The Bonney Lake man arrested Sunday after Bonney Lake Police found burned human remains at his Inlet Island home has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend after an argument over dirty dishes.

Mthulisi Ndlovu, 38, on Oct. 11 pled not guilty to charges of Murder in the First Degree in the death of his girlfriend, Mary Mushapaidzi, 42, at their Bonney Lake home on Saturday.

Bail was set at $1 million.

The victim’s two children, ages 8 and 2, were in the home at the time of the murder. They are in the custody of Child Protective Services.

According to charging documents, at 11 a.m. Oct. 9, Ndlovu walked into Bonney Lake Police headquarters and reported that his girlfriend of three years was missing. He told police that she left for a run around 5:30 a.m. and failed to return.

Officers accompanied Ndlovu to the residence, a duplex, and noted that it smelled as if plastic had been burned. Ndlovu claimed he’d been burning junk mail on the garage floor.

Police spoke with the neighbor who lives in the other half of Ndlovu’s duplex. The neighbor heard a loud banging from the adjacent unit around 11:30 p.m. Oct. 8. A second neighbor saw Mushapaidzi’s vehicle arrive home about the same time.

According to the charging papers, the neighbor heard yelling and what sounded like someone being beaten with a bat. He decided not to call police because he did not hear gunshots.

After obtaining a search warrant, officers entered the home and saw blood streaks on the stairway leading from the kitchen to the garage. They also found a burn barrel containing burned human remains in the garage.

Also found at the scene was a pair of long handled pruning shears. The handles had been purposefully separated. At least one of the handles had been used to strike the victim, who suffered several large lacerations to the head consistent with blunt force trauma.

Under questioning, Ndlovu told investigators that late on the night of Oct. 1, he and Mushapaidzi argued about dirty dishes. He claimed she struck him in the face with her purse, at which time he became enraged and knocked her to the floor. He climbed on top of her and punched her several times.

Ndlovu said it was also possible he tried to strangle her and hit her with the pruning shears, but he could not remember.

After realizing the victim was dead, the defendant dragged her body into the garage and put her in a metal barrel. Later in the morning he put charcoal into the barrel and lit it in an effort to destroy the body.

Ndlovu and Mushaipaidzi are natives of Zimbabwe. Ndlovu has no criminal history and there is no evidence of prior domestic violence with the couple.