Meaghan Bosch was seen unconscious at James McDaniel's house near the Southern Methodist University campus the day she was reported missing and a full day after he says he last had lunch with the 21-year-old, according to an arrest warrant affidavit released by a Dallas judge Thursday.

REX C. CURRY/Special Contributor

James McDaniel is being held in the Lew Sterrett Justice Center on a sexual assault charge unrelated to the death of SMU student Meaghan Bosch. The warrant states Mr. McDaniel was Ms. Bosch's drug supplier, but Mr. McDaniel says he's a victim of influence.

But Mr. McDaniel, in a jailhouse interview Thursday, said he never sold drugs to the SMU senior or anyone else, and did not know how the coed ended up dead in a portable toilet at a construction site on May 14 in Hewitt near Waco.

"It's kind of frustrating for me to know that right now they want to paint me as a monster," said Mr. McDaniel, who was on parole for a 1978 Dallas murder when he was arrested last week on a sex assault charge unrelated to the Bosch investigation.

He said he tried to help police locate Ms. Bosch before she was found dead.

"I came in on my own and talked to detectives to try to do what I could to help them in any kind of way I could – just tell them what I knew – which wasn't a lot, really, as far as Meaghan's whereabouts after she left On The Border."

He declined to talk about what contact, if any, he had with her after they left the restaurant.

In a text message received by a friend about 6 p.m. May 10, Ms. Bosch wrote that she was at "big black guy's house with guns."

Nearly an hour later, she sent what's believed to be her last communication: "I'll handle it."

But an arrest warrant affidavit for Mr. McDaniel on the sex assault charge contains information about statements by at least two witnesses interviewed by police that indicate Mr. McDaniel, 46, had much more knowledge of what happened to Ms. Bosch.

"He's more likely than anyone else to have either placed her in there [in Hewitt] or ordered someone else to do it," said Sgt. Terry Welch, the lead Texas Ranger on the case.

Law enforcement officials have known about Ms. Bosch's whereabouts in her last days since May 17, but repeatedly told the media that Mr. McDaniel was only wanted for questioning about what happened to her and that he was no more a person of interest in the case than Ms. Bosch's other friends.

Although the medical examiner has not determined how Ms. Bosch died, police believe she overdosed.

According to the warrant, signed by District Judge Mark Stoltz, Ms. Bosch had lunch with Mr. McDaniel at On The Border on Knox Street the afternoon of May 10. She then went to his home in the 5400 block of Winton near Central Expressway and Mockingbird Lane, which police have identified as an underground poker room.

Witnesses told police that Ms. Bosch, whom Mr. McDaniel introduced to friends there as Meg, "appeared high and to be under the influence of drugs," the warrant states.

Mr. McDaniel allegedly said in the presence of one of the witnesses that Ms. Bosch "was going to be 'up and down all night long,' " meaning, according to the warrant, she would be alternating between cocaine and downers such as oxycodone or heroin.

The warrant states Mr. McDaniel was Ms. Bosch's drug supplier, and in his closet kept "numerous packets of drugs for sale including cocaine, heroin, marijuana and pills."

At noon the next day, the warrant states, Mr. McDaniel asked a witness to "come in and look at Meaghan Bosch to see if she looked all right." Ms. Bosch was lying in a bed "unconscious and had extremely labored breathing," the warrant states.

The witness did not call 911 because, he later told police, "he was terrified of James McDaniel and his shotgun and left the location," the warrant states.

That evening, Ms. Bosch's parents reported their daughter missing to Dallas police after her boyfriend told them she had not shown up for dinner the evening before.

The warrant states that two days later, on May 13, Mr. McDaniel told a witness that "Meaghan Bosch was gone." Mr. McDaniel also said "police would probably come ask questions about her and it would be best to not act as if he knew McDaniel."

Finally, Mr. McDaniel contacted a witness the next night, May 14 – the day a construction worker discovered her body in Hewitt that morning. According to the warrant, Mr. McDaniel asked someone if they could "help him gain access to the attic" of Mr. McDaniel's home on Winton.

The person refused and contacted police "in the belief that [Mr. McDaniel] had abducted and physically harmed [Ms. Bosch]," the warrant states.

Mr. McDaniel, who describes himself as a professional poker player who hosts games at his Winton duplex, said he is the victim of influence.

"My perception in this is, I'm being held on the sexual assault charge while they investigate some unrelated case [Meaghan Bosch], basically, because there really is no sexual assault," he said.

"It goes back to what the homicide detective told me when he was talking to me and I asked him, 'Why would a homicide detective be involved?' He told me, 'No. 1,' he said, 'you do understand that they're trying to get the George Bush library put over there at SMU, and No. 2, they've had two or three different ODs at SMU in the last couple semesters.' "

"He said, 'So, they're trying to keep that as quiet as possible.' He said, 'So right now, you know, the focus is on you.' So there you have it."

Detective Kim Sanders, the Dallas homicide investigator who questioned Mr. McDaniel and who is working with the Texas Rangers on Ms. Bosch's case, said he was called in by missing-persons detectives to help on the case prior to the body being found "as a precaution."

"They thought she was in danger," said the veteran officer, who worked for years as an undercover narcotics detective.

"They knew I was pretty good about getting people to talk to me. He [McDaniel] wanted to know why a homicide detective was interested, and I said I was doing a favor for missing persons and that the parents were really, really concerned and so was SMU. Now, all that crap 'bout them being influential, that's [expletive]."

"It makes the family look like they were trying to force some issue while all they were doing was grieving."

While the Texas Rangers and Dallas homicide officers investigate what happened to Ms. Bosch, Dallas' sex assault unit is going over videos seized during a search of his houses. They appear to show Mr. McDaniel having sex with one or two unconscious women. Police are working to identify them, but say Ms. Bosch is not in the videos.

They are asking for others to contact authorities if they have any information about the cases.

The charge Mr. McDaniel is being held on is an allegation by a 32-year-old woman who says he drugged and assaulted her in December 2005.

Mr. McDaniel on Thursday would not go into detail about the sexual assault allegations, but has told police that the sex with the women on the tapes was consensual.