Search warrant offers details of grisly Chesterfield murder scene

CHESTERFIELD, VA (WWBT) - Details are starting to emerge about the murder of a Chesterfield mother and her infant daughter.

Police released the search warrant that had been issued for a home on Ferintosh Court on the afternoon of May 29. Inside the home police found 34-year-old Morgan Rogers and her 1-year-old daughter Leah, both dead from gunshot wounds.

Investigators believe the child's father and Morgan's estranged boyfriend, Stafford Shaw, was the killer. As homicide detectives processed the crime scene on that day, Shaw tried to flee from pursuing authorities on Interstate 295 and crashed his car into oncoming traffic, killing himself and two other people.

The search warrant of Rogers' home two pillows were recovered that had red stains, presumably blood, and one with a bullet hole. Recovered was a bullet fragment, and casings from a 9mm Luger pistol.

Gunshot residue was found on both bodies.

Earlier this week, the Medical Examiner ruled both Morgan and Leah's deaths as homicides.

NBC12 has learned Shaw had a violent criminal history, and that months before Morgan and Leah's murders, a protective order had been put in place against Shaw. A criminal complaint says Shaw had "...grabbed (Morgan's ) throat and began choking her and bit her nose" and "She blacked out." Shaw was serving jail time on weekends for the assault.

Shaw's family says they do not think he would have murdered his infant daughter. According to his brother Charles Scott, Shaw was on the phone with their sister shortly before he was killed in the crash. "This is what he said: She shot the baby as he was holding her and then the hurt from that, he shot her," says Scott. "There's no way he would have killed the child, there's no way."

But Chesterfield police say evidence shows Shaw shot his estranged girlfriend and their daughter to death. We asked if Scott ever thought his brother was violent. "That's not a side that we've seen," says Scott.

But according to court records, Shaw was found guilty of assaulting another woman seven years ago. In 1989, he was accused of murder and arson in Richmond, but that case was dismissed.

Scott says he would have told his brother to turn himself in.

Funeral arrangement for Morgan and Leah Rogers have not yet been made public.