Phylicia Barnes Kidnapping: Arrest Made

By: Jenée Desmond-Harris | Posted: April 28, 2012 at 2:46 PM

Phylicia Barnes (Baltimore Sun)

Baltimore police have arrested a man in the death of 16-year-old North Carolina teenager Phylicia Barnes, whose body was found in a river after she vanished in 2010 while visiting her sister in Baltimore, CBS News reported yesterday:

Michael Johnson has been arrested in the teen's death, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Associated Press early Thursday.

Authorities have said Johnson was the former boyfriend of Barnes' older sister and the last person to see her alive. Guglielmi said prosecutors would release more information later Thursday on the arrest.

Barnes, 16, disappeared Dec. 28, 2010 while visiting her sister in northwest Baltimore.

Workers at the Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River found her body the following April in northeast Maryland. Medical examiners later ruled the death a homicide.

In a hearing on Friday, prosecutors said Johnson asphyxiated the teenager in her sister's Northwest Baltimore apartment, and then moved her body using a 35-gallon plastic tub. He was reportedly seen by a neighbor sweating and struggling to move a container from the apartment, Assistant State's Attorney Lisa Goldberg said at a hearing while arguing against bail for Johnson.

Read more at CBS News and the Baltimore Sun.

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