Deputies searching for Michael Poche found blood and then his body, undermining an early account that he had left the residence.
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — At about 4:30 p.m. July 26, a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy was sent to a far West Side home to look for a man who supposedly was no longer there. Before the search ended, the deputy found evidence that transformed the call: the missing man, Michael Anthony Poche, was dead inside the house.
The sequence of that afternoon is at the heart of an investigation that has since been formally classified as a homicide. Poche, 29, was found wrapped in clear plastic inside a closet in a vacant bedroom. The medical examiner later concluded that he died from multiple sharp-force injuries. Margaret Kaye Brown, the friend who reported him missing, and her husband, Christopher Boyd Henson, both 30, have been charged with tampering with physical evidence after investigators alleged that they attempted to clean the scene. No publicly reported homicide charge identifies Poche’s killer.
The account deputies first received pointed away from the home. Brown and the woman who lived there told authorities that Poche, a new tenant, had gone out during the early morning hours after experiencing what they called a “night terror.” The homeowner said she last saw him at approximately 2 a.m. The implication was that deputies would need to determine where Poche went after leaving. Instead, the search began producing evidence that caused them to look more closely at what had happened within the residence itself.
Blood was one of the first signs that the missing-person call might involve something more serious. Sheriff Javier Salazar said the responding deputy noticed blood evidence while checking the home. Rather than ending the search after taking statements from those present, the deputy continued through the rooms. He eventually entered a vacant bedroom and opened a closet. Inside was a male body encased tightly in plastic. Authorities said the body had multiple visible injuries. At that point, the search for a missing person had become an investigation of a suspicious death scene.
Salazar addressed the unusual circumstances directly when speaking publicly after the discovery. He said it was highly unlikely that a person would seriously harm himself and then somehow end up wrapped as tightly as the man in the closet. Investigators therefore approached the case on the possibility that they were dealing with a homicide even before the medical examiner made a formal ruling. Authorities initially avoided saying with certainty that the body belonged to the man reported missing, leaving identification and cause of death to forensic examination.
The scene itself then produced a second line of investigation. Deputies found indications that someone had tried to clean blood or other evidence before law enforcement arrived, according to the sheriff’s office. Investigators accused Brown and Henson of participating in that effort. Henson arrived at the home during the search, authorities said, and the couple were ultimately taken into custody. Each was charged with tampering with physical evidence, a charge focused on the alleged handling of the scene rather than on who caused the death.
Detectives widened the investigation beyond the Fort Leonard address. Salazar said evidence believed to be related to the death was recovered at a nearby residence and investigators intended to conduct additional searches. Officials have not publicly explained in the reporting reviewed exactly what that evidence was or how it connected the second location to Poche’s death. The existence of another scene added to the unanswered questions surrounding where each relevant event occurred and what investigators believed happened before the deputy arrived.
Then came the forensic answers. Authorities confirmed that the body in the closet was Poche, eliminating the distinction between the missing-person case and the death investigation. The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a homicide and attributed it to multiple sharp-force injuries. The finding established that Poche had not merely disappeared after hurting himself. It also gave investigators an official cause and manner of death while stopping short of identifying the person responsible, which remains a separate question for law enforcement and prosecutors.
Poche’s family has described an earlier series of conversations that further complicates the original story that he left. His mother, Angela Long, told the San Antonio Express-News that Brown called her on the morning of July 26, hours before the sheriff’s office was contacted. Long said Brown reported that Poche had hurt himself and left the home carrying a backpack, clothing and keys. Long said the account concerned her because Poche supposedly left behind possessions that she believed he routinely kept close, including items connected to his vaping and tattoo work.
More troubling to the family were photographs of Poche’s room. Long said Brown sent her images containing what appeared to be extensive blood. The Express-News reported that photographs it reviewed showed blood staining a mattress and the carpet. Long said the condition of the room did not fit the explanation she was being given. Poche’s grandmother, Peggy Rowan, said she was also on the phone during some of the discussions and remembered hearing that Brown planned to clean the blood. Family members told her not to clean the room before police examined it, Rowan said.
Long said she urged Brown to report Poche missing, and Brown eventually made the call that brought deputies to the home. That detail gives the case an unusual chronological turn: the same report that was based on Poche supposedly having left the property directly led law enforcement to the location where his body was discovered. Investigators have not publicly explained why the people at the residence apparently believed or said that Poche had gone elsewhere while his remains were inside, nor have authorities publicly released a full timeline accounting for everyone at the house during the relevant hours.
The evidence-tampering allegations do not resolve those questions. Brown and Henson were each initially assigned a $100,000 bond, and later reports said both were released. Brown declined to comment when contacted by the Express-News. The charges remain accusations, and neither defendant should be considered guilty unless the allegations are proven. Most importantly, a charge that someone attempted to alter or clean evidence does not itself establish that the same person committed the underlying homicide. Publicly available reporting through Aug. 28 does not show that either has been charged with Poche’s killing.
The missing-person narrative also unfolded against a friendship that went back years. Long said Brown and Poche knew each other from junior high school in Tehachapi, California. Poche had most recently been living in Oregon before coming to San Antonio, and Brown helped him arrange a room through a friend. Long said her son was searching for work and trying to establish more stable housing. That background meant the person who called to tell the family Poche was gone was not a stranger but someone with a longstanding connection to him.
Poche remained closely tied to relatives in California. His mother said he called regularly and spoke with her about how he was doing. Family members said he enjoyed skateboarding, riding bikes, playing video games, tattooing and animals. He had a dog named Smokey and was the father of two daughters, ages 7 and 11. Those details emerged only after the initial crime-scene reporting, when Poche was first described publicly as an unidentified male body or the possible subject of the missing-person report.
By late July, the investigation had therefore reversed nearly every key assumption contained in the first call. The missing man had not been found somewhere else; he was discovered inside the residence. Authorities no longer had to determine whether the body and the missing person were different people; the medical examiner confirmed they were the same. And what initially was described as an unexplained disappearance after unusual behavior was formally classified as a homicide caused by sharp-force injuries.
One fundamental issue has not undergone the same transformation from uncertainty to an official conclusion. Authorities have not publicly identified a person charged with causing Poche’s death. Investigators have alleged that evidence was being cleaned, and they have said another nearby residence produced material connected to the case, but the public record reviewed does not reveal a complete theory of the homicide or a motive. That leaves the July 26 timeline — from the 2 a.m. account through the afternoon 911 call and closet discovery — central to the unresolved investigation.
For investigators, the case remains one in which the physical evidence overtook the story deputies were first told as soon as they entered the home. The medical examiner has established that Poche was killed, while Brown and Henson face separate allegations involving the scene. As of Aug. 28, the publicly unanswered question is the most consequential one: who inflicted the injuries that caused Poche’s death. Poche’s relatives have since been raising money to return his remains to California and support his daughters.
Author note: Last updated August 28, 2026.