WHEELING, Ill. and HAMMOND, Ind. — A man has been charged with the murder of a young mother whose daughter was found dead days later in a retention pond in northwest Indiana.

Ahmeel Fowler, 26, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 21-year-old Ja’nya Murphy, Wheeling police said in a statement.

Fowler has not been charged with the death of Murphy’s daughter, 1-year-old Jaclyn “Angel” Dobbs, but police said they “anticipate additional charges” as the investigation continues.

Indiana State Police said the Lake County Coroner has positively identified the remains as that of Dobbs, who was reported missing after her mother was found murdered earlier this week in Wheeling.

An autopsy on Dobbs is expected to be conducted Friday.

Police had been frantically searching for Dobbs since Tuesday night, when her mother was found murdered in her Wheeling apartment. An autopsy found Murphy had been strangled and died of asphyxiation, authorities said.

Her daughter Angel was not in the apartment, sparking a frantic search. It was a group of construction workers that led police to the retention pond off I-80 near Kennedy Avenue in Hammond after they spotted a body floating in it.

It didn’t take long for police to find the body once they made it to the area. Investigators said the pond was relatively full of water from recent rain, about four or five feet deep, and easily accessible from the nearby roadway.

Fowler was identified as a person of interest early on in the investigation and was arrested in Springfield, Missouri on Wednesday.

He is not Jaclyn’s father but had a relationship with Murphy and was last seen with her and the child at a mall on Monday, around the time her family last had contact with her.

“We know for a fact he was in the far northern suburbs yesterday morning and then by yesterday evening, he was in western Missouri,” Wheeling Deputy Police Chief Al Steffen said. “We are looking to recreate the track from where he was in the northwest suburbs to Missouri.”

Murphy was a 2018 graduate of Stevenson High School and lived with her daughter at the apartment building, Wheeling police said.

WLS-TV contributed to this report.

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