Monday: No New Places To Search for Missing Mandy Matula

Eden Prairie Police continue to search for 24-year-old Mandy Marie Matula, who has been missing since the night of May 1.

There is no new information on a specific search location, police said Monday afternoon. The best evidence found so far is an unfired bullet found Saturday by a community search team investigating the area around County Road 4 and Scenic Heights Road.

“The focus of our investigation right now is to locate Mandy—and a part of doing that is to narrow the area that we have to look,” Police Chief Rob Reynolds said at a Monday news conference. “Right now we don’t have anything to hold us to any real one place to look.”

Watch the full new conference in the first video above.

The round of ammunition found Saturday is consistent with the ammunition David Roe was carrying when he shot himself, Reynolds said. It was the same type of round, the same caliber and the same brand. The round has been sent in to the crime lab for analysis to confirm that it was inside the gun Roe had at one point.

“Unfortunately that hasn’t led us to where Mandy is right now,” Reynolds said, adding later, “There’s no other piece of evidence that we believe right now is connected to the case as closely as that round would be nor has any of the evidence really led us to a better place to search.”

The chief declined to specify the caliber of round.

Neighbors have reported hearing gunshots on the evening that Matula disappeared. But Reynolds noted that the information varies in time and location—and so far only an unfired round has turned up.

“That area has been combed over many, many times—with humans, with devices, metal-finding devices, with dogs that search out anything that has any gunpowder in it—so we’ve gone over it several, several times,” Reynolds said.

He did note that Roe had purchased the gun legally on April 27 in Carver County. He would not say whether Roe bought the gun at a gun store.

Police have searched Roe's phone records and financial records to zero in on where he might have been Thursday before arriving at Eden Prairie City Center. Those records show that after Roe was last seen at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday at Matula's family home, he traveled a lot in Eden Prairie—as well as some in Carver County, Victoria, Chanhassen and Stearns County, near Sartell.

Roe is known to have had conversations with people on the phone during that time, but officers haven’t spoken to anyone who had face-to-face conversations with him.

Cellphone and financial records show that Roe stopped at a Maple Grove Standard station and bought gas at about 4 a.m. Thursday, according to a city of Eden Prairie news release.

Reynolds would not specify what was in the note Roe held up shortly before he shot himself. He said it had nothing to do with Matula’s disappearance and did not have anything that might provide information on where she is.

Officers searched videos on Roe’s phone. One of the videos was directed at his family and could be described as a goodbye video, the chief said.

Reynolds also said that Roe had been the suspect in a 2007 stalking case in which charges were referred and a restraining order issued. That case did not involve Matula.

Reynolds had high praise for Matula’s brother Steven Matula.

“Mandy’s brother Steven has been instrumental in helping us organize volunteers, Mandy’s friends and family, to start searching some of these areas we really can’t get to,” Reynolds said.

Lisa Matula wrote on the Facebook page dedicated to finding Mandy:

Want to thank everyone that is helping find my daughter. I cannot believe how many people she has touched and people that do not even know her to give up your time to help find her. God bless all of you.

Roe died at 3:04 a.m. Friday at Hennepin County Medical Center. The death has been classified as a suicide. Roe is listed as having shot himself at 1:32 p.m. Thursday.

Matula was reported missing after she failed to show up to work Thursday. She was last seen around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, with Roe at Matula's family home.

Matula's family told police that Roe and Matula left the house and said they might have been at Miller Park in Eden Prairie at around 1:30 a.m. Thursday. 

Matula and Roe were girlfriend and boyfriend but had broken up recently. Officers asked to speak to Roe after he was identified as a “person of interest,” and he agreed to come in. He shot himself in the head after parking in the Eden Prairie City Center parking lot before police were able to speak with him.

At this time, police have not organized a large-scale public search but they are recommending that Eden Prairie residents interested in helping should search their own property and neighborhoods, including nearby wooded areas. 

Anyone with information on Matula's whereabouts is asked to call 952-949-6200. The city has created a website with the latest information about the investigation at http://www.edenprairie.org/missingperson.

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See also: 

• Man Shoots Himself Prior To Questioning About Missing Woman
• Paper Left Behind After Man Shot Himself May Contain Clues to Woman's Disappearance
• Ex-Boyfriend of Missing Woman Dies After Shooting Himself
• Search Continues For Missing Eden Prairie Woman Mandy Matula