Chilling Discovery: Texas Man Accused Of Hiding Wife’s Body On Ice In BathtubJake Grissom Sun, November 8, 2026 at 1:19 PM UTC
Weldon Ray Powell
A frantic family search for a missing East Texas woman ended in a gruesome discovery when authorities found her fatally shot, tucked inside a bathroom, and buried under layers of ice.
Weldon Ray Powell is currently behind bars at the Wood County Jail on a $1 million bond, facing a murder charge in the death of his wife, Brittany May Powell.
The grim chain of events began unraveling Nov. 4. Family members grew terrified after three days of total silence from Brittany, especially after a recent fight between the couple and an ominous text message she sent her sister saying she “was not good.”
Desperate for answers around midday, her brother-in-law checked the family’s Life360 tracking app. The screen pinged near Lake Quitman, about five miles north of town. Racing to the water, he found a witness who confirmed seeing Brittany’s pickup truck there a couple of hours earlier.
When the brother-in-law dialed Weldon Powell around 2:30 p.m., the husband offered an easy alibi: he was out running errands at a local shop, and Brittany was resting safely at home. But the story fell apart immediately. The brother-in-law drove straight to the store; Powell’s truck was nowhere in sight. He then sped to the couple’s house, pounding on the door and shouting into the quiet residence. Met only with silence, he dialed 911.
Police Lights (File)
The standoff broke around 6:45 p.m. in bizarre fashion. The couple’s landlord arrived, having spotted a cat in the window, and decided to go inside to check on it. With dispatchers on the line, he stepped into the bathroom and stumbled upon a house of horrors: Brittany’s body was positioned sitting upright against the bathtub, face turned toward the ceiling, covered in ice, with a towel draped across her face and a bullet lodged in her left temple.
Outside, the landlord spotted Weldon Powell pulling up toward the driveway, only for the husband to hit the gas and flee the moment the two locked eyes.
Deputies caught up with Powell shortly after. When investigators examined the scene, they found a bloody shoe print on the bathroom floor directly before Brittany’s body, a tread that matched the shoes Powell was wearing. Blood smears tracing a path from the back porch through the house suggested she had been killed off-site, hauled through the yard, and dragged inside to be hidden away.
Please make a small donation to the Tampa Free Press to help sustain independent journalism. Your contribution enables us to continue delivering high-quality, local, and national news coverage.
Sign up: Subscribe to our free newsletter for a curated selection of top stories delivered straight to your inbox.
Chilling Discovery: Texas Man Accused Of Hiding Wife’s Body On Ice In Bathtub
Source: Crime
