Chelsey Nicole Chaffin

• Missing Since 05/26/2019
• Missing From Stillwater, Oklahoma
• Classification Endangered Missing
• Sex Female
• Race Native American
• Date of Birth 03/06/1990 (34)
• Age 29 years old
• Height and Weight 5'3, 160 - 170 pounds
• Clothing/Jewelry Description A white dress shirt, blue capri pants and blue and black shoes.
• Distinguishing Characteristics Native American female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Chaffin has a mole on the bridge of her nose between her eyes, a scar on her upper left arm, a scar on her right forearm and a tattoo on her right ankle. She may use the last name Mendoza.

Details of Disappearance

Chaffin was last seen in Stillwater, Oklahoma on May 25, 2019. She and her fiance had had a fight on May 24, she moved out of their home and into a residence near east 32nd Avenue and Fairgrounds Road a day earlier.

The house was owned by Earl Oswalt Jr., who worked with Chaffin at a tile company, Armstrong Industries. After her disappearance, Oswalt claimed she left with an unknown man, leaving her dog behind.

A photo of Oswalt is posted with this case summary. In June, he was arrested and charged with Chaffin's murder. He is a registered sex offender who had been paroled in 2017 after serving twenty years of a sixty-year sentence for rape in the first degree. Chaffin's fiance stated he believed Oswalt and Chaffin were lovers and that she did not know about his background.

Oswalt confessed that he'd killed Chaffin during the early morning hours of May 26. He said he, Chaffin and another resident of the house, Oswalt's fiancee, had been drinking, and at some point Chaffin got angry and threatened Oswalt's fiancee. Oswalt then grabbed Chaffin from behind by the throat, and she hit him in the head and walked out of the room. When she came back she was naked. He stated he punched her in the face, and he couldn't remember what else he did to her, but she died.

Oswalt's fiancee, who has been described as intellectually challenged, said she wasn't home at the time of Chaffin's murder. She said Oswalt came and picked her up and she noticed he was covered in blood and his right hand was extremely swollen. When they went to the house, Chaffin was naked and lying on her back, bleeding from the nose, and she had marks on her neck. Oswalt washed Chaffin's body in bleach, and then he and his fiancee wrapped her body in a red blanket and dumped it off a bridge into the Cimarron River north of Ripley, Oklahoma at 1:00 a.m. on May 27.

In November 2020, Oswalt was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in Chaffin's case, although his attorney tried to argue that the fiancee had committed the murder because Oswalt had invited Chaffin to live with them and told his fiancee he wanted her to move out. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Chaffin's body has never been found, but foul play is suspected due to the circumstances involved.