BLOOMINGTON, Indiana (AP) – A man was charged with murder in the January murder of a school bus driver from southern Indiana who was found fatally strangled in his apartment destroyed by the fire.
Eric Quentin Johnson, 30, was charged on Thursday with the death of Teresa Michael, a mother of five, 32, the Herald-Times reported.
The first respondents called to put out a fire in the Bloomington woman’s apartment on January 28 and found her dead inside the house. An autopsy found that Michael died not from fire-related injuries, but from strangulation.
Police arrested Johnson on February 9 in South Carolina after finding Michael’s Dodge caliber, which was missing in the apartment complex where she lived, abandoned in Georgia.
Johnson was detained in a South Carolina prison on a car theft charge, awaiting extradition to Indiana, but he was returned on Wednesday to Bloomington and put in prison on an additional murder charge.
Johnson was held in Monroe County prison without bail. The online court records do not list an attorney who could speak on your behalf. Johnson was scheduled for an initial hearing on Friday afternoon.