A joint investigation with Special Agents from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and investigators with the Carter County Sheriff’s Office has resulted in the arrest of an Elizabethton man, charged in the death of his mother.

On April 6, at the request of 1st District Attorney General Ken Baldwin, Agents and investigators were dispatched to 171 Reynolds Road in Elizabethton, after a caregiver reported finding a deceased individual there. The victim was identified as Edith Betty Ralph, 76. During the course of the investigation, Agents and deputies developed information that indicated the victim’s son, John Ralph, who lived at the same residence, was the individual responsible for her death.

Saturday night, John Christopher Ralph, 52, was detained and arrested by officers with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Marshals Service at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. He is charged with one count of first-degree murder and currently being held in the Clayton County (GA) Jail on a $1,000,000 bond while awaiting extradition to Tennessee.