COLUMBUS – Columbus police say a man murdered his landlord to avoid paying back rent and an accomplice helped try to burn the body to hide the crime.
Maurice Watkins (right) was arrested and charged with murder, since homicide investigators say he was the trigger man in the shooting death Joseph Remlinger, 50, whose body was found in a vehicle inside a burning garage in the Driving Park neighborhood Thursday afternoon, Homicide Unit Sgt. Dave Sicilian said.
Police officers and firefighters responding to a fire in a detached garage behind 704 Lilley Avenue at 1:06 p.m. found the garage engulfed in flames with a vehicle parked inside. When the fire was put out, they found Remlinger’s body inside the vehicle.
Sicilian says Pierre Williams (below) will be charged with arson for starting the fire in the garage at 704 Lilley Avenue to conceal evidence.
Sicilian says Remlinger was the landlord at 2775 Grasmere Avenue, in North Linden, and was trying to collect past-due rent money from Watkins, who lived there.
This is the 37th homicide in Columbus in 2016.