Left: DeMarcus Kenneth Johnson-Wright (Montgomery County Jail). Right: April Barlow Celio (Barbourville Funeral Home).
A Tennessee man is facing charges in the killing of a pregnant Kentucky woman after investigators say the fetus was removed from her womb.
DeMarcus Kenneth Johnson-Wright has been charged with domestic violence murder, robbery, kidnapping and tampering with physical evidence in connection with the death of 41-year-old April Barlow Celio, the Pineville Police Department said in a statement.
Officers were called to a Pineville, Kentucky, residence on Sept. 23, where they found Celio dead. The medical examiner determined that she had been pregnant, and investigators said the fetus had been removed from her body. Authorities later located the fetus.
Detectives named Johnson-Wright as a suspect and described him as having an “extensive violent criminal history.” Police also said he was wanted on multiple warrants in Tennessee.
An arrest warrant alleging kidnapping and robbery was issued Sept. 25. Five days later, authorities added murder and evidence-tampering charges.
Working with the U.S. Marshals Service, Pineville investigators determined that Johnson-Wright was staying at a residence in the 200 block of Timber Court Drive in Clarksville, Tennessee. The city is roughly 250 miles west of Pineville, where Celio’s body was discovered. He was taken into custody Sept. 30.
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Police said they recovered unspecified “evidence relating to the case” from the Clarksville home.
Authorities have not disclosed how Celio and Johnson-Wright knew each other, what investigators believe motivated the killing, or what allegedly occurred during the reported robbery and kidnapping. Celio’s official cause of death also had not been released.
Celio was the mother of three, according to a GoFundMe campaign created by her sister, Amanda De Paz.
“My sister was murdered,” De Paz wrote in the fundraiser. “There are no words that can truly explain what our family is going through right now. One moment she was here — someone we could call, hug, laugh with, and love — and now we are trying to figure out how to say goodbye to her far too soon. She was very loved by her family.”
Celio is survived by her three children.
“They are left with questions, memories, and the heartbreaking reality that their mother’s life ended in violence,” the fundraiser said. “No child should ever have to carry that kind of loss.”
Johnson-Wright remained jailed Tuesday at the Montgomery County Jail in Tennessee as he awaited extradition to Kentucky.
