Jasper County Sheriff Chuck Havard says a second arrest has been made in the October 2021 shooting death of Christi Ruso and the gun that was used to kill her has been recovered.
According to Havard, on Thursday afternoon deputies executed a warrant at a location in Hardin County and arrested 29-year-old Mourie Collier, of Silsbee.
Collier is the ex-girlfriend of Colby Tatom, the man who admitted in court to killing Ruso, burning her body, and then dumping her remains in the Neches River at Evadale. Search efforts continue in the river below the Highway 96 bridge to find the remains of Ruso.
The sheriff says that Collier lived with Tatom in his house on County Road 777 near Buna when Ruso was shot and killed in the house on October 21st, 2021.
According to Havard, the investigation revealed that after Ruso was killed, Collier took the Rossi brand .44 caliber handgun and pawned it at the Big Thicket Pawn Shop in Silsbee on December 30th, 2021.
Collier has been charged with third degree felony Tampering with Physical Evidence.
The sheriff said in a statement, “Had Collier not tampered with this evidence and notified law enforcement, this investigation would have been concluded significantly sooner with an extremely different outcome. She literally destroyed this investigation by covering for Colby Tatum and concealing this information by tampering with a key piece of evidence. Her actions directly obstructed justice and hampered our ability to convict Tatum of murder. We will continue to utilize every resource and investigative tool we have at our disposal to put people in jail that had any involvement in this case.”
https://www.kjas.com/news/local_news/article_b0c56986-7e2d-452a-ad16-09b226294350.html