Former ISU student Tong Shao may have died in a Nevada, Iowa, hotel, a previously sealed search warrant stated. 

On Sept. 26, Ames Police Detective Chad Lovig was reviewing Xiangnan Li’s — the main person of interest in the homicide case of Tong Shao — phone records and found that a recent call had been made to Budget Inn and Suites in Nevada. 

After speaking to the owner of the hotel, Ken Patel, Lovig found that Shao and Li had stayed at the hotel Sept. 5-7.

Shao was with Li during their check-in Sept. 5 and was last seen walking alone in the lobby in the afternoon of Sept. 6, according to the warrant. Patel told Lovig that Li and Shao have stayed together at the hotel on other dates in 2013 and 2014. 

According to the warrant, Li left “sometime in the overnight hours of Sept. 6 into the early morning of Sept. 7,” which was “unusual for Li as Patel said he normally has had to ask Li to leave the room after the check-out time of 11 a.m.” 

Li and Shao were also seen using a gold-colored car during their stay.

Shao’s body was later found in the trunk of gold Toyota Camry she owned in Iowa City. Patel told Lovig he did not see either Li or Shao leave the hotel, but their car was gone on the morning of Sept. 7, a day before a text message from Li’s phone was sent to Shao’s roommates presumably from Shao saying she was texting from Li’s phone in Iowa City.

Police later determined Li had his cell phone in Chicago on a layover to China at the time the message was sent. 

After Iowa City police found Shao’s body in Iowa City on Sept. 26, they found Shao’s head wrapped with a towel with a tag labeled “Premium Quality.” According to the warrant, Lovig found several towels with the same tag in the laundry room at Budget Inn and Suites. 

“It is possible her death may have occurred in the hotel room at the Budget Inn and Suites in Nevada, Iowa,” Lovig said in the warrant. 

Patel told Lovig that surveillance cameras at Budget Inn and Suites did not record and were live-feed only. 

In previously released search warrants, police spoke to a friend of Li’s who told police that Li had called her, and he was upset after he overheard Shao “saying things about him that were not nice.”

Shao’s homicide case is still under investigation.