 I'm Darren Marlar and this is a Weird Darkness bonus bite. From the New York Post, Houston woman charged with killing landlord, hiding body, collecting rent from other tenants. A Texas woman who claimed that her missing Houston landlord faked his death and ran away to Africa two years ago has been arrested on murder and theft charges. Pamela Ann Merritt allegedly killed Colin Kordaki, confessed to friends, hid the body under stairs for months and told police when they showed up that the remains belonged to a dead dog, according to court documents. People reported Kordaki missing in February 2021 after a winter storm and deep freeze gripped the city and caused widespread power outages. The arrest comes after the discovery of the missing man's body led a detective to review the case and stitch together a series of suspicious events. On February 23, 2021, Joe Guy, a tenant of Kordaki's, told police that he came home from a long trip and found Kordaki gone and Merritt inside and refusing to leave. He told me that he asked her where Mr. Colin the landlord was and the defendant replied that he was dead and that she killed him. A Houston detective wrote in the criminal complaint after reviewing body cam footage from the 2021 missing person report and re-interviewing the witnesses. At the time, police took Merritt to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, according to court filings. But by October 2021, Merritt was back in the building and Kordaki had still not been found. Another tenant, Tabitha Pope, called police to report a suspicious discovery. Large pools and drops of blood in the building's upper floors, a knife in the mailbox and a bin with blood in it in a crawl space. Pope had recently moved into the building and told police she was paying rent to Merritt and her boyfriend Michael Brown who has been charged with evidence tampering. According to Pope, Merritt and Brown told her conflicting stories about the building's owner. One was that he was missing, the other was that he died in the hospital. Suspicious of their claims, Pope in December apparently tricked them into revealing the location of Kordaki's body by saying the discovery of his remains would keep the house out of foreclosure, according to court documents. Two days later, on the afternoon of December 5th, 2021, Michael Brown and the defendant started talking loudly about a dead dog under the back stairs, the criminal complaint alleges. Pope called police, who arrived to find Kordaki's decomposing remains and Merritt and Brown allegedly painting over a bloodstained wall on the second floor. Police interviewed Merritt and Brown and Merritt said the remains belonged to a dead dog. She also allegedly told detectives that she thought Kordaki faked his death and went to Africa. Furthermore, she allegedly claimed the blood around the house was from rotten meat that she cleaned out of a refrigerator. According to the complaint, Brown told detectives that he last saw Kordaki in February 2021 with a stab wound to his stomach but thought that he just left and probably went to the hospital. An autopsy determined that Kordaki had been stabbed multiple times. Based on phone records and other witness statements, police believe he was likely murdered February 15, 2021. Police arrested Brown in March and filed charges against Merritt on May 30, but she remained on the run until last Friday when authorities captured her without incident. She's currently being held at the Harris County Jail on $500,000 bond. Find the link to the original story in the show notes and find more news in the Weird News and Blog at WeirdDarkness.com.