Robert Glenn Earley, 33, of Euless, Texas, faces charges of murder and tampering with evidence in the killing of 30-year-old Emily Rebecca Lambert. Earley also was arrested on a fugitive complaint that said he's charged with larceny in Texas.
Lambert was visiting Earley, an oil field worker, when the two argued and then got into a physical fight in a Carlsbad motel room, a police detective said in an affidavit.
Lambert was last seen early Sunday morning leaving a Carlsbad bar where she and Early had been together, police said.
After reporting Lambert missing and initially telling investigators two accounts of what happened, Early eventually told investigators he had knocked Lambert unconscious and took her to a rural area near Carlsbad, where they again fought and he struck her with an air pump and then used a rope and his car to drag her body behind a barn, the affidavit said.
Her nearly nude body was found Tuesday when Earley showed investigators the location, the affidavit said. It didn't specify a cause of death.
Police said they found the victim's clothes at another location Earley had identified.
The portion of the affidavit describing what allegedly led up to the killing didn't say what the couple argued about. However, in one of his earlier accounts of what happened, Earley had said they argued after another man had flirted with Lambert at the bar, the affidavit said.
"There was a verbal confrontation that turned into a physical confrontation, and it just escalated from there," said police Capt. Jarod Florez.
Earley is jailed in lieu of $1 million bond.
Florez said he didn't know whether Earley has a lawyer but said Earley didn't ask for an attorney when he spoke with detectives.
Lambert was a first-grade math and science teacher for the Richardson Independent School District at a school in Garland, and she was completing her first year of teaching, district spokesman Tim Clark said.