Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019 | 5 p.m.
Johnny Leon Wilson
A Houston man sought in the slaying of his estranged wife — whose decomposing body was found dumped in a small Texas town about a month after she disappeared — was arrested Wednesday in Las Vegas, according to U.S. Marshals.
A fugitive task force took Johnny Leon Wilson, 48, into custody near Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street, where he was staying in a hotel under an alias, officials said today.
Wilson was being held on a fugitive murder warrant at the Clark County Detention Center.
On Nov. 10, Charine Wilson visited the suspect in his Houston apartment and was not seen again until her body was found in a ditch about 170 miles away, in the small town of Richland, Texas, officials said.
The Houston Chronicle reported Charine Wilson had been shot multiple times, and her body was partially covered by vegetation.
The victim and her son visited the suspect at his apartment, according to the Chronicle’s report. The woman went inside and the child stayed in the car.
When the child later went inside to use the restroom, he told police, his mother was sitting on a couch, the Chronicle reported. About 10 minutes later, the suspect emerged and drove the boy to a fast-food restaurant.
After the boy’s grandmother picked him up, she phoned the victim, but the suspect answered, the newspaper said. She reported the woman missing two days later.
Investigators found blood, drag marks and cleaning supplies in the suspect’s apartment, the Chronicle reported. Video captured the suspect dumping a trash bag when he went back home.
“Later that evening, he put what appeared to be a body ‘wrapped in a sheet’ into the trunk of his car and drove off,” the Chronicle wrote.
Police publicly identified Wilson as a suspect less than a week after the victim disappeared.
