Medical Examiner Identifies Body of Murdered Lakewood Woman

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s office has identified the body of a woman who was discovered stuffed in an apartment at Elbur Manor on Detroit Avenue last week. 

Police are continuing the investigation into the death of Pamela Jo Friedl, 55, according to Lakewood Patch news partner, NewsNet5.

Calls to the medical examiner’s office were not immediately returned.

Johnny L. Johnson, of Cleveland, has been charged with Friedl’s murder.

Sources say she died from a blunt force trauma to the head, but neither the police nor the medical examiner has confirmed that report.

Police first learned that Friedl was missing on Aug. 20 — court records indicate that’s when she was murdered.

At that time, officers checked the apartment at 13531 Detroit Avenue. “Officers found the apartment neat and orderly except for her cat which had defecated and urinated throughout the apartment,” according to a police department news release. 

But she wasn’t found.

Officers continued their investigation into Friedl’s disappearance, and again searched the apartment at around 10 a.m. Thursday, when they found her stuffed in a closet inside the apartment.

After she was discovered, “further information and leads were developed” that resulted in a warrant for Johnson’s arrest. He’d been hospitalized for 10 days at two area hospitals during the woman’s disappearance.

Johnson was picked up in Maple Heights later in the day Thursday. His bond was set at $500,000 last week.

Johnson is set to be arraigned Thursday, when he will face multiple charges, including aggravated murder, felonious assault, tampering with evidence and offenses against a human corpse.

The alleged murder is the first in Lakewood since 2012.