Crystal McDowell and her boyfriend, Paul Hargrave, are shown last month in a photo provided by Hargrave. McDowell’s ex-husband, Steven McDowell, was charged with her murder. (AP)

Texas

Woman, missing in Harvey, found slain

The body of a Texas real estate agent was found in a marshy wooded area Saturday more than two weeks after she disappeared the day Hurricane Harvey made landfall, authorities said.

The woman's ex-husband, Steven McDowell, 44, was charged with murder and booked into Chambers County jail, awaiting bail to be set.

Crystal McDowell, 37, a mother of two, vanished Aug. 25, the day Harvey landed in the Gulf Coast area of southeast Texas, Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said Sunday.

She disappeared after telling her boyfriend, Paul Hargrave, that she was headed to her

ex-husband's house to pick up her children, ages 5 and 8.

Her uncle reported her missing the following day.

Floodwaters and rain hampered the search, but McDowell's partly submerged car was found at a Motel 6 off an interstate highway. Authorities traced the last ping from her cellphone to a marshy area in Baytown, Tex., within a couple of days of her disappearance. The search resumed Thursday, and the body was found Saturday.

— Associated Press

Minnesota

Suburban student joined Islamic State

A suburban Minneapolis college student left his family while on vacation in Morocco two years ago and joined the Islamic State group in Syria, according to newly unsealed court files.

The case is the first disclosure of someone from Minnesota trying to join the Islamic State since nine Minnesota men were sentenced in federal court last year for plotting unsuccessfully to join the terrorist group. The case is among at least six open investigations of alleged Islamic State support in Minnesota from 2015 to as recently as late last year, the Star Tribune reported.

The newspaper reviewed newly unsealed court documents in which federal agents say Abdelhamid al-Madioum, then 18, apparently booked a flight from Morocco to Turkey, from which many aspiring Islamic State militants cross into Syria.

Al-Madioum, a naturalized U.S. citizen, studied engineering at Normandale Community College in Bloomington from June 2014 to May 2015.

— Associated Press

Man kills seven in Dallas before being shot by police: A gunman killed seven people at a home in a Dallas suburb on Sunday evening before being shot dead by police who were called to the scene, authorities told the Dallas Morning News. The shootings took place in Plano, a suburb north of Dallas. Plano authorities could not be reached by Reuters to verify details of the report. No information about the relationship between the suspect and the victims was available.

Woman found dead in hotel freezer: A 19-year-old Chicago woman has been found dead in a suburban hotel's freezer. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office said Kenneka Jenkins was pronounced dead Sunday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rosemont. An autopsy has been completed, but the cause of death hasn't been confirmed yet. Rosemont police said hotel workers found the body. They said she was last seen at a party at the hotel early Saturday. Tereasa Martin, Jenkins's mother, told the Chicago Tribune that police said Jenkins apparently let herself into the freezer while drunk.

Oberlin graduate suspected of killing 4: An Oberlin College graduate is a suspect in the killings of four people at a Massachusetts home. The Middlesex district attorney's office said Orion Krause, 22, of Rockport, Maine, will be arraigned Monday on murder charges in the four deaths Friday in Groton. Oberlin College and Conservatory identified Krause as a 2017 graduate of the school.

Suspect in child abuse deaths surrenders: A fifth suspect has surrendered to authorities in connection with the child abuse deaths of two young girls whose bodies were found on a southwestern Colorado farm outside Norwood. San Miguel County officials said four people were arrested Friday. The fifth suspect surrendered Saturday.

— From news services