UNC professor

The boyfriend of a popular UNC professor has been charged with her murder. 45-year-old Donny Lewis Franklin was taken into custody on Tuesday and charged with murdering 35-year-old Jeannine Shante Skinner.

Skinner was an esteemed University of North Carolina professor. Her battered was discovered in her apartment over the weekend, according to the Charlotte Observer.

Police say Franklin has a history of domestic arrests and he plead guilty to a misdemeanor account of assaulting a woman in 2003.

Friends say Franklin and Skinner’s relationship was “relatively new”. They dated for less than two months and went to church together on Sunday.

Her body was found inside her Ayrsley Town Center apartment after the police conducted a wellness check on her just before noon Friday.

The cause of death was not made public, but police say Skinner suffered blunt force trauma to her body.