GRAND PRAIRIE —- Authorities say the body of a woman found Tuesday in a wooded area is the former girlfriend of a man who committed suicide after allegedly confessing to killing someone.
The man has been identified as 29-year-old Ivan Arellano, a convicted felon was wanted at the time of his death for felony violence assault in attacks on his 17-year-old former girlfriend, Desiree Morris.
"This guy was very violent and did some very violent things to her," said Grand Prairie police spokesman Lyle Gensler.
A string of Facebook posts shows a family trying to help a young woman who was struggling to leave an abusive relationship.
"No good comes from going back. You deserve better," her grandmother wrote in mid-March.
Her mother also wrote, "I just pray I don't [...] possibly bury my baby girl."
On Monday, Arellano was at an Arlington LaQuinta Inn, where police said he made threats and told a witness he had killed someone. Police later found him barricaded in a vehicle in a Lowe's parking lot, where he killed himself with a shot to the head.
The next day, the body of Morris was found in a wooded area near the 2400 block of Pioneer Parkway in Grand Prairie. Police believe she had been dead at least a week.
Authorities say Morris walked into the Grand Prairie police headquarters on March 10 to report that Arellano had assaulted her. In the course of interviewing her, she described two other assaults -- one that happened in Dallas and another in Grand Prairie.
Gensler says, at that time, police began hunting for Arellano, who prison records show was released from prison in November 2014. He has served time for burglary, theft and retaliation.
Grand Prairie detectives also obtained a felony family violence warrant for Arellano on March 23.
Authorities believe that he had been staying at his parents' house. They think he may have found out police were hunting for him, because he left in a friend's van and started bouncing around from place to place.
Not long after making the report, Morris began making calls requesting that the case be dropped. Police now believe that on at least one of the calls someone may have been forcing her to make the call.
"We received a couple of phone calls or voice messages from Desiree that indicated she wanted to drop the charges," Ofc. Gensler said. "That kind of caught us off-guard because of the severity of what -- in my words -- this monster had done to her."
Police told Morris that they were not dropping the case and encouraged her to come speak to a detective.
Her grandmother told News 8 Wednesday that the family was at the funeral home planning a service for her. She would have turned 18 in a just a few weeks.