A Franklin County Common Pleas Court grand jury has indicted a woman and her partner on charges of killing an 8-year-old boy and concealing his body in a home attic.
Lashanda Wilder, 32, and Johnna Lowe, 33, were accused by a grand jury on Monday of murder, endangering children, felonious assault, tampering with evidence, and mistreatment of a corpse, according to indictments filed.
After the couple reported Martonio missing to Columbus police, Martonio Wilder’s body was discovered on June 28 in a house in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood. The 8-year-old had not been seen by them since the previous evening, they claimed.
The women are charged in the indictments with committing the crimes on June 27, the day before Martonio’s body was found by the police.
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The county coroner’s office discovered “deep compression marks” on Martonio’s neck, per documents from the Franklin County Municipal Court, where the two women were first accused.
Police brought a dog trained to find remains to the home after searching for the youngster on June 28. Wilder refused to let the dog inside, but after the police got a search warrant, they discovered the boy’s body in the attic, concealed inside a sleeping bag inside a trash bag.
By then, her two other sons, ages three and nine, had departed with Wilder and Lowe. On the evening of June 28, police momentarily issued an Amber Alert for the two boys; however, they were promptly located safe. The boys were left at Lowe’s mother’s house by the women.
