NATCHEZ — Deputies arrested a Franklin County man Thursday, charged with the strangulation death of an Adams County woman.

Deputies arrested Gary Dewayne Mitchell, 33, 910 Bunkley Road, Franklin County, on a charge of first degree murder.

“Our investigation led us to make this arrest in Franklin County,” Patten said.

Investigators found the body Ashley Coleman Touchstone at 108 Tate Road just before midnight May 4.

Touchstone was nude and found beneath her porch, and preliminary autopsy reports indicated blunt force trauma and strangulation to be the cause of death.

Earlier in the day, residents in the Tate Road neighborhood had reported seeing Touchstone running nude down the street, and Adams County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Jerry Brown said drugs may have played a factor in the death.

Autopsy reports indicate evidence of severe drug usage in the last few hours before the victim’s death, Brown said.

After interviewing several people, the Adams County Sheriff’s Office investigators gathered enough evidence to charge Gary Dewayne Mitchell with the murder of Ashley Coleman Touchstone, Brown said.

The relationship between Touchstone and Mitchell is not fully clear, but Brown said the two seem to have been caught in a love triangle with a third person.

Mitchell was in jail at the Adams County Sheriff’s Office as of Thursday evening with no bond set.