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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.

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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.

In addition to being an alleged troubled ex, police say Johnson is also former officer of the JPD with a troubling record.

Johnson left the department in 2013, after just eight months working for them, per WAPT. Police didn’t specify the circumstances surrounding his departure from the department. However, they did say he was facing disciplinary action that was leading to termination and happened to quit beforehand.

A year later, Johnson was arrested after hijacking an old ticket book and officer badge number to issue a fake citation to a female student and offering to “hook up” with her so she could avoid the imaginary penalty, per The Clarion Ledger.

Johnson was charged with false pretense, grand larceny and two counts of impersonating an officer. Now, he’s facing new charges of murder and shooting into an occupied dwelling. Johnson was taken into custody April 10 after a brief car chase as he tried to flee to Louisiana and was transferred back to Jackson.

According to Collins’ family, this killing would have been avoidable if proper measures were taken to protect Collins.

“In my brother’s last months, he was living in hell dealing with Marcus,” said Alisha Hudson, Collins’ sister. “The Jackson Police Department mishandled his case and downplayed the situation. They didn’t care to protect my brother. They protected Marcus.”