Derrick Lamar Johnson told Columbus police he had a loaded .357 Magnum cocked in his lap in the back seat of a 1995 Ford Taurus Tuesday night when he dropped the gun and it went off, fatally shooting the driver in the back.
That’s what police Sgt. Tom Plock told Judge Michael Joyner Wednesday in Columbus Recorder’s Court as Johnson, 20, faced a murder charge in the death of 17-year-old Eric Demetries Maxwell.
Plock said a witness reported hearing a gunshot in the 2400 block of Second Avenue and then seeing a Ford Taurus swerve, slow down and pull to the roadside. The witness said one man jumped out and ran and a second man got out and wiped the car off with his shirt sleeve, as if to erase fingerprints.
Police arrived about 9 p.m. and found Maxwell and summoned the coroner, who pronounced the teen dead at 9:38 p.m. The front-seat passenger who had been wiping down the car was still at the scene and later identified as Tray Thomas. Police charged Thomas, 18, with possessing cocaine with intent to distribute when they saw two bags of crack in the car’s front ashtray, Plock said. One bag had nine hunks of crack and the other had three, each piece individually wrapped, Plock said.
The sergeant said Thomas, who’s in the Muscogee County Jail on $10,000 bond, never gave investigators a statement, and Johnson surrendered at police headquarters before Thomas was questioned.
Johnson told detectives the three men previously had been shot at while in the Wilson public housing complex off Veterans Parkway, and he had bought the handgun for $80 on the street, intending to return to Wilson to find their assailants, Plock said. He said Johnson claimed the shooting was accidental.
Johnson told officers that after the gun went off, he ran into the woods and threw away the weapon, which has not been found, Plock said.
Johnson also faces charges of possessing a firearm while committing a crime and possessing cocaine with intent to distribute. He pleaded not guilty and did not testify.
Positing that the shooting was an accident, Johnson’s attorney, public defender Charles Lykins, asked Joyner to reduce the murder charge to involuntary manslaughter.
Joyner refused, noting one section of the state law defining the crime says, “A person also commits the offense of murder when, in the commission of a felony, he causes the death of another human being irrespective of malice.”
Testimony showed not only that crack cocaine packaged to be sold was found in the car, but also that its occupants were “en route to commit a felony” by shooting at others, Joyner said. Those factors were enough to establish probable cause to let the murder charge stand and send the case to Superior Court, the judge said.
Johnson will remain jailed without bond on the murder charge. Joyner set a bond of $10,000 on the firearms charge and $20,000 on the drug charge.
Outside the court, Maxwell’s grandmother, Carolyn Burnham, said she thought the shooting was accidental, but had begun to doubt that during the hearing. “He wasn’t remorseful for what he did,” she said of Johnson. “He was just trying to figure out a way to get out of this.”
She thought it odd that only Johnson had a gun, though he claimed they were going to battle others in Wilson Homes. She said her grandson was not the kind to get into a gunfight.
“He’ll walk away,” she said. “He’s not a fighter.”
Maxwell, Johnson and Thomas grew up together in Chase Homes off Second Avenue in Columbus, she said. Maxwell had lived there with his mother, who died two years ago.
“They were close,” she said.
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