Latest: Ex-boyfriend of slain Macon woman in custody after cops track him to northwest GA
A construction worker sought in connection with the slaying of his former girlfriend in Macon’s Barrington Hall neighborhood was taken into police custody Tuesday, the U.S. Marshals Service said.
Joey Fournier, 50, wanted on a murder warrant in the death of Cynthia “Cindy” Berry, was apprehended in northwest Georgia near Rome, said Deputy U.S. Marshal John Edgar of the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force.
Edgar said the task force located Fournier — who lives off Lamar Road west of Lake Wildwood — with the help of Bibb County sheriff’s deputies.
Fournier was first taken to the Bibb sheriff’s office for questioning and later jailed at the county lockup on a murder charge. He was being held without bond Tuesday evening.
Edgar said that Fournier’s brother, Jeffrey Fournier, 46, also was taken into custody on a warrant for allegedly hindering the apprehension of Joey Fournier.
Berry, 49, was found dead in her home on Winchester Place shortly after 1:30 a.m. Monday.
Sheriff’s officials in a statement announcing the arrests said she had been strangled. The statement further noted that Joey Fournier had been at Berry’s house the night of her death and that he had at some point called someone for a ride and then fled.
Last fall, Berry obtained a temporary protective order against Joey Fournier after the two had lived together for about eight years, court records show.
In her complaint, Berry stated that Joey Fournier, one day in mid-August, had tried to take away her cellphone and “pushed her down to the ground, stood above her, and grabbed her by her shoulders.”
The complaint goes on to state that he put Berry “in a choke hold,” pulled her up from the ground and took her phone. He then allegedly followed her into a kitchen at the house where they were and “came up behind her, grabbed her arm pushing it into her back and told her, ‘If you make a sound, I will break it.’”
In her petition seeking the protective order, which was granted in late September, Berry listed incidents — one in 2017 and another in 2018 — in which Joey Fournier ”punched her in her chest causing her to lose her breath” and another time when he “stomped on her foot and broke her toe.”
Information from Telegraph archives contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 22, 2022 at 5:44 PM.