Authorities say that a man from Richmond who they referred to as a “known drug-dealer” is accused of killing two police informants and disposing of their bodies in a river in Fort Wayne.
Four counts of murder are expected to be officially brought against 29-year-old Dominique M. “Nico” Washington in Allen Superior Court 5 on Wednesday morning.
In Richmond, a residential neighborhood off U.S. 40 on the west side of the city, the 400 block of Campbell Avenue is where police executed a search warrant on Monday night, leading to his arrest.
At 1 p.m. on Friday, the St. Mary’s River near Michaels Avenue and Van Buren Street was reported to be the source of two bodies being removed, according to a call to the Fort Wayne Police Department. That is directly east of the boat ramp at Guldlin Park.
The two remains, a Connersville resident and a woman, were contained in garbage bags.
The Allen County coroner declared both deaths to be homicides after investigators discovered that Christina Michelle Dixon, 41, had been strangled and smothered and Matthew Joseph Johnson, 41, had been shot in the head.
According to police, Washington killed Dixon and Johnson after luring them into a car near Richmond, forcing them to exchange cars, forcing them to turn off their phones, and then disposing of their bodies in the St. Mary’s River in Fort Wayne.
Dixon and Johnson’s smartphones were used by the police to follow their whereabouts and communicate with whomever they had spoken to in the days preceding the killings. Johnson had Washington on his phone as a contact.
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Through the use of telephones, Fort Wayne investigators were able to get in touch with the Richmond Police Department, where they were informed that Dixon and Johnson were missing confidential informants.
The informants, according to Richmond police, helped them bust a significant amount of drugs there recently.
Shortly after meeting with Washington in an apartment building in Richmond, Dixon and Johnson’s phones disconnected from the network. Later on, the phones were discovered in a trash can.
The initial court date for Washington was scheduled for Wednesday at 8 a.m. in Richmond.
