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A pregnant mother of three was murdered in her Kentucky home and found with her unborn child missing from her womb, according to police.
April Barlow Celio, 41, was found slain in her Pineville home on Sept. 23 — with medical examiners making the horrifying discovery the next day that she’d been pregnant, but with her fetus missing, according to police.
Investigators returned to Celio’s home and recovered what appear to be fetal remains, police said.
DeMarcus Kenneth Johnson-Wright, a felon with “an extensive violent criminal history and several outstanding violent felony warrants out of Tennessee,” was identified as a suspect, according to cops, who did not elaborate on how he was connected.
Police initially issued a warrant for kidnapping and robbery on Sept. 25, and then for murder and tampering with physical evidence on Sept. 30.
Johnson-Wright was eventually tracked down to a home he was living in in Clarksville, Tenn., some 250 miles from the murder scene.
He was arrested — and a search of the Tennessee home revealed “materials relating to the case were recovered,” police said, without elaborating.
Officials have yet to say how the mom or her unborn child were killed. Although they have not revealed a link with Johnson-Wright, his charges include murder related to domestic violence.
The suspect already had multiple warrants out for his arrest for suspected aggravated robbery, kidnapping, felony possession of a firearm and domestic violence from previous incidents, according to court records reviewed by People magazine.
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Celio’s sister, Amanda de Paz, launched a GoFundMe to help her sister’s three children who “are left with questions, memories, and the heartbreaking reality that their mother’s life ended in violence.”
“She deserved so much more life. She was an incredibly loving person who would do anything for the people she cared about. She gave so much of herself to others and was deeply loved by her family and everyone fortunate enough to know her,” the grieving sister wrote.
Johnson-Wright was booked into the Montgomery County Detention Center in Tennessee, where he is awaiting extradition back to Kentucky. Officials have yet to say how Celio was murdered.
