Air Force major charged with evidence tampering in wife’s disappearance
SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) – An Air Force Major assigned to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland has been arrested and charged in connection with the disappearance of his wife.
Twenty-nine-year-old Andreen McDonald was reported missing Friday when she failed to show up at work or at the gym.
“We believe that Andreen McDonald is no longer living,” Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said Sunday evening after the arrest of her husband.
Her husband, Major Andre McDonald, was taken into custody on a charge of tampering with evidence. He allegedly tore up a receipt for the purchase of a shovel, an ax, some heavy duty trash bags, two five-gallon containers of gasoline and a burn barrel.
“It led us to believe that these were implements that were going to be used to dispose of the body,” said Salazar.
As McDonald was being taken to jail, he was asked by reporters if he had anything to say. He replied,”I love my daughter. I love my family.”
Deputies had set up surveillance of McDonald on Saturday. They followed him to a gun store and watched him purchase a gun and ammunition. The sheriff says McDonald was in such a hurry, he left the gun and his identification at the gun shop.
The 40-year-old Cyberwarfare specialist was detained for a mental health evaluation and deputies executed a second search warrant Saturday evening. The sheriff says they found human blood in the couple’s home.
“He’s a very intelligent person, and I think he’s treating this as a game,” said Salazar.
He noted that McDonald was smirking and smiling when he was arrested.
“I think it’s pretty evident that we’re not joking around with him. He’s behind bars right now,” said the sheriff.
The sheriff and his deputies have been searching wooded areas along Highway 281 at Wilderness Oak in North Bexar County.
McDonald, who is a suspect in his wife’s disappearance, hasn’t been cooperating with investigators.
The sheriff says when they initially contacted McDonald about his wife’s disappearance on Friday, he “lawyered up pretty quick.”
Salazar says that made investigators suspicious.
“Not the fact that he asserted his rights. The fact that he didn’t seem to care very much at all that his wife was missing and the fact that he just flat out refused to help us find her,” said the sheriff.
He said the couple has a non-verbal autistic six-year-old daughter.
“To us, it’s pretty evident that she saw something. She saw what happened to her mom,” said Salazar.
The FBI and Air Force Office of Special Investigations are working with the BCSO as the search continues for Andreen McDonald.