Grapevine police say they have video evidence that the 24-year-old woman left a bar in Denton at about 11 p.m. last Tuesday with Charles Dean Bryant, a 30-year-old from Fort Worth. Police were also able to find fingerprints on the corpse that they say belong to Bryant.
Police arrested him Sunday at his home in Haslet. He is currently being held on $1 million bond.
Grapevine police Sgt. Robert Eberling said Monday that police did not yet know how Vandagriff and Bryant knew each other, but said it was possible that the two met for the first time last Tuesday after first connecting online.
According to her Twitter account, on the night of her death Vandagriff said she'd been using dating sites and that she felt like she was being misled by a guy she was talking to on Tinder.
I was considering hooking up with this guy on tinder, and I asked for his Facebook or instagram he unmatched me ¯\_(?)_/¯
— boring blonde (@nochillblonde) September 14, 2016
Eberling called what happened the "worst case scenario" for parents of daughters. "It's something to remind all of us who have children — as often as you can, tell them that you love them," he said.
Bryant was last employed by the Urban Cowboy in Fort Worth, the city's largest gay bar. He was fired Sunday morning, the club said in a statement issued Monday, when he didn't show up for his shift.
"Monday afternoon we learned why he didn't show," the bar's statement said. "We are grieving with our community and offer our deepest condolences for the Vandagriff family and friends. We are cooperative with authorities and will fully support law enforcement in their investigation."
Adding to the grim mystery is one final post on social media. As Vandagriff's body was undergoing an autopsy last Thursday, her Twitter account published a single tweet:
Police said Monday they were aware of the message, but couldn't confirm who sent it or what it signified.Never knew I could feel like this
— boring blonde (@nochillblonde) September 16, 2016
