(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A man is now in custody and being charged with murder days after a Wheeling woman was found dead in her home and one day after her young daughter's body was recovered from a Northwest Indiana retention pond.
Wheeling police said 26-year-old Ahmeel Fowler of Pingree Grove was arrested in Springfield, Mo. Wednesday night.
He was quickly identified as a person of interest in the murder of 21-year- old Ja'nya Murphy, who was found dead in her home Tuesday night.
Her one-year- old daughter, Jacqueline Angel Dobbs, was reported missing. Her body was later found in a retention pond near the Borman Expressway in Hammond, investigators said.
Authorities had been searching for Dobbs since Tuesday, the day her mother was found dead in her apartment in Wheeling. An autopsy found Murphy had been strangled and died of asphyxiation, authorities said.
Fowler had been in a previous relationship with Murphy. The two were last seen together Monday at a suburban shopping mall, but he said he is not the father of Dobbs.
Wheeling police said in a statement that additional charges are likely to be filed as their investigation continues.
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