Michelle Mae, 35, was last seen in the Outing, Minnesota area on Wednesday. (Cass County Sheriff's Office / FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul)
SWATARA, Minn. (FOX 9) - A man has been charged with murder in connection with the death of a missing Outing, Minnesota woman whose body was found on his property in rural Aitkin County last month.
On Thursday, Aitkin County judge charged Joshua Karjala, 34, of Swatara with second-degree murder in the strangulation death of Michelle Mae, 35, of Outing.
Mae was reported missing on Oct. 3.
According to the charges, on Oct. 4, authorities found her 2004 Jeep Liberty off the Soo Line ATV Trail near Swatara and began searching the area. The truck appeared to have come to an abrupt stop. It was still in drive and the keys were in the ignition.
After Mae’s family was notified that the vehicle had been found, a friend of Mae’s showed investigators a text she had received from Mae containing a screenshot of a conversation between Mae and Karjala. In the conversation, Karjala provided Mae with his address and a map of how to get there from her home in Outing.
Investigators went to Karjala’s house to speak to him. He admitted to knowing Mae and that she had come over to his house on Oct. 2 for a sexual encounter after meeting each other online.
On Oct. 5, during a search of Karjala’s home, investigators found some of Mae’s clothing inside a wood stove in his living room. Karjala was on supervised probation and was arrested for a probation violation.
On Oct. 16, investigators executed a search warrant on Karjala’s property and found Mae’s body buried in a crawl space in his basement.
The Ramsey County Medical Examiner determined Mae was strangled to death. Her death was ruled a homicide.