Prosecutors charged a 36-year-old St. Louis man with murder Friday afternoon, accusing him of killing Rosa Davis at an apartment in the Central West End on Tuesday.
Police say surveillance video of the apartment building shows that Joel Davis was the last person to enter and leave the apartment before and after Rosa's death.
Earlier this week, prior to the charges being filed, Rosa’s friends were increasingly alarmed for her well-being, posting to social media that she had gone missing after last being seen with Joel Davis, whom Rosa's friends said Rosa had reason to fear.
Rosa's friend Câmi Thomas wrote on Twitter Wednesday night, "St. Louis I need your help," adding that Rosa hadn't been seen in over 24 hours and a missing person's report had been filed. "She’s been going through a dangerous situation with the man she is separating from," she wrote, adding that Joel Davis had a history of violence.
"I wouldn’t sound the alarm if it didn’t need to be sounded, but it does," she added.
The following day, Thomas issued a grim update saying that her friend had been found deceased. She implored anyone who saw the post to call police if they saw Joel Davis.
Thomas confirms that Rosa Davis and Joel Davis had been married.
Friends of Rosa's say that her death has left her friends and loved ones devastated. "She really was the definition of an angel on Earth, a heart of gold," says Rosa's close friend and coworker Hannah de Oliveira.
Rosa came to St. Louis from Connecticut about a decade ago, something de Oliveira says she and Rosa bonded over since they both moved here from other cities. "She was so just so easy to connect with. Everybody who met her connected with her on some level," she says.
She adds, "She deserved so much better."
Police say that on Thursday they were contacted by an unidentified witness who said that Joel Davis had admitted to this person that he killed Rosa. After the killing, Joel Davis allegedly fled the apartment in the Central West End in Rosa's car, which he abandoned in Jefferson County.
When questioned by police, Joel Davis "began crying and said that he had been involved in a bad argument" with Rosa on the night he allegedly killed her.
According to his own Linkedin profile, Davis was employed by the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court, the very circuit in which he is now charged with murder. However, a spokesman with the courts says there's no record of Davis ever working there.
Davis' profile says he was hired as a project manager a few months ago, just after his graduation from Saint Louis University. The profile also says Davis is a U.S. Navy veteran who left the military in 2013.
"I knew the situation wasn't good," says de Oliveira. "But this is the most devastating loss that I have ever gone through. I just found out yesterday morning and there's already been so many moments that I am looking up and saying, 'I just miss you.'"
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