MIDDLETOWN, Ohio -- Authorities have arrested a man after an 11-year-old girl reported finding her mother dead.
Police found Crista Virginia Nitz, 41, dead on her bathroom floor Sunday night after her daughter called them. Nitz had been shot in the head, police said.
Nitz and her husband, Bobby Jo Nitz, 45, had been arguing, and her daughter told police she heard a loud sound before Bobby Jo Nitz drove away on his motorcycle.
"It's difficult for the 11-year-old to really understand what happened," Lt. Walter Reeve said. "Because she seemed to really understand what happened during the call, but later on when we're talking to her, she's hoping that mommy and the stepdad will get back together and everything will be alright."
Bobby Jo Nitz also told a friend he had just killed his wife, police said in a news release. Police sent a message out to other law enforcement agencies about Nitz.
Deputies in Meigs County, which is southeast of Chillicothe, found Nitz on his motorcycle and arrested him after a chase, police said.
Middletown police are charging Nitz with murder, they said. He was being returned to Middletown Monday is expected to appear in court Wednesday.
The girl is safe with her biological father.
Neighbor Dee Lynch was "shocked" by what happened.
"I think it was over a year they'd been married and they were always love-dovey and 'we just love each other,'" Lynch said. "And I can't believe it."
Police asked anyone with information to call 513-425-7733.
