A Georgia man was sentenced to life in prison for a murder he committed in 2019 after briefly meeting the victim on a dating app.
Fabiola Thomas, 39, was discovered in a bathtub by her roommate in June 2019 at her apartment in Roswell, Georgia, according to reports from WSB-TV, 11 Alive, and FOX 5 Atlanta. Antonio Wilson, then 38, was arrested and charged with murder months later, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and 11 Alive, citing Roswell Police.
The investigation began on 8 June 2019, when police received a frantic phone call from Thomas’ roommate, who said he found her in the bathtub and that “something bad had happened to her,” police said, according to FOX 5 Atlanta and 11 Alive. Police found her unresponsive at the scene, and she was later pronounced dead at the hospital.
A medical examiner ruled several months later that her death was a homicide. During the investigation, authorities learned that Thomas and Wilson had met on a dating app shortly before the murder.
“Ms. Thomas did everything that you would think you should do,” Assistant District Attorney Abigail Potter told WSB-TV in an interview. “She told her friends where she was going. She would only meet him in public places.”
When Thomas decided not to continue seeing Wilson, he could not handle the rejection, prosecutors said, as per WSB-TV. In a text message sent before her death, Thomas asked Wilson to “stop claiming” her, according to authorities.
“Keep your ring, I’m not your woman, never was, stop claiming me because I never claimed u,” Thomas wrote in a text, WSB-TV reported, citing prosecutors. On the day before she was killed, she “unfriended” Wilson, senior assistant district attorney Nalda Charles said, although it wasn’t clear which messaging platform they were friends on.
Wilson was arrested on October 25, 2019, the day after Thomas’ death was ruled a homicide, per FOX 5 Atlanta. Five years later, following his trial, a jury deliberated for just 30 minutes before finding him guilty, as reported by WSB-TV.
On Tuesday, July 23, a judge sentenced Wilson to life in prison without the possibility of parole for malice murder, WSB-TV reported from a Fulton County court.