Man accepts 7-year prison sentence, connected with case where woman’s body was found burned

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A 47-year-old man accepted a seven-year prison sentence in exchange for pleading guilty Thursday in a case where a woman’s body was found burned in northwest Austin in September 2023, according to court records.

Andrew Cole pleaded guilty to tampering/fabricating physical evidence with the intent to impair a human corpse, a second degree felony, court records said.

The Austin Fire Department responded to a grass fire on Mesa Drive, a residential street in the Northwest Hills area, on Sept. 29, 2023. When crews knocked down the blaze, they found a body and immediately notified police, KXAN previously reported. Police later identified the body as 33-year-old Melissa Davis.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Cole was with Davis during her death, and he allegedly tampered with evidence when he “removed the victim from his hotel room, drove the victim to a neighborhood, placed the victim on the side of the road and lit her on fire.”

Cole did not face any murder charges in the case, according to court records