A Georgia woman was charged with killing her paraplegic ex-boyfriend by abandoning him in the woods to die from exposure to freezing temperatures.
Ruby Kate Coursey, 27, was charged Monday with felony murder and felony neglect of a disabled adult that resulted in the death of Troymaine Johnson, 33, of Upson County, Georgia.
Coursey’s brother and sister-in-law called 911 after Coursey confessed to them that she “did a bad thing” and left Johnson in the woods to die last month.
Police found Johnson’s body near a dirt road in Middle Georgia after midnight on March 17, Upson County Sheriff Dan Kilgore tells PEOPLE magazine.
Kilgore said Coursey left Johnson in the area of an Upson County hunting camp that was closed for the season. She reportedly crashed her vehicle through the locked gate and “put Johnson out of her car and left him in the woods,” according to the Upson County Sheriff’s Office.
Johnson froze to death when the temperature dipped into the 20s overnight. A coroner’s report released last week determined the cause of death was hypothermia.
“That would have been a painful way to meet your demise,” said Sheriff Kilgore, who added that Johnson couldn’t move his legs and had very limited use of one of his arms.
Kilgore tells PEOPLE that “from a human perspective, it’s tragic and painful to see someone suffer like that. I can’t imagine how he must have felt.”
Dozens of Johnson’s friends and family attended his funeral in his hometown of Fort Valley, Georgia on March 23.
Johnson’s family members remembered him as a “loving soul” who would do anything to help anyone, despite being paraplegic.
“It’s sad that he left here at such an early age, but I believe that God is too wise to make a mistake,” Johnson’s aunt Sharon Rumph told WMAZ News.
“His father’s dead, his mother’s dead; so he’s leaving his earthly family to go on and be with his Heavenly family,” Rumph said.
