Police arrested Pamela Merritt in the 2021 death of her landlord, 78-year-old Colin Kerdachi, in Houston. His body was found outside his home in a decomposed state after he was reported missing about 10 months prior. (Merritt photo from Houston Police, house image via Google Maps)
A woman who told a Houston police detective that her landlord “probably faked” his own death and was “living in Africa” is now facing a murder charge two years after his decomposed body was found under a staircase, according to court records.
Pamela Ann Merritt, 43, was arrested Friday in the death of her landlord, 78-year-old Colin Kerdachi, court records say. An arrest affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime says detectives believe Merritt stabbed Kerdachi to death on or about Feb. 15, 2021 and, with the help of a roommate, stuffed his body behind an exterior staircase. The slaying occurred during the record freeze in Houston that caused thousands of power outages and an estimated $24 billion in damages.
Kerdachi’s body wasn’t found until Dec. 6, 2021, despite Houston police being called out to the home several times, including when his friends called to report him missing.
Police were first called to the home on Feb. 20, 2021, when several people close to Kerdachi reported him missing after they did not hear from him following the storm. Then three days later, police returned to the home for a burglary in progress from the man who lived on the ground floor and rented from Kerdachi, who lived on the top floor of the triplex. The man told police when he returned home from a long trip he found a woman, later identified as Merritt, inside who refused to leave. Officers took Merritt to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, the affidavit said.
Officers were again called to the home for a suspicious incident on Oct. 2, 2021, when another tenant said she was cleaning the second and third floors of the apartment and found large pools of blood in a third floor bathroom, the affidavit said. The tenant also told the officers she found a knife in the mailbox and a bin with blood on it in a third-floor crawlspace.
While reviewing all the police visits to the home prior to the body being found, a detective in 2023 called the man who called cops about the February 2021 burglary. That man said that when he asked Merritt about the landlord’s whereabouts, Merritt told him that she killed Kerdachi, according to the affidavit. Detectives also talked with a man who said he was hanging out with a man who was hanging out with Merritt days before Kerdachi’s body was found and also heard her say she killed her landlord and that the body was under the stairs.
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The tenant who had called police in October 2021 called them again when she found human remains under the staircase on Dec. 6, 2021, while cleaning.
“I saw the ribs poking out and that’s what made me think, ‘Is that a body? What is that?”” the woman told KTRK.
Houston police detectives took Merritt in for an interview the next day. Throughout the course of the interrogation, Merritt reportedly refused to believe Kerdachi was dead and the corpse in the backyard was just a dead dog, the affidavit said.
“She also claimed that she believes [Kerdachi] faked his death to commit fraud and is probably alive in Africa,” the affidavit said.
An arrest warrant was issued May 30 for Merritt on the murder charge and she was taken into custody on Friday. The man who allegedly helped dispose of Kerdachi’s body, Michael Brown, is facing a tampering with evidence charge, according to police.
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