Police arrest man in connection with nature preserve body

The circumstances surrounding the death of an Indianapolis woman found Thursday near a nature preserve in Hancock County remain murky, but police have arrested a man in connection with her death.

The woman's boyfriend, Billy Paschal, 61, Indianapolis, is held on suspicion of failing to report a dead body, a misdemeanor, and moving a body from a scene in a violent or suspicious death, a felony, according to a press release from the Hancock County Sheriff's Office.

Investigators, though, don't yet know how Theodosia Regina Queen, 62, Indianapolis, died, Capt. Jeff Rasche of the Hancock County Sheriff's Office said.

Preliminary autopsy results did not uncover trauma to her body, or a medical condition, police said. Detectives are waiting for toxicology reports.

"Any death is suspicious when a body is dumped alone in the middle of a parking lot," Rasche said.

Paschal told investigators that 62-year-old Theodesia Regina Queen died in the back of her SUV from a heroin overdose before he left her body in the lot, about 15 miles east of Indianapolis, a probable cause affidavit filed in Hancock Circuit Court said.

A passerby discovered Queen's body in the 1600 block of South 600W, near the Jacob Schramm Nature Preserve, police said.

Paschal told investigators that Queen had been drinking whiskey Wednesday and while they were returning to their room at an Eastside Indianapolis motel, she stopped somewhere to use heroin and became incapacitated. He said she stretched out in the backseat of her SUV while he drove to the motel. She remained alive in the vehicle when he checked on her three or four times during the night, but was dead the next morning.

Paschal said he feared police would blame him for the death, so he left Queen’s body Thursday afternoon in the preserve’s parking lot, where passers-by spotted it and reported it to authorities.

“I’m the one that laid her there,” Paschal said. “I didn’t kill her. It was the drugs and booze that killed her.”

This story will be updated.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. Call Star reporter Michael Anthony Adams at (317) 444-6123. Follow him on Twitter: @MichaelAdams317.