PITTSBORO, N.C. (WNCN) – A woman found dead in her Pittsboro apartment last year was murdered by a neighbor, according to police.

Donna Todd’s body was already decomposing by the time police, called in by a concerned caretaker, found her on April 11, 2017, authorities said. The 54-year-old’s death was on the second homicide in Pittsboro in 15 years. She was killed by blunt-force trauma, Pittsboro Police Chief Percy T. Crutchfield said.UPDATE: Pittsboro murder victim found with scissors in neck, autopsy says

Willie Henderson Womble, 64, lived near Todd in a Creekside Drive apartment complex at the time, Crutchfield said. Forensic evidence linked him to the scene, according to authorities.

Now a Greensboro resident, he was arrested at home Wednesday by the State Bureau of Investigation and the Greensboro Police Department, authorities said.

He has been charged with first-degree murder and is being held in the Guilford County Detention Center, police said.

Officials confirmed that Womble is the same Willie Womble who was convicted in July 1976 of having murdered a store clerk, but exonerated in 2014 after an investigation by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission.WHAT OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON:

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