Megan Burdeaux loved to travel, but when her boyfriend of 18 months, Ed Manning, recently lost his home and his job, her mother says she refused to travel to another state to start over.

"He did want here to go back to Texas with him and she did not want to do that, because she was a vet,” her mother told us, “She worked at a vet's clinic in Clarksville. She loved her job. Loved animals."



On Tuesday morning, Megan headed out from her Glen Burnie home to go to work, but she never made it there.

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Her family reported her missing that night, and police later received a tip that her boyfriend may have killed her.



The search for both ended when police spotted his van on a dead end road in Odenton at about three o’clock in the morning.

"Officers approached the vehicle, found the suspect still inside the vehicle, he struggled with the officers, they ultimately took him into custody,” said Marc Limansky of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, “Also, in the vehicle was found a deceased female, 21-years-old, a victim in this case. She had apparently been deceased for some time as though he'd been driving around with her in the vehicle for at least a day."



Megan's family believes Manning must have been waiting for her as she left for work on Tuesday and convinced her to pull over.

"I think he followed her, because she would have never have gotten into his van voluntarily," said her mother.



According to court records, Manning told police that the couple had got into a fight inside his van while it was parked outside the Walmart on Ritchie Highway in Pasadena and that he had choked her with his hand until she died.

"It's like her life being taken from her in such a manner, a violent manner, all of our hopes and our dreams have been ripped from us,” her mother told us, “because her goals were my goals. Her hopes were my hopes."