44):
some awful things to herbefore she passed. Someone else also
mentioned that he wasaggressive and threatened her. Another
said that she told people ifsomething happened to her, it was
him.
He does not seem like a personwho I would rule out in any way whatsoever.
Right. And I did see a fewother comments, too, that said they
(32:05):
suspect that maybe Mandy foundout about Chenoa and that's why he
killed her. Yeah. Again, wecan't confirm who knew who if it's
all factual, but interestingthat he mentioned that someone wanted
to question him about hisgirlfriend's death. I believe he
said February. She died March1. But maybe it was a late night,
(32:25):
you know, in February.
And why would that be relevantto bring up in terms of why you were
evading police? I'm not abeliever in just because you ran.
You're guilty, right? In thissituation, it Was true. But he's
listing all of the things thathe's done and, like, things that
he was in trouble for. Yes.And he lists his girlfriend as part
(32:45):
of that.
Exactly. So Lindsay and I werevery interested in what happened
to Chenoa because there's notreally much out there. There's very
lovely things that her friendsand family have said about her in,
like, her obituary and justwhat a great person she was. But
unfortunately, they stilldon't have any closure on this case.
We have requested somedocuments from the local government,
(33:08):
and we'll be looking into it alittle bit more. If we find something,
we'll bring it up in our TrueCrime Digest. But interesting. He
could be linked to anotherpotential murder.
Yeah.
So let's bring it back toMandy's case. When you look into
the case, most articles showyou this adorable picture of both
the prosecutors, Ryan Calverand Alyssa Killen. The investigator,
Keith Koons. And they're allthree crouching down with Titan for
(33:32):
this picture. Like, you know,the four of them got justice for
her and her family.
Yeah.
And just, I don't know, thelove that a dog can show for humans
is incredible. And he helpedthem to solve her murder so much
quicker than they likely wouldhave otherwise without him.
Yeah.
And Alyssa Killen said, quote,titan was key to investigating this
(33:53):
case. She didn't have any tiesto the area, so there really would
be no reason to think that shewould have ended up here. And just
from what we've seen, too,Dagnall also had no ties to that
area. So putting both of themthere would have been difficult.
We're not sure why he broughther body there. The only thing that
we saw is it was kind of anopen space, and it was on the way
(34:15):
to Wichita.
Yeah.
So it was just, I think, outof convenience for him. We do want
to end this with some goodnews, though. Titan was adopted by
Mandy's best friend, and fromsome of the sources we've seen, he's
doing great.
I'm glad that he is well lovedand doing okay.
Thinking about Titan andMandy, I think about it often with
my dogs, but, like, some ofthe best relationships we have in
(34:38):
our lives are with creaturesthat don't even speak the same language,
you know? Yeah. So just giveyour pup some extra love this week
for Mandy.
I would also like to requestthat you give your cat some extra
love.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's just because she was adog person. For all animals. Yes.
I will request cats as well.
I think she would have likedthat, too. Between Titan helping
(35:00):
to identify his person and howit seems like multiple police departments
in multiple jurisdictions andstates were able to work together
quickly. We're just so gladthat Dagnal was found and detained
fairly quickly. Like, in thiscase, usually we're like, ugh, this
jurisdiction should havetalked with this one and they should
have done this. This seemedlike it was flawlessly. Yeah.
(35:21):
Yeah.
And I'm just happy for that.We also hope that friends and family
of Shenoah are able to get thejustice and closure that they deserve
in the future as well.
Yeah, we. We know that lawenforcement can do good work. We
just like that to do it foreverybody. Even when they maybe make
judgments about that person orX, Y, Z. There's a. There's many
(35:41):
reasons why conclusions mightnot be reached, why justice might
not be received. And when youknow it can happen, it makes it even
more frustrating when itdoesn't. Because you're like, it's
not that you can't.
Yeah.
It's that you're. You won't.
Right. Right. You're notdedicating time to certain people
for silly things.
Yeah. And so if there's anycases that you're aware of that you
(36:04):
think need some more exposure,they need a little bit more pressure
in the world. Let us know.We'd love to cover them again. Love
your babies. Human and Furiousor scales. We'll include them. Why
not? Feathers, even.
Oh, yeah.
Well, with that, have a great weekend.
Thanks for creeping with us.
Thanks for listening and asalways, a special thank you to our
(36:25):
patrons who support us via Patreon.
Please see the link in ourshow notes to learn more about how
you. Yes, you can begin tohaunt the dump, guard vortexes, or
even become a scorchingSasquatch. Ooh.
Also in our show notes you canfind the link to our website, more
information on our sources,our social media handles, and our
merch store.
We'd love for you to keepcreeping with us, so if you like
(36:46):
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