Man gets 45-year sentence for strangulation murder of mother who drove school bus

Eric Quentin Johnson was handed a 45-year prison sentence this week for the 2021 murder of Teresa Michael, who had five children and drove an MCCSC school bus for a living.

Michael was found dead in her Basswood Drive apartment in January of 2021 by firefighters who arrived to extinguish a fire and discovered the 32-year-old woman’s body inside.

An autopsy showed she didn’t die from smoke inhalation or fire injuries. Michael had been strangled.

Johnson, a boyfriend she had met online six months earlier and was breaking up with, was the prime suspect.

About a week after the fire, police found Michael’s 2007 Dodge Caliber abandoned in Georgia, where Johnson was from. They traced the suspect to a Greyhound bus, which they stopped in South Carolina. Johnson was on board, arrested and returned to Bloomington to face murder, arson and auto theft charges.

Johnson, now 33, pleaded guilty June 10 to murder; the other two charges were dismissed through a plea agreement. He was sentenced to 45 years by Monroe Circuit Judge Valeri Haughton, who granted him credit for more than three years served behind bars since his arrest. Johnson was assessed $189 in court costs, a $50 domestic violence fee, $150 public defender fee and $2,459 in extradition costs to transport him from South Carolina.

Investigators learned Michael had met Johnson online and had driven to Georgia in October of 2020 to bring him to live with her in Bloomington. Relatives described a contentious relationship between the two, according to court documents filed in the case. She had asked him to leave on Jan. 28, the day she was killed.

Michael’s partially burned body was found in the living room of her apartment. An autopsy indicated she had been strangled before an accelerant was used to set the fire.

Police said apartment complex security camera footage showed Michael’s car leaving the Basswood apartments’ parking lot 90 minutes before the fire was reported at 9:30 p.m.

Bank records and video surveillance indicate Johnson stopped at a Martinsville liquor store at 9 p.m. to buy alcohol, then checked into a hotel there. The next morning, he withdrew $500 from a bank account he shared with Michael, bought a cell phone in Bloomington and drove south in her car.

Police reported that when Johnson was arrested on the Las Vegas-bound bus nine days after the murder, he told them Michael was fine when he last saw her the night of the break-up. He said she drove him the Greyhound station in Indianapolis and bought him a ticket to Florida.

Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 9812-318-5967.