Man Arrested In Connection To Disappearance Of Missing Reality Show Contestant

Jackie Jerome Rogers was arrested and charged with murder Tuesday in connection with the disappearance of Lisa Marie Naegle, a nurse and former reality show contestant, reports CBS 2.

Sal Ramirez, a public information officer with the LAPD, told LAist that the search for Naegle has now become a homicide investigation, and that investigators and examiners from the coroner’s office are heading to a residence on the 5000 block of West 106th Street in Inglewood.

Naegle, 36, was reported missing after she’d failed to return from a birthday party on Saturday. According to CBS, Naegle taught at West Los Angeles College, where Rogers was one of her students. Rogers was a person of interest before the case had become a homicide investigation, reports ABC 7. Rogers had apparently provided information to the LAPD that led officers to believe that Naegle was murdered, and that her body is likely buried at Rogers' residence. "Investigators believe her body is at the location, but we're not one-hundred percent sure right now," said Ramirez. According to TMZ, Rogers had confessed to officers that he'd attacked Naegle with a hammer during early Sunday morning, and that he had buried her in his backyard.

As we’d reported in an earlier story, surveillance footage showed Naegle getting into a black SUV with an acquaintance after the party. Media outlets now say that that acquaintance was Rogers. Before he was a murder suspect, Naegle’s family had contacted him for more information about Naegle. "We begged and pleaded that he'd come to our home to kind of give us details on what time, where were things, and when he left her, but while he was talking to us and telling us his story, multiple different times he said he absolutely did not go home with her, or did not take her home," said Danielle Naegle-Kaimona, Naegle’s sister.

Rogers is currently held on $2 million in bail.