Cops: Killer burned body parts on grill

HOUSTON - Neighbors at a city apartment complex noticed an acrid aroma, black smoke and leaping flames coming from two barbecue grills on the balcony of a second-floor apartment.

What, neighbors at the Red Oak Place apartments wondered, was going on in the unit where 27-year-old Timothy Wayne Shepherd lived? What was he burning at all hours, for days at a time?

According to police, Shepherd dismembered, and then burned the body of his former girlfriend, Tynesha Stewart, a 19-year-old Texas A&M freshman.

Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas said Shepherd admitted killing because she started a new relationship. *

-Associated Press