Inset, left to right: Ahmeel Fowler (Green County Sheriff's Office) and Ja'nya Murphy with her daughter Jaclyn (Wheeler Police Department). Background: The retention pond in Indiana where Jaclyn's body was found floating (WBBM).
A 21-year-old man in Illinois will likely spend the rest of his life in prison for strangling his 21-year-old girlfriend to death before abducting her 1-year-old daughter, whose body was later found floating in a retention pond.
A jury this week found Ahmeel Fowler guilty on three counts of murder and one count of aggravated kidnapping in the 2021 deaths of Ja'nya Murphy and Jaclyn Dobbs, Chicago-based ABC affiliate WLS reported.
The investigation began when Murphy's family members filed a missing persons report on the night of Nov. 9, 2021, telling police they had been unable to contact her after she did not show up for work that day.
After multiple attempts to reach Murphy, the Wheeling police and fire departments conducted a welfare check at the apartment she shared with her daughter in the 300 block of Inland Drive. Police were able to access Murphy's home through an unlocked balcony door and noted the strong smell of bleach inside the residence.
"An ensuing check for well-being revealed Ms. Murphy had apparently been murdered and [Jaclyn] to be missing," police wrote in a news release.
According to WLS, surveillance footage from the area around Murphy's home showed Fowler leaving the apartment at about 2:40 a.m. on the day her body was later discovered inside. About an hour later, surveillance footage showed Fowler's vehicle parked near a retention pond in Hammond, Indiana. The pond, which is about 50 miles southeast of Murphy's apartment, is where Jaclyn's body was recovered several days later.
After the pond, Fowler briefly stopped at his parents' home before driving to Missouri. He was arrested in Springfield, Missouri, on Nov. 9, 2021.
Police said Fowler and Murphy had a "troubled" relationship and noted that he was not Jaclyn's father.
The Cook County medical examiner's office determined that Murphy's manner of death was homicide and the cause of death was asphyxiation strangulation.
A forensic pathologist performed the autopsy on Jaclyn, concluding that the toddler died of "cardiopulmonary arrest" that was "possible due to hypothermia," the Chicago Tribune reported. The doctor's report stated that "prolonged exposure" to temperatures that reached the low 40s could have caused hypothermia and "eventually sudden death."
Jaclyn's manner of death was "undetermined," but the report stated that the child showed no signs of drowning and had not suffered any significant internal injuries.
Fowler is currently scheduled to appear in court for his sentencing hearing on April 20.
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