Ashley Latrice Wright, a 25-year-old woman from Clarksdale, Mississippi, was arrested on December 4 in Alabama, charged with the murder of her husband, Carl Dewayne Johnson. This arrest comes nearly a year after Wright was accused of stabbing Johnson, her then-boyfriend, with a steak knife at a hotel.
The Moulton Police Department took Wright into custody following her detention in Mississippi during a traffic stop. She was subsequently extradited to Alabama. The arrest records were made available by the legal news outlet, Law&Crime.
Law enforcement officials were called to the Relax Inn in Moulton on November 30, where they discovered Johnson, 41, dead with a chest wound. Wright was immediately identified as a suspect in the case.
Interestingly, it was on December 1, 2022, that Wright was first arrested at the same hotel for allegedly stabbing Johnson. At that time, the couple was not married. Johnson had reported to the police that they had been drinking and arguing when Wright allegedly attacked him with a steak knife.
Following the 2022 incident, Wright fled the scene but was quickly apprehended after being spotted by a firefighter. She was charged with second-degree domestic violence assault. The case was presented to a grand jury in February and is still pending.
Wright’s legal troubles didn’t end there. In June, she was arrested again on charges of strangulation and suffocation related to domestic violence.
Moulton Police Chief Craight Knight acknowledged the assistance of several external law enforcement agencies in tracking down Wright in Mississippi. These included the Clarksdale Police Department, the FBI, the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, and the Coahoma County Sheriff’s Department in Mississippi.
Wright is currently being held without bail at the Lawrence County Jail. This incident marks the third homicide in Moulton in 2023. Despite the efforts of the local police force to maintain a safe community, Chief Knight expressed his regret over the inability to prevent such tragic incidents. He also extended his condolences to the Johnson family.