HIGH POINT, N.C. — A woman is charged with first-degree murder after police said she stabbed her boyfriend in the chest and left him on the lawn in High Point.
Police were called at 11:43 p.m. Thursday to the 600 block of Richardson Ave. for reports of a person lying in a front yard. High Point firefighters found Ricky Gene Johnson, 55, stabbed in his chest and lying in the front yard.
Investigators spoke with neighbors and found that Johnson and his girlfriend, Susie Beal Easterling, 49, had gotten into an argument before he was stabbed with a kitchen knife. Police said officers found Easterling sitting in a chair outside the home smoking a cigarette and blood was on the steps.
When police tried to ask Johnson who stabbed him, Easterling spoke up and said she stabbed him, according to investigators. Police said Easterling confessed to the stabbing several time as she was being arrested and taken to the police department.
Officer searched the home and found the knife used to stab Johnson in the kitchen sink covered with blood, according to investigators.
Johnson was taken to Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, in Winston Salem and into surgery, but he died.
Easterling was initially arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. She was taken to Guilford County High Point Jail under a domestic hold, police said. When Johnson died, Easterling was charged first-degree murder.
She has no bond.
This makes the eighth homicide for 2020, compared to 16 at this time in 2019, police said.