A Whitley County man has been charged with murder in the disappearance of his former wife this week.

Early this morning, police still had not found the body of Debra Houser, 49, of Columbia City, but according to a probable-cause affidavit filed Friday morning in Whitley Circuit Court, a lot of evidence says she's dead: bloodstains in her abandoned Dodge Durango; her blood-soaked clothing found in a Waynedale trash bin; and the account of a man who said Rodney L. Houser, her former husband, asked for his help to bury Debra Houser's corpse.

Rodney Houser, 43, is being held in the Whitley County Jail. No bond has been set.

Investigators say they were tipped to Debra Houser's death Wednesday morning when an informant they did not identify came to the Whitley County Jail and told them he'd just left Rodney Houser without doing a grisly favor for him.

The informant said Rodney Houser had appeared at the informant's home in Waynedale and told him he needed help getting rid of some things. He said Houser threw a bag of “items” into the trash bin at the informant's home. Then Rodney Houser said he needed to get rid of the Dodge Durango he was driving as well. Together they went to an American Legion post, where Houser took the license plate off the Durango and then abandoned the truck in the parking lot.

The informant said he gave Rodney Houser a ride back to Debra Houser's home in Whitley County, where Rodney Houser had been living, even though the couple was divorced. On the way to Whitley County, according to the informant, Rodney Houser told him he had killed his former wife. He said he needed help disposing of her body.

When they arrived at Debra Houser's home, Rodney Houser told the informant he needed to change clothes and get a shovel. That's when the informant drove off, headed for the Whitley County Sheriff's Department.

Investigators did not find Debra Houser at the home when they checked it. They reported that Rodney Houser said his former wife had left for work. However, her colleagues at The Post and Mail newspaper in Columbia City said she never showed up Wednesday and had not called to explain her absence.

As police broadened their investigation into Debra Houser's disappearance, this is what they said they found:

♦An abandoned Dodge Durango, registered to Debra Houser, in the American Legion parking lot. What appeared to be fresh blood stained the vehicle's rear seats, which had been folded down.

♦At Debra Houser's home, a bracelet she had been wearing was found in the driveway.

♦Sheets had been stripped from the main bedroom in the home and were found to have been washed. A water-saturated set of camouflage clothing was found there as well.

♦At the informant's home, a bag found in the trash bin contained Debra Houser's purse, cell phone, women's pants stained with what appeared to be fresh blood, men's pants and a shirt similarly bloodstained, and a pair of cowboy boots.

Interviews with Debra Houser's 22-year-old daughter and the 9-year-old son of Debra Houser and Rodney Houser indicated that the Housers had been fighting Tuesday night. Debra Houser's daughter said her mother had gathered up Rodney Houser's belongings and set them outside the home Tuesday night.