Nearly two years after a Toledo man's beaten body was found in a burned-out duplex, a Lucas County grand jury has indicted a man in the slaying.
Willie Washington, 52, was indicted yesterday on one count of murder. An inmate at Orleans Correctional Institution in Albion, N.Y., Washington is accused of killing Gordon Wright, 24, whose body was found Feb. 13, 2008, in a third-floor attic at 1025 Marmion Ave.
Authorities said the body may have been inside the house for at least a couple of days before firefighters found his body. He died from blunt head injuries, authorities said.
If convicted, Washington faces life in prison.
According to police reports, Washington was a second-floor tenant at the duplex where Wright's body was found. He fled Toledo shortly after the incident.
Police interviewed Washington in March, 2008, after he was arrested in Flint, Mich., on an unrelated charge. Since then, items from the scene were tested, and the DNA evidence led to his arrest. Washington is incarcerated in New York on a parole violation from a 1996 robbery charge. According to the New York offender information Web site, he is first eligible for release Saturday or could be held as long as 2013.Dean Mandros of the Lucas County Prosecutor's Office said he wasn't sure how long it will take for Washington to be extradited to face charges here.
According to police reports at the time, Wright died before the fire was started at the central-city house at Marmion and Midway Plaisance Street. Firefighters floor broke through a half wall on the third floor and found the body, authorities said in 2008. The body was concealed in the attic, authorities said.
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