Mexican police arrest John Loveless after disabled girlfriend Tamra Turpin is strangled to death

A man has been arrested after his disabled girlfriend was strangled to death at a resort in Mexico.

John Loveless, 59, was detained at the airport in Cancun as he was about to board a flight to Atlanta, authorities said Sunday.

His girlfriend, 36-year-old Tamra Turpin, was found dead earlier this week at the condo they had rented in the Caribbean resort city of Playa del Carmen, near Cancun.

A forensic examination found she died of asphyxia by strangulation. 

Loveless, an attoey, faces a criminal homicide investigation in Turpin's death, prosecutors said.

Fleeing: Loveless was arrested attempting to board a flight back to Atlanta from Cancun

Loveless declined to make an official declaration when he appeared in front of a judge on Friday. It was not clear whether he had a local attoey. 

Turpin had a disability due to a car crash when she was a teenager, which prevented her from working, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported. 

Loveless told Turpin's family she had been taken to the hospital after having seizures, some of her relatives told the newspaper.

He then said she had been released from the hospital but still wasn't right and that she had died on Wednesday at the resort.

The pair had been on other vacations together and had known each other for about a year, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Loveless is now in custody in Playa del Carmen.

Turpin's relatives do not know yet how they will bring her body back home. They estimate it will cost $8,000 without funeral costs and have set up a Go Fund Me page to cover the expenses.

Turpin's mother Evalena Duncan told KSDK she wanted to know the truth, whatever it may be. 

'We're just praying that the truth be known and trying to deal with comprehending that she's gone,'Duncan said.

 'Prayers are needed for our family. Prayers are needed for the family of the companion also.'

Loveless, pictured with Turpin in a Facebook photo, is facing a criminal homicide investigation in her death, prosecutors said. He told her family she had seizures, was taken to the hospital, then was released and died at the resort