Jonathan Carringer, 33, was charged with the murder of his wife, Annie, after reporting her death Wednesday night.A Gordon County, Ga., man found his wife dead in their RV this week. But how long had he been there?
Jonathan Carringer called 911 around 10 p.m. Wednesday, according to a Gordon County Sheriff's Office news release. He said he had just gotten home from work. His wife, Annie Carringer, 33, lay on the floor, unconscious.
Sheriff's office detectives responded to the RV, in the grass off Trimble Hollow Road, a rural stretch in the southern tip of Gordon County. They scanned the scene, interviewed family members. They concluded the husband was lying.
The sheriff's office arrested Carringer, 33, on Thursday morning and charged him with murder. Chief Deputy Robert Paris said investigators won't conclude Annie Carringer's cause of death until medical examiners conduct an autopsy at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab in Decatur.
But Paris said the department believes Annie Carringer died from blunt-force trauma. He declined to say where she was beaten, or with what. They concluded Jonathan Carringer had beaten her, rather than finding her dead when he got home from work, based on "physical evidence that contradicted his initial statements."
"I can't go into what the pieces of evidence are," Paris said in a phone interview Friday. "But there were several pieces found in the immediate area."
Paris was not sure whether Carringer has been arrested in the county before. The local Clerk of Court's office was closed Friday for Christmas, and Paris was not sure when Carringer will make his first appearance in court. As of Friday, the suspect was being held in the Gordon County Jail without bond.
Paris said the Carringers lived in a small RV that was essentially one room. Though they were not lifelong residents, he said, "it appeared to me that they had been [on Trimble Hollow Road] for some time."
Paris declined to say what investigators learned from family members after Annie Carringer's death.
"We're still following leads," he said.
Contact staff writer Tyler Jett at 423-757-6476 or tjett@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @LetsJett.