Capitol Heights man entombed woman in home after killing her, police say

The body of a missing D.C. woman was found “entombed” inside a Capitol Heights home over the weekend. Police have charged the homeowner, who also had a child with the woman, in her death.

During a news conference on Tuesday, authorities said there was evidence the relationship between 30-year-old Devontae Gray and 29-year-old Alexis Schuler had been volatile.

Capitol Heights Police Chief Darryl Morgan said officers had been called to the home on Larchmont Avenue on multiple occasions in the past eight months, though none of those calls ever resulted in an arrest.

The most recent call came on Jan. 9, when Gray called the police on Schuler. He had also requested protective orders against Schuler, though a court never signed off on them.

Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy noted it was significant that those requests were rejected, since the standard to get one is low.

“Our first visit in the month of January was on Jan. 9, where we actually saw her driving by the residence when we responded to his call for complaint,” Morgan said. “So she was alive.”

Schuler was last seen Jan. 10. Authorities believe she was shot and killed on Jan. 11.

That same day, according to charging documents, Gray told another woman who he had a child with that he might be going to jail.

Schuler’s family filed a missing person’s report in D.C. on Jan. 14. While Capitol Heights officers noticed a smell inside the home, they noted the residence was also in dirty condition, causing the smell.

Four days later, they returned with a search warrant and started combing through the home.

The crime scene inside a Capitol Heights home. (WTOP/John Domen)

“While inside the house, our homicide detectives and evidence team, along with the Prince George’s County Fire Department located Ms. Schuler’s remains inside a newly constructed wall,” Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz said.

After breaking through drywall underneath a stairwell that was covered by a fake brick wall, Schuler’s body was found inside a plastic bin that was filled with soil and hay, and then closed and covered in concrete. It took authorities about three hours to retrieve her body.

“To go inside of that residence and see what Devontae Gray was doing in that house, yes, it was a great amount of work being done and to conceal what he had done,” Aziz said. “This is a shared residence of someone up top and someone at the bottom.”

He then posted a picture of the new construction that police had cut through to find the body.

“And as you can see from this picture right here, where we’ve been allowed to show without compromising the early investigation of this case, it was a great amount of concealment. Walls being torn out, trying to conceal Ms. Alexis Schuler,” he said.

Eventually, police said Gray confessed to shooting her two to three times.

“It was clear that this was not a relationship that was going in the right direction, and now we have the ultimate tragedy and a very, very, very young woman who’s a mother of three, who will never be able to hold her children again,” Braveboy said. “That’s tough.”

Relatives of Schuler also gave a statement on Tuesday.

“Although the outcome is not what we had hoped, we take solace in knowing that Alexis has been found, and we now have the closure to lay her to rest in peace,” said Derrick Felder, Schuler’s cousin. “Alexis will be deeply missed, and there is a void in our family that can never be filled. Her three children will no longer feel their mother’s embrace or hear their mother’s voice.”

Felder also echoed law enforcement in the warnings about domestic violence.

“This is not what love looks like. Someone who truly loves you would never do what Devontae Gray did to her,” he said. “Please take domestic violence seriously. If you are going through this, look at my cousin’s story and know that it is a call to wake up, seek help and prioritize your safety above all.”

It’s not clear if Schuler and Gray were involved romantically at the time of her death.

Gray faces first and second-degree murder charges as well as other firearm related charges.

Lawyers for Gray waived a bond hearing set for Tuesday afternoon. He will remain behind bars while prosecutors present the case to a grand jury in the coming weeks.

“He’s facing some serious charges now, and there may be others that are considered in the near future,” Braveboy said.

“We believe him to have committed this homicide and tried to conceal it, and as you heard, confessing to it,” Aziz said. “For whatever the reasons may be, in my opinion as the chief of police, in 35 years in his job, there is no justification for (this) homicide.”

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John Domen

John started working at WTOP in 2016 after having grown up in Maryland listening to the station as a child. While he got his on-air start at small stations in Pennsylvania and Delaware, he's spent most of his career in the D.C. area, having been heard on several local stations before coming to WTOP.

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