Man charged in Indiana bus driver’s strangulation death

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - A man has been charged with murder in the January killing of a southern Indiana school bus driver who was found fatally strangled in her fire-damaged apartment.

Eric Quentin Johnson, 30, was charged Thursday in the death of Teresa Michael, a 32-year-old mother of five, The Herald-Times reported.

First responders called to put out a fire at the Bloomington woman’s apartment on Jan. 28 found her dead inside. An autopsy found that Michael died not from fire-related injuries, but from strangulation.

Police arrested Johnson on Feb. 9 in South Carolina after finding Michael’s Dodge Caliber, which had been missing from the apartment complex where she lived, abandoned in Georgia.

Johnson was held in a South Carolina jail on an auto theft charge, awaiting extradition to Indiana, but he was returned Wednesday to Bloomington and booked into jail on an additional murder charge.

Johnson was being held at the Monroe County Jail without bond. Online court records do not list an attorney who could speak on his behalf. Johnson was scheduled for a Friday afternoon initial hearing.

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