Missing South Bay Reality Star Found in Shallow Grave at Suspect's Home, Police Say

LOS ANGELES, CA -- A nurse and former reality show contestant who had been missing since leaving a birthday party in Torrance was found buried Tuesday in a shallow grave at the Lennox home of a man who accompanied her to the party, police said.

Lisa Marie Naegle -- a 36-year-old registered nurse and contestant on the E! Entertainment Television series "Bridalplasty" in 2010 -- went missing after leaving a party early Sunday morning at Alpine Village, and a missing persons report was filed on Monday, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Jackie Jerome Rogers, a 34-year-old nursing student who accompanied Naegle to the party but claimed he left without her, was expected to be booked on suspicion of murder, according to Los Angeles Police Department Detective Meghan Aguilar.

Police and coroner's officials searched Rogers' home in the 5000 block of West 106th Street and some time after 4 p.m. recovered Naegle's body, according to Officer Tony Im of the LAPD's Media Relations section.

Rogers had told police where to find the body, Aguilar said.

Aguilar said "investigators haven't shared the details" of their talks with Rogers, but they began talking to him Monday night. She also noted that "the family saw him on surveillance with Lisa."

Relatives and friends had been pleading for the public's help in finding the missing San Pedro woman.

According to Naegle's husband, Derek Harryman, his wife called him around 2:45 a.m. Sunday and said she was leaving the party but stopping to get something to eat on the way. She never came home. She also failed to show up for nursing classes she teaches at West Los Angeles College.

Naegle's relatives said she went to the party with one of her nursing students, but he repeatedly told the family he did not leave the party with her.

"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," her sister, Danielle Naegle-Kaimona, told ABC7.

Naegle-Kaimona added that a friend of hers at the party sent her multiple photos of her sister with the student and that surveillance footage showed Naegle getting into an SUV belonging to Rogers. There is also footage of the pair going to a gas station.

News reports showed Rogers' home on a cul de sac near the San Diego (405) Freeway surrounded by crime scene tape as police conducted a search at the residence.

Aguilar declined to release information on the relationship between Naegle and Rogers, saying only that they knew one another.

The website TMZ.com reported that Naegle was struck repeatedly with a hammer after she and Rogers went to a Jack in the Box restaurant.

TMZ also reported that Naegle and Rogers were romantically involved, but Naegle informed Rogers she was breaking up with him to be with her husband -- leading to the killing.

-- City News Service, photo courtesy of the LAPD