Stafford County police have arrested a 35-year-old Springfield man and charged him with kidnapping and killing his ex-girlfriend.
According to the Stafford County Sheriff's Department, John Rogers was arrested on Thursday, April 14, and charged with first-degree murder and abduction of 35-year-old Renee Madaris of Woodbridge. Rogers is being held without bond at the Rappahannock Regional Jail.
Sheriff's Department spokesman Maj. David Decatur said that Madaris was last seen during an altercation with Rogers outside Brittany's Sports Bar in Woodbridge on Wednesday, April 6.
"We have reason to believe (the murder) occurred (in Stafford County). There was an altercation in Prince William County, witnesses that saw (Rogers) assaulting her, but we believe that the crime occurred here," said Decatur.
On Thursday, April 7, a construction worker at the Port Aquia Townhouse complex in North Stafford discovered a car that was registered to Madaris, completely burned. Decatur said Stafford County Sheriffs contacted Prince William County police to run a check of the car, but Madaris no longer lived at the address on her registration. Three days later, on Sunday, April 10, a family member reported Madaris missing, and later that day, her body was discovered in a field about a mile across the Stafford County line from Prince William County, by a man walking his dog.
Rogers was arrested, according to Decatur, based on the eyewitness reports of the pair's confrontation in Woodbridge and other evidence.
"There are some things that connected him to the area, where the car was located and where her body was found," he said.
<1b>— Glenn McCarty