Police said Friday that they have made an arrest in the slaying of Valdosta State University student Jasmine Benjamin, according to HLN affiliate WTXL.
Darien Joseph Meheux, 18, of Lawrenceville, Georgia, has been apprehended by law enforcement, the station reports, citing Special Agent Steve Turner of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Benjamin, a 17-year-old Valdosta State University freshman, was found dead on November 18 in a study room on the fifth floor of Georgia Hall. The case was quickly treated as a homicide, with investigators saying she died from asphyxiation. But what enraged the student's friends and family is that her parents say they weren't told about the death from the university -- they learned from a friend's Facebook post.
"For someone to be so insensitive not to reach out to the family, or not even to keep up with what's going on because it's a holiday and you're going away on vacation or whatever you're doing – it's very, very hurtful to say the least," James Jackson told Georgia's WGCL.
"That's the most disturbing part of it. Aren't there RAs?" Jackson told the station. "What kind of school is this that they don't know someone's laying on the couch - to go check on them after a certain amount of hours?"
Robin Martinelli, a private investigator working for the family, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday that Meheux was Benjamin's ex-boyfriend and that the family had no immediate comment. “I think they’re absorbing everything today,” Martinelli said. “This just happened.”
Meheux turned himself in after learning he was a wanted man, WTXL reported.
Read more: 'Foul play' in mysterious campus death, police say
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