WAKESHMA TOWNSHIP (WKZO AM/FM) — The body of murder victim Venus Stewart has been found in a remote area near Fulton in Southern Kalamazoo County.
State Police were led there by Doug Stewart, her estranged husband, who has already been convicted of her murder.
Stewart, who was living on the East Coast in April of 2010, thought he meticulously planned her murder,. He got someone to pose as him to establish an alibi, then driving overnight back to Michigan, snatching Venus, the mother of his two children from the front of her parent’s home.
He has apparently confessed that he knocking her out and choked her and then buryed her body in a spot he knew about near 42nd Street and U Avenue south of Climax in in Wakeshma Township.
His alibi fell apart when State Police found a receipt for a shovel, gloves and a tarp purchased the day before her disappearance in his truck, purchased at a Walmart in Ohio.
He maintained his innocence through his trial but State Police Detective Todd Petersen says overtime he changed his mind and confessed to the killing and agreed to lead them to the spot where he buried her body, for the sake of her family.
The State Police Forensics team, with the aid of an anthropologist, has recovered her skeletal remains.
Stewart is serving life without chance of parole at the Saginaw Correctional Facility.
State Police hopes it brings some closure to Venus Stewart’s family and friends.
