Richland County Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a man for murder after they found a woman’s body in a burned car Tuesday night.
Deputies said they were called to the Christian Faith Fellowship Church parking lot in northeast Columbia Tuesday night where a car had burned. Inside the car, they discovered the charred body of a woman identified as 44-year-old Johnette Pratt of Columbia.
Officers spoke with Pratt’s boyfriend, 48-year-old Darrell Griffin, after he went to the Sheriff’s Department Tuesday night and reported that he and Pratt had been robbed. However, deputies say he later changed his story to say he had accidentally strangled her. On Wednesday, investigators charged Griffin with murder. He is being held at the Richland County Detention Center.
County Coroner Gary Watts says preliminary autopsy results indicate that Pratt was strangled to death.
Russ McKinney contributed to this report
