The Erie County District Attorney s Office has revealed that Larrinsha Johnson, 18, the Buffalo woman found dead in a car early last Saturday morning in Martin Luther King Jr. Park, was strangled.
The county Medical Examiner s office said the preliminary cause of death was asphyxiation due to manual strangulation, and added she was also severely beaten. An official autopsy report is pending.
Johnson was a senior at Math Science Technical Preparatory School in Buffalo. Dozens of members of the school community held a balloon-releasing ceremony at MST in her memory this week.
Her boyfriend, Mushagdusa Nankumba, 18 of Buffalo, was taken into custody shortly after police responded to a suspicious incident call at MLK Park around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. He was charged with second degree murder and is being held without bail at the Erie County Holding Center.