Woman who vanished on her way to sonogram is found dead and ex-boyfriend is charged

The body of a pregnant Washington woman who went missing in August has been found over a steep hillside and her ex-boyfriend, believed to be the father of her unborn baby, has been charged in her disappearance and murder, say police.

On Tuesday, September 22, a team of detectives from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office located the body of Kassanndra Cantrell, 33, of Parkland, in a heavily wooded ravine along Chambers Creek Road in University Place, Washington, USA, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

Later that day, a heavily armed SWAT team arrested her ex-boyfriend, Colin Patrick Dudley, 37, at his home.

Dudley is charged with first-degree murder and is being held at the Pierce County Jail, online jail records show.

“This is a sad ending but this is the ending we expected,” Sheriff’s Office spokesman Det. Ed Troyer said, adding, “At least now we can get closure for the family.”

Cantrell was in the first trimester of her pregnancy when she went missing the morning of August 25, her mother, Marie Smith, told PEOPLE before her daughter’s body was found.

On the morning Cantrell vanished, Smith said she thought her daughter had gone to an ultrasound appointment to determine whether she was having twins or multiples, she told PEOPLE.

When Cantrell uncharacteristically failed to return home and no one could reach her, her family reported her missing.

“I knew something was wrong,” Smith told PEOPLE.

On Aug. 28, a day after Cantrell was reported missing, her white Mazda was found abandoned in downtown Tacoma at the other end of town.

Smith said she found that very odd.

“I told police, ‘There is no reason for her to ever be in that area,’” she said.

On Sept. 1, detectives – accompanied by a SWAT team and a team of forensic investigators from the FBI – executed a search warrant at Dudley’s house and took away many items, including his truck.

GPS data obtained from Dudley’s truck led detectives to the wooded area along Chambers Creek Road West in University Place, about 10 miles from Dudley’s house, where they conducted a detailed ground search.

“At approximately 2:00 p.m., our detectives found a set of human remains that were wrapped and disposed of over a steep hillside along Chambers Creek,” the sheriff’s office says in its statement.

Cantrell had dated Dudley years ago but ended up breaking up with him, her mother told PEOPLE.

Smith said her daughter told her “He’s just a jerk.”

In recent years, they started hanging out again as friends, Cantrell previously told her mother.

When Cantrell got pregnant, she told her mother how excited she was to become a mom but was vague about the identity of the father. But Smith later learned that Cantrell had confided in other relatives and her friends that Dudley was actually the father of the baby.

When police spoke to Dudley about Cantrell, he allegedly told them he hadn’t seen or spoken to Cantrell in years, search warrants obtained by local station Q13Fox show. Phone records showed otherwise, according to the warrants.

Dudley has not yet entered a plea.