Jackson, Miss. police have arrested a man in connection to the brutal killing of a registered nurse. As the cops investigate the motive for the slaying, family members suggest one tip could be the suspect’s toxic relationship with the victim.

The morning of April 9, officers with the Jackson Police Department say they responded to a homicide near Tapestry Northridge Apartments. The victim was identified as 25-year-old Carlos Collins who was a registered nurse from Yazoo City, per WAPT. Police said he appeared to be attacked with an axe before being fatally shot to death.

Public Information Officer Tommie Brown told the Clarion Ledger the suspect was identified as 33-year-old Marcus Johnson, Collins’ ex-boyfriend who had been accused of stalking him.

Read more from PEOPLE:

Collins also filed a restraining order against him, Collins’s sister, Alisha Hudson tells PEOPLE. But his ex-boyfriend, Marcus Johnson, was a former Jackson police officer, and the stalking-like behavior continued, she says.

The two had dated for about a year, ending in late 2023, Hudson says.

In the months that followed their breakup, she says Collins found air tags and trackers on his car and that of a friend’s, as well as a ring camera he believed his ex had installed at a vacant apartment nearby to watch him. Once, Hudson says, her brother told her he’d awoken to Johnson watching him sleep.

Collins requested his locks to be changed multiple times, she says, and he spoke to a family pastor about taking self-defense classes.

Source: Disturbing New Details Surrounding Ex-Cop Arrest in Fatal Axe Attack of Boyfriend