BEXAR COUNTY, Texas – A man whose wife’s body was found decomposing and wrapped in plastic inside their south Bexar County home worked for a San Antonio-area school district.
A spokesperson for the Floresville Independent School District confirmed Charles Byrd, 49, had worked in the maintenance department as a master plumber since 2021.
As a result of Byrd’s arrest, the spokesperson told KSAT that he is no longer employed by the school district.
The spokesperson also noted that Byrd did not have any direct contact with students during his work with the district.
On Monday, Byrd remained in the Bexar County jail on a charge of tampering with physical evidence with the intent to impair a human corpse.
According to an arrest affidavit, sheriff’s investigators found the body of his wife, 44-year-old Angela Byrd, over the weekend wrapped in blankets, a carpet and plastic, all bound with ratchet straps.
The affidavit stated one of Byrd’s relatives told investigators he smelled a foul odor near Byrd’s home on Pleasanton Road, south of Loop 1604.
That relative then called the sheriff’s office, telling investigators that Byrd had confessed to him that he killed his wife, according to the affidavit.
Bexar County Sheriff’s Office detectives and a SWAT team descended on the property on Saturday morning, searching for evidence and Byrd, who had disappeared.
They later located him inside another home on the property and arrested him on Sunday afternoon.
In a Sunday evening news conference, BCSO Sheriff Javier Salazar said investigators were waiting on an autopsy to determine how Angela Byrd died and whether her husband would face additional charges.
After his arrest, Byrd spoke to reporters briefly, telling them he killed his wife during a “mental break.”
“It’s sad because they’re your neighbors and you didn’t even know what was going on inside their home,” said Esther Martinez, who owns a church next door to Byrd’s property. “I can’t get it out of my mind, you know, because it’s so devastating.”
Martinez said she wondered about the cause for the commotion as detectives and a SWAT team moved into the area. She said she later learned more about it from watching the news.
“We heard on the TV that possibly the body could’ve been there for a month,” she said. “I said, ‘Oh my God,’ and we’ve been here all this time.”
It is still unclear how long Angela Byrd had been dead, although the affidavit mentioned that her body was decomposing.
The court document said Byrd’s relative told them he had not been inside the home since Father’s Day, which was on June 15.
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