An Austin, Texas, neighborhood is on high alert after a woman’s body was found burned alive on the side of the road, with an arrest yet to be made.
Melissa Davis, 33, was pronounced dead at the scene after firefighters found her when responding to a report of a grass fire in the upscale area of Cat Mountain on September 29, the Daily Mail reported.
Police reportedly “smelled a strong odor of accelerant” near the victim’s body, which was located in a grassy patch next to the intersection of Mesa Drive and Cat Mountain Drive.
According to detectives, a lighter that appeared to be new and a butcher knife were also recovered from the scene. The search warrant for the case states that police believe the knife was “placed with the decedent in an attempt to destroy the evidence with the fire.”
An autopsy of Davis’s body revealed that she had been burned alive, though the perpetrator is currently unknown.
While a suspect has yet to be named, the Austin Police Department (APD) obtained a search warrant for the victim’s phone data, and uncovered that she left her mother’s home the day before her death, telling her she had to go have her phone fixed at the Apple store. Davis’s phone was not found at the scene.
APD also announced they are looking for the victim’s car, which was also missing from the scene.
The department made a post on Facebook describing the vehicle as a 2016 blue Toyota 4Runner with a Texas license plate reading “KYV3765.”
“A reward of up to $1,000 may be available for any information that leads to an arrest,” police said.
According to Davis’s Facebook page, she was living in Taos, New Mexico, but was originally from Austin.
Her best friend, Ellie Simmons, shared her grief with KVUE.
“She had more of a zest for life than I think anyone else,” the heartbroken friend said. “And we actually had dreams together with one of our other friends to start a hostel in Costa Rica and we would have an art station. She painted. She loved art.”
Simmons, who said she was like a “soul sister” to Davis, described her deceased friend as “a shining light in the dark” who “made any situation that was harder or darker, lighter.”
Davis Haisman, another good pal of Davis’s, told the outlet that he was left with “such a deep grief.”
“Just to know that this person I cared so much about was not only gone but had been through such an ordeal,” he said. “I still feel like my heart is breaking. Like I’m being stabbed. Like I’ve been stabbed and I’m bleeding out slowly.”
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