KERMIT — The family of a missing Kermit woman found her less than 36 hours from the last time she was seen. Edward Maynard found his 29-year-old niece Vadie Michelle Maynard Stroud stuffed in a refrigerator on Newsome Ridge Tuesday.

Her husband Roger Stroud, from whom she was seeking a divorce, was arrested yesterday on murder charges and lodged in the Southwestern Regional jail at Holden.

As she did every weekday, Vadie Michelle Stroud dropped her son Braxton, 7, off at Kermit Elementary School Monday morning around 8 a.m. The last family member to see her was uncle Daniel Alley who spoke to her on the Kermit bridge during a traffic jam, her aunt Brenda Jude of Kermit told the Daily News.

She was on her cell phone and told Daniel she was going to her daddy’s house, Billy Maynard Jr., to take a shower and go to the doctor, Jude said, but she never made it.

The family knew something was wrong when Michelle didn’t take Braxton lunch as she or her mother, Connie Maynard, did everyday,

“That baby don’t eat lunch in the lunchroom,” Jude said.

When Michelle didn’t show up at Kermit to get Braxton, his other grandmother Kathy Rose, who works at the school, took him home.

“We knew something was wrong,” Jude said. “She wouldn’t let her baby go to bed without calling him.”

Connie Maynard called Brenda at 1a.m. Tuesday morning and told her Billy was going to look for Michelle. When he hadn’t found her at 5:30, Jude said she got dressed and drove to her sister’s house, as did several other family members with their ATVs, Rhinos and 4-wheel drives.

The family reported Stroud’s disappearance to the Mingo County Sheriff’s Department, but began their own search September 22, Jude said, adding, “We didn’t wait on them.

“We just had to look, to make an effort. We just knew something was wrong,” said Jude.

The family’s fears were enhanced when they discovered Michelle’s car at the old Helig Meyers Furniture Store building near Kermit Elementary. Her makeup was in the car, as was the Dairy Queen drink she got Monday morning at 7:53, Jude said, asserting Michelle was perfectionistic and wouldn’t go anywhere without the makeup bag.

Around 4 p.m., Michelle’s father Billy Maynard, passed by a part of the woods at Marrowbone Redevelopment site where his brother, following behind, noticed a disturbance about four feet off the road. Upon investigation, Jude said Edward Maynard found a refrigerator lying face down with bungee cords wrapped around it.

“When he (Edward) flipped it over, blood ran out,” Jude said, adding Billy said they found Michelle inside with her hands tied behind her back. “She was beaten.”

An emotional Jude said, “I won’t ever hear her call be BB at Thanksgiving again.”

Michelle’s mother and several other family members were at Brenda Jude’s home last night, comforting each other over the loss of their “beautiful Michelle” who was a “sweetheart,” Jude said.

Roger and Michelle had been to the same house many times in the time they dated and during their marriage, which had lasted a year in June, Jude said, adding the relationship had been rocky recently, but she couldn’t believe Roger Stroud killed her niece, although no one else had a motive.

“He will have to look me in the eye and tell me he did this,” Jude said.

“If he did it, I want to know why.”

“She wasn’t big as nothing,” Jude said about the 5-foot, 3-inch blonde woman, who weighed 125 pounds.

Roger Stroud is 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighs 230 pounds, according to his arrest record.

The Daily News could not confirm the cause of death by county officials at press time.