A 20-year-old US Marine is facing charges of first-degree murder and possession of child pornography following the discovery of a deceased Florida woman in Alabama on Wednesday.
The woman, Tshey Ronaie Bennett, aged 26, was declared missing on Saturday, as per the Escambia County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office. She was last seen the day before her disappearance, and authorities found the circumstances surrounding her vanishing suspicious, leading them to treat the case as a potential homicide.
Those fears turned out to be true on Wednesday when Bennett’s body was found in a pond in an abandoned neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama.
The alleged perpetrator, Willie Richard Ellington, who was serving at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, was apprehended in Opelika, Alabama, situated approximately 230 miles away from both Mobile and Pensacola.
The sheriff’s office said investigators had learned that Bennett was working as an escort and had met Ellington at the Sweet Dream Inn in Pensacola.
No further information was released.
