The owner of a Henry County bookstore was found dead Sunday afternoon. Now her employee is behind bars and charged in her murder, police said.
Ten hours before 40-year-old Erica Atkins’ body was found, a family friend reported her missing from her Locust Grove home after she failed to pick up the phone, police Chief Derrick Austin said.
Atkins’ employee at Birdsong Books, 38-year-old Romero Johnson of Covington, was quickly arrested and charged with kidnapping. The victim’s family told Channel 2 Action News that Johnson was Atkins’ ex-boyfriend.
That afternoon, Austin said his department received a call from the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office stating that a body had surfaced and it fit the description of Atkins. She was found in Cedar Creek, a wildlife management area, at about 1 p.m. by a fisherman. The rural area is about 50 miles from her home.
Detectives then obtained an additional warrant charging Johnson with murder, Austin said.
The victim’s family told Channel 2 that Johnson worked with Atkins at a pop-up bookshop Saturday and police confirmed they were together that evening.
“The investigation leads us to believe that she died that night,” Austin said. “The time we don’t know. We’re kind of waiting on the autopsy. But probably the early morning hours of Sunday, March 5, at her residence.”
A cause of death has not been determined as the autopsy remains pending.
Atkins leaves behind a 21-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son, according to Channel 2.
“I’m really going to miss her,” the victim’s daughter, Jasmine Atkins, said. “Your mother is the first person you look at when you come into this world. The person that’s holding you. That first heartbeat you feel other than your own. My mother was everything to me.”
The family told the news station that Atkins opened her bookstore a little over a year ago. Birdsong Books was named “2022 Microbusiness of the Year” in February by the Henry County Chamber of Commerce, and Atkins was a 2023 appointee to the Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“As a business and community leader and a friend, she will be sorely missed,” the Chamber wrote.
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