Tamra Turpin, a 36-year-old woman from Union, Missouri, was discovered murdered in a Mexican resort town last week. Her boyfriend, 59-year-old John Loveless, was arrested earlier this week in Cancun, as he prepared to board a flight for Atlanta.
U.S. man held in Mexico in the death of his girlfriend #Dateline https://t.co/l0QoiFHRst
— Dateline NBC (@DatelineNBC) March 7, 2016
Tamra Turpin was found dead last Wednesday in a condo she and John Loveless rented. Fox News reports an initial forensic examination states she died of asphysxia by strangulation.
Julie Burr, Tamra Turpin’s cousin, told the media in recent days that Turpin and Loveless knew each other for about a year, and that she had taken other trips with him. Turpin’s sister Jodie Mills says Tamra was disabled from a car accident she was in as a teenager.
John Loveless detained in Mexico after girlfriend is strangled on their beach resort… https://t.co/7VW9K0i3hA pic.twitter.com/1BQMqylP8u
— IBTimes UK (@IBTimesUK) March 7, 2016
Family members told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that John Loveless, who is an attorney, told them that Turpin had been taken to a local hospital after suffering seizures. They said he reported that she was released but “still wasn’t right,” and then that she died at the condo on Wednesday morning.
Tamra Turpin’s family has started a GoFundMe page to raise the $8,000 needed to return her body to Missouri.