PLATTE COUNTY, Mo. — Nearly a week after a St. Joseph, Mo., woman was found stuffed in a homemade box in Platte County, a suspect is now charged in the mysterious case. The arrest and charges against 51-year-old Martin Williams is some comfort for the brother of Tangela Fisher.
“I am glad that somebody has been arrested,” said Travis Griese, brother. “It’s extremely hard especially since I know him.”
“I knew him as Marty, and I didn’t know him well, but he was a friend to my sister and he was her ex-hsuband’s best friend,” he said.
Interestingly, FOX 4’s Robert Townsend actually met Williams on Monday while covering Fisher’s death. At the time, a soft-spoken Williams stood outside the home of the victim’s ex-husband and said, “I don’t want to talk about it or go on camera because I’m hurting and I don’t want to get involved.”
Williams is charged with two felony crimes: involuntary manslaughter and abandonment of a corpse. Court documents allege on September 5 he and Fisher were at Williams’ St. Joseph home when Willams put an unknown drug in a syringe for himself and Fisher.
Court papers indicate when Tangela injected the drug into her arm, she stopped breathing. Prosecutors say Williams didn’t call for medical help. Instead, they say he built a homemade, wooden box, put Fisher and some clothes inside and dumped the box in rural northern Platte County near a dried up creek.
A week later, a man passing by a remote, rural area near East Dye Store Road in northern Platte County found her.
The 35-year-old Fisher was a mother of three children, ranging from six to 16 years old. Relatives said she was also bipolar.
“Well, it’s got to be devastating for her kids as it is for me,” said Griese. “I had to break the awful news to our family.”
