A witness in the murder trial against Terry Johnson testified Thursday that police forced her to implicate Johnson for the murder of 19-year-old Andre Jamal Wiggins.
“They said that if I didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear, they wouldn’t allow me to see my child,” the witness testified. “I was scared for my child.”
Johnson and his mother, Shannon, are co-defendants in the case. Johnson is charged with first-degree murder and several firearms charges; his mother is charged with evidence tampering.
Prosecutors allege that Johnson and Wiggins had been having a long-time dispute, which centered around them dating the same woman. That dispute, they believe, culminated with Wiggins’ death Oct. 26, 2011.
According to the witness’s grand jury testimony, on the morning of Oct. 26 she saw Wiggins sitting in a silver Infiniti truck that was parked on Division Avenue Northeast, across the street from the witness’s apartment. The truck, the witness said, belonged to Wiggins’ friend, whom Johnson had also dated.
The witness testified to the grand jury that Wiggins followed her in the truck as she walked her daughter to school that morning. At one point, the witness said, Wiggins stopped the vehicle, rolled down the window, and stared at her for what seemed like five minutes.
The witness said that after dropping her daughter off, she then walked to a friend’s house, and Shannon Johnson was there. When Shannon Johnson heard about what had just happened, she became “angry and upset,” the witness said.
In her grand jury testimony, the witness said that a short time later she overheard Shannon Johnson on the phone with Wiggins telling him to leave the child alone because “they had nothing to do with this.”
A few minutes later the witness received a call from Johnson telling her to pack some clothes and then never return to her apartment on Clay Street Northeast, according to grand jury testimony.
The witness testified that over the course of that afternoon several more calls were exchanged between Johnson, his mother, and the witness. The witness said that she and Shannon Johnson went to pick up her child from school, and had planned to then go to the witness’s apartment to pack clothes, but by the time they reached Clay Street Northeast, the police had taped off the area.
Wiggins’ body was found in the 5200 block of Clay Street NE, just down the street from his apartment.
The witness said that as she and Shannon Johnson were driving away from the scene of the incident, the mother decided to call Johnson.
During the conversation, Shannon Johnson asked her son what happened, and according to the witness’s grand jury testimony, Johnson said, “I did it; it’s okay.”
The witness said that Johnson also told them to “get the kids and never go back to the house.”
During trial Thursday, the witness refused to answer any of the prosecutor’s questions, and at one point said, “everything you’re asking is right there,” referring to the grand jury testimony being read in court.
Then the witness told the court that none of the things she said during her grand jury testimony were true and that she had lied to protect her child.
But prosecutors argued that her grand jury testimony was the exact same story that she had told police on the evening of the shooting; a video of her police interrogation was shown in court Thursday.
In the police interrogation video a detective asks the witness to recount the events of that day, and the witness begins speaking. While describing to detectives the phone conversation between Johnson and his mother, the witness says, “He said, ‘I did it; just tell them it’s done. I got it.’”
When the witness was asked Thursday why she made that statement, she testified that earlier in the interrogation police told her what to say.
Prosecutors then played the audio from the witness’s grand jury testimony.
“Has anyone threatened you?” the prosecutor asks.
“No,” the witness replied.
“Has anyone told you what to say to the grand jury?”
“No.”
“Why are you testifying in front of the grand jury?” the prosecutor asks.
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” the witness said.
The testimony Thursday came in the fourth day of the trial. The prosecution is expected to continue making their argument Monday.
