Chilling Madeline Pantoja update as cops reveal ‘odd’ clues that sparked search for her body and Mario Chacon’s arrest

POLICE have revealed chilling details about their investigation into the death of Madeline Pantoja in a new affidavit.

The 21-year-old went missing on May 10 and was found dead on Saturday.

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Her ex-boyfriend Mario Juan Chacon Jr., 24, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

The two had recently broken up and were fighting the day Pantoja disappeared from her apartment in Midland, Texas, about 300 miles west of Austin.

In the affidavit, police revealed that Chacon still had a key to Pantoja’s apartment.

When they searched the unit, they found a bedsheet with a red stain, a dirty bucket of water, and several broken doors.

FIGHT BEFORE DISAPPEARANCE

Before Pantoja disappeared, she was upset about a fight with the suspect and was not taking his calls, the document says.

Chacon contacted the victim’s brother around 8.30pm and asked him to set up a three-way call so he and Pantoja could talk.

The brother ultimately refused Chacon’s request.

Pantoja had plans to go swimming with her friend Jasmine Hernandez on the evening of May 11.

But when Hernandez arrived at the apartment complex around 6pm, Pantoja didn’t answer the door or any of her calls.

Hernandez noticed there was a light on when she drove away from the apartment shortly afterward.

She returned at 8pm because she had a sense there was something wrong and saw that the light had been turned off.

That’s when Hernanzdez called Pantoja’s brother. The pair got in touch with a maintenance worker at the building, who opened the victim’s apartment.

Inside, Hernandez and the brother found Pantoja’s keys, purse, and dog, who had been left without food or water.

They told police this was strange, as Pantoja rarely left her beloved pet for more than two hours at a time.

The pair also noticed that a black coffee table was missing from the apartment which they found, “extremely odd,” the affidavit says.

FAMILY CONTACTS SUSPECT

Pantoja’s friends and family contacted Chacon, who said he hadn’t seen her.

He “did not appear concerned,” the affidavit says.

Chacon also said that he’d been at home with his father that night and was unable to drive because he was taking “anger medication.”

The police were also called. They came to conduct a welfare check and began a missing person investigation.

Officers found holes in two of the unit’s doors, one of which also had a person’s hair on it.

They also found a red stain on a bedsheet, a mop, and a “dirty bucket of water,” the affidavit says.

Investigators noticed the floor was “extremely sticky as it is when too much cleaning product is used.”

POLICE INTERVIEW SUSPECT

Police interviewed Chacon late on the night of May 12. He claimed he’d been home all night on May 10 and hadn’t seen Pantoja since May 9.

But in a subsequent interview, he admitted he came to the victim’s apartment complex on the night of May 10 to drop off a cousin who also lived there.

But surveillance cameras from local businesses spotted Chacon’s truck in the area later that night, as well.

Investigators interviewed the suspect again on May 18.

He refused to take a polygraph test and asked to leave the police station.

Investigators received Chacon’s phone records on May 20, which the affidavit says helped them find Pantoja’s body.

Her corpse was allegedly discovered on top of the coffee table missing from her apartment, a source close to the investigation told YourBasin.

Chacon was taken into custody later that day. He’s currently being held on a $3million bond.

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