Florida authorities capture suspect in fatal August 2020 Columbus stabbing

Florida authorities announced Thursday that they’ve caught a woman Columbus police for months have sought in a stabbing that killed a 31-year-old man.

The Levy County Sheriff’s Office said its detectives working with the U.S. Marshal’s Service and Williston city police arrested Vivian Denise Fletcher at a home on Northeast Second Avenue in Williston on Wednesday morning.

Williston is near the city of Gainesville.

Columbus police last September said they had warrants charging Fletcher, 35, in the assault on Antonio Zarie Blanding, found dead around 2:30 a.m. Aug. 8 on 32nd Avenue between Cusseta Road and Lee Street.

Investigators said last year that Fletcher was known to frequent the area of Cusseta Road and 28^th Avenue.

Fletcher was arrested Wednesday with a man charged with violating probation, but the man was not sought in Blanding’s homicide, authorities said.

Fletcher was booked into the Levy County Sheriff’s Office Detention Facility, where she will await extradition to Columbus, to face charges of murder and using a knife to commit a crime, police said.

Tim Chitwood

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

706-571-8508

Tim Chitwood is from Seale, Alabama, and started as a police beat reporter with the Ledger-Enquirer in 1982. He since has covered Columbus’ serial killings and other homicides, following some from the scene of the crime to trial verdicts and ensuing appeals. He also has been a Ledger-Enquirer humor columnist since 1987. He’s a graduate of Auburn University, and started out working for the weekly Phenix Citizen in Phenix City, Ala.