A Ronkonkoma man has been arrested and charged with manslaughter in the strangulation death of a young woman whose badly burned body was discovered after a fire at her home, Suffolk County police homicide detectives said Thursday.

Christopher Bayer, 22, of 23 St. Joseph Ave. in Ronkonkoma, faces second-degree manslaughter charges.

The body of Laura Giampino, 20, who had been married just five months earlier, was discovered by Ronkonkoma Fire Department volunteers in a front room of her home on Hawkins Avenue after motorists reported seeing smoke coming from the house at about 8:30 a.m. Monday.

Fitzpatrick said that because Giampino was so badly burned, the cause of death was not immediately clear. But officials said on Wednesday that the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's Office determined that Giampino's death was due to strangulation. The Suffolk County Police Department Homicide Squad is continuing the investigation.

The medical examiner's report did not include a precise time of death, Fitzpatrick said, but it is known that Giampino was still alive the evening before because she had friends over to visit.

No one else was found in the house at that time, and Giampino's husband, Michael, 24, was not considered a suspect in the case, Fitzpatrick said; he had been in the Suffolk County jail since Friday, serving a 45-day sentence on an unrelated conviction of menacing with a weapon.

Laura Giampino was a graduate of Sachem High School in Ronkonkoma. She began working recently in the bakery section of the Ronkonkoma King Kullen.