Kyle, a fire team leader with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, is currently being held in military custody awaiting trial. Photo / Facebook
US Army soldier Logan Kyle may have killed his wife Shelena because she was threatening to take his cross-dressing secret to his superiors, military investigators believe.
Kyle was arrested along with his alleged mistress Sarah Parker on October 21 after they were found driving around looking for a spot to dump Shelena's corpse, which was stuffed into the trunk, police claim. Parker's two children were also in the car.
Now, as Kyle is in military custody awaiting trial for the murder of his wife, sources close to the case tell DailyMailTV that the 22-year-old loved nothing more than to wear women's clothing and makeup.
Photos obtained by DailyMailTV show the corporal posing in full makeup and women's wigs.
Soon after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq in the spring, Kyle went to the Ulta store in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to learn makeup techniques.
"They gave him a full makeup course telling him what best suited his colouring," one source told DailyMail.com.
He came away from the store with a $240 stash of eye shadow, blush, setting spray, foundation, brushes, lip gloss and mascara from brands including Urban Decay, Tarte and NYX.
He then went on to dinner — in full makeup and women's clothes — at the buffet at L'Auberge casino in Lake Charles.
"He was wearing a frilly blouse and lady's pants," the source said
Police say Kyle and Parker were driving around Lake Charles looking for a place to dump Shelena's body when they were nabbed.
Parker's two toddler children were in the car with them. Two-year-old Jakob and Lisette, 18 months, were initially taken into state custody by the Department of Children & Family Services.
They are now living with their father, Eric Dayton, who did not return calls for comment.
Investigators will not say why or how Kyle killed his wife, but sources tell DailyMailTV he strangled her in the bathroom of the on-base home they shared at Fort Polk, Louisiana late on the night of October 20.
Sources say that Shelena had threatened to tell his commanders at Fort Polk about his cross-dressing.
After he killed her, Kyle allegedly bundled Shelena's body into the trunk of his Nissan sedan and drove an hour and a half south to Parker's home in Moss Bluff, a suburb of Lake Charles. Some 10 hours after arriving, the pair was stopped as they drove down North Franklin Street in Lake Charles.
Police had received a tip that a body was in Parker's red Ford Taurus, local sheriff Tony Mancuso told DailyMail.com.
"We don't know whether they were waiting for the next day or whether they were planning to dump the body in the river that night," Mancuso, sheriff of Calcasieu Parish, said.
Kyle, a fire team leader with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, is currently being held in military custody awaiting trial.
Jeffrey Castro, spokesman for the Army CID which is investigating the case, said he could not comment on any details of the case as it is an ongoing investigation.
Kyle joined the army straight out of high school and has been a soldier for four years.
He married Shelena Gayler in 2016, when she was still a teenager, in their hometown of Lafayette, Indiana. They had dated since they were classmates at William Henry Harrison High School in West Lafayette.
But their marriage was rocky and was made worse by his fondness for dressing as a woman. He even told friends that he was considering having a sex change once he left the Army.
"She could not accept it and they separated while he was in Iraq,'" said one source.
It was while he was in the Middle East that he first made contact with Parker, 24, via a dating site and when he returned to Fort Polk this spring they hooked up.
But Shelena, 21, then decided she wanted to make the marriage work, Parker's aunt Wanda Kerr told DailyMail.com.
"Sarah wasn't his mistress. She wasn't his girlfriend," Kerr, 46, said.
"They dated and then stopped dating when his wife came back into the picture.
"The wife wanted to make it work and Sarah told him he should go back to her. When I saw her last she said they were no longer in communication. She said they hadn't spoken in weeks."
Another source said Parker was accepting of Kyle's cross-dressing. "She is very progressive and told him she could love him whoever he was.
"But she knew he was married and when Shelena came back in the picture, she felt that his first priority should be trying to make his marriage work.
"So when Shelena said she wanted to give the marriage another go, Sarah said he should go back to her."
While Kyle's case is being dealt with under military law, Parker will be tried in a civilian court in Lake Charles.
She faces charges of obstruction of justice, failing to report a homicide and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, which could potentially see her spending 40 years hard labor in state prison.
District attorney John DeRosier is considering adding child endangerment counts.
Parker, a stay-at-home mother, is currently being held in Calcasieu Parish jail in Lake Charles on $60,000 bond. She has been assigned a lawyer from the Calcasieu Parish Public Defender's Office.
Shelena Kyle was due to be laid to rest in West Lafayette on Wednesday afternoon.