photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A Lawrence Police Department patrol vehicle is pictured June 28, 2022.

Lawrence police officers arrested a man overnight who said he killed his grandmother by strangling her, according to a news release from the department.

Officers were dispatched to a home just southwest of Clinton Parkway and Crestline Drive a little before 2 a.m. Saturday. Dispatchers told officers the man confessed to the killing over the phone.

When they arrived, officers knocked on the door. Marcus Cassella, 25, of Lawrence, eventually opened it and was arrested without incident. Inside, officers found the 70-year-old victim unresponsive in bed. Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical declared her deceased at the scene. Her identity has not been released.

Officers said they found the suspect’s 24-year-old brother unharmed in a bedroom with the door shut.

After being interviewed at police headquarters, Cassella was taken to the Douglas County Jail and booked on suspicion of first-degree murder. The younger brother is working now to notify extended family, the release said.

Kansas Department of Corrections records indicate that Cassella was convicted of aggravated assault in 2020. He was released from supervision in that case in April 2023. Three months later, in July 2023, he was accused of battering a woman in Douglas County. That case was originally charged as aggravated battery, a felony, and criminal restraint, but it was pleaded down to misdemeanor battery.

In the 2020 case, as the Journal-World reported, a then 19-year-old Cassella allegedly cut an employee of Casey’s General Store, 1703 W. Sixth St., with a knife. He was arrested on suspicion of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated battery and interference with law enforcement, according to the Douglas County Jail booking log. When officers arrived, they found Cassella being restrained by another employee of the store. He eventually pleaded no contest to aggravated assault.