TN man arrested after pregnant KY woman found dead

Editor’s note: Details of the story may be disturbing to some readers.

PINEVILLE, Ky. (FOX 56) — After a pregnant Bell County woman was found dead without her unborn child, detectives spent days piecing together a case that ultimately led them to a wanted fugitive in Tennessee.

The homicide investigation began Sept. 23 when Pineville Police officers responded to a report of a woman found dead at a home on George Martin Drive.

Investigators identified the victim as 41-year-old April Barlow Celio. According to the Bell County Sheriff’s Office, Celio was pregnant at the time of her death, but the state medical examiner determined there was no fetus in her womb.

While processing the scene, Kentucky State Police recovered what investigators and medical examiners believed to be fetal remains. Authorities have not disclosed how Celio or her unborn child died.

As the investigation progressed, detectives identified a suspect, DeMarcus Kenneth Johnson-Wright, whom the sheriff’s office described as having an extensive violent criminal history and multiple outstanding felony warrants in Tennessee.

Authorities obtained warrants charging Johnson-Wright with first-degree robbery, kidnapping, murder involving domestic violence, and tampering with physical evidence. He was arrested around 11 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30, in Tennessee, approximately 254 miles from the crime scene.

Investigators also recovered materials related to the case from a home in Clarksville, Tennessee, where Johnson-Wright was located.

Johnson-Wright was booked into the Montgomery County Detention Center in Tennessee and is awaiting extradition to Kentucky.

“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’s sister Amanda De Paz wrote on a GoFundMe campaign.

De Paz said Celio left behind three young children who will grow up without their mother.

“They are left with questions, memories, and the heartbreaking reality that their mother’s life ended in violence. No child should ever have to carry that kind of loss,” De Paz said.