BAYTOWN, Texas – Police released a sketch Tuesday of a man they described as a person of interest in the case of a Baytown woman who was found dead on Mother’s Day.
Police went to the West Baker Street apartment of 50-year-old Nataliya Shal about 9:45 p.m. May 8, after her husband said he had been unable to reach her. Officers saw her body through a window.
Shal was brutally killed, police said.
During a news conference Tuesday, investigators said they had recently found a witness who provided them with a description of a man who was seen outside Shal’s apartment on the day she died.
The man was described as black, in his late teens or early 20s, about 6 feet tall, with a thin build. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt.
Steve Dorris, a homicide investigator for Baytown police, said they are not sure if the man seen in the sketch was involved in Shal’s death, but detectives want to interview him.
Shal’s husband said during the news conference that he bought Mother’s Day flowers for his wife a few days before the holiday.
“Those flowers were still on the table when all of this happened,” he said. “People talk about soulmates. We were.”
Dorris said that Baytown Crime Stoppers increased the reward for information leading to the arrest and charging of the person responsible for Shal’s death to $25,000.
Anyone with information about the case was asked to call Baytown Crime Stoppers at 218-427-8477.