COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A young woman was charged with
murder Friday in the gruesome death of a woman found covered in burns
and wailing in agony on the side of a rural Ohio road last weekend.
In
addition to aggravated murder, 20-year-old Katrina Marie Culberson of
Canton was charged with kidnapping and aggravated arson in the death of
29-year-old Celeste Fronsman, according to the Muskingum County
Sheriff’s Office. It’s unclear whether Culberson has an attorney.
A
driver found Fronsman early Sunday on a road northeast of Zanesville.
She had been raped and burned, and had a strap around her neck. She died
two days later at a Columbus hospital.
Dr. Jan Gorniak, the
Franklin County coroner, ruled the death a homicide but said it will
take four to six weeks before the exact cause of death can be determined
because of extensive second-, third- and fourth-degree burns on about
80 percent of Fronsman’s body.
Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz
said Culberson was arrested Wednesday and that detectives have
interviewed her, although he declined to discuss the contents of their
talk.
Lutz also declined to say what detectives believe was the
motive or whether anyone else participated in the killing, saying only
that "there are other people of interest that investigators are trying
to contact."
"We’re going to do everything we can do to prosecute
all the people involved in it," said Lutz, who has called Fronsman’s
killing "one of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen in 23½ years in
law enforcement."
He also has said investigators believe that whoever killed Fronsman knew her. "This was not a random
thing," he said.
Court records show that Fronsman lived a dangerous life, having had dozens of brushes with the law since
2003.
In
less than 10 years, Fronsman was arrested more than 20 times on charges
mostly involving domestic violence, cocaine possession and
prostitution, records in Canton and Stark County courts show.
In
all, Fronsman was arrested and convicted of soliciting for prostitution
six times since 2005, most recently in March. Her most recent arrest
occurred on May 28 for having drug paraphernalia.
Her sister,
Sarah Gulosh, told the Zanesville Times Recorder that despite her
trouble with the law, Fronsman was a loving mother and a good sister and
never failed to tell her grandparents how much she loved them.
"She was a good person," she said, adding that Fronsman had a heart of gold.
Gulosh
said her sister was left tortured by the death of her 2-year-old
daughter, Jordyn, in 2005, and the death of her mother in 2009.
"We
always told her she needed to stop what she was doing and ask God for
forgiveness," Gulosh said. "But she loved God, and she told us she had
asked him for forgiveness."
___
Myers reported from Cincinnati.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
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