GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — A Norcross man has been charged by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in connection with the death of his girlfriend in a townhouse fire.
Channel 2's Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Tony Thomas searched through records and learned that authorities said the man claimed the victim wasn't even home when the fire broke out.
Thomas informed Joanna Rutledge's family Tuesday morning that an arrest had been made in her death. The victim's mother said nothing about her daughter's death made sense.
"How did he not know that she was there?" Joanna's mother, Beverly Rutledge, asked.
That's the big question Beverly Rutledge said she wants to ask 36-year-old Michael Anderson. Joanna Rutledge was staying at Anderson's Norcross townhouse in May when a fire gutted the place.
Anderson and his mother escaped. Rutledge did not. Investigators later found her body in Anderson’s bed.
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“No one in the family believed that it happened as he told the detectives that it did,” Beverly Rutledge said.
A judge appointed a lawyer for Anderson on Tuesday in his first court appearance, one day after the Georgia Bureau of Investigation charged him with involuntary manslaughter. He also faces a felony for lying to police at the fire scene.
An agent wrote in a warrant:
"Anderson told multiple Norcross police officers that his girlfriend, Joanna Rutledge, just left his townhome and no one was inside, knowing that Rutledge was inside his bedroom."
"The different stories that we were getting didn't make sense," the victim's sister, Jontae Rutledge, said.
Joanna Rutledge's younger sister said Anderson never tried to contact the family.
"I knew something was up from the moment I found out it happened over at his house," she said.
The Rutledge family told Channel 2 Action News they didn't know much about Anderson.
"I'd like to ask him: Why did you kill my baby?" Beverly Rutledge said. "I'd like to hear the truth from him, if he can tell the truth."
Authorities have given no indication if they know why Anderson allegedly lied about the situation.
He is being held on an $11,000 bond.
Cox Media Group
