Columbus woman says brother-in-law killed her boyfriend over ‘bad’ drug deal
An admitted drug dealer cried on the witness stand Thursday before she identified her brother-in-law as the man who fatally shot her boyfriend on the street in Columbus’ Historic District.
Erica Danielle Streeter testified that Demetrius Johnson shot Jermaine Williams in a dispute over a drug transaction June 18, 2018, in the Third Avenue area where Streeter and Williams regularly sold crack cocaine.
Streeter, jailed as a material witness to secure her testimony, broke down and wept when Acting District Attorney Sheneka Terry asked why she was wearing an inmate’s uniform and chains.
“I didn’t want to come to court,” replied Streeter, 34, who said her sister has four children with Johnson. “I didn’t want to testify against my sister’s husband.”
She had been jailed three months awaiting Johnson’s trial, she said.
The court briefly recessed as she sobbed, and then she gave jurors her account of the homicide.
She said she was living with Johnson and her sister at Columbus Commons apartments, back in 2018, and she and Williams habitually dealt drugs a few blocks away, outside a house in the 500 block of Third Avenue.
Johnson had sold some “bad” drugs to Williams, and the two argued for days about it, until she finally moved out of her sister’s apartment, she said. The day of the shooting, she and Williams were on Third Avenue when Johnson drove by in his wife’s car and argued with Williams, she said.
Johnson, who had his young daughter in the front passenger’s seat, drove away, but returned later, she said.
He said nothing to either Streeter or Williams when he came back, she testified: “He jumped out of the car with a gun and started shooting at Jermaine,” she said.
Williams ran as Streeter stood transfixed, she added; “I couldn’t move. I was just standing there shocked.”
Williams, shirtless and wearing shorts, was unarmed, she said.
Johnson said something to her as he drove off in her sister’s black 2009 Ford Focus, but she couldn’t hear it, she said.
She did not realize Williams was shot until she saw all the blood on him after hearing him call her name near a parking lot at Fourth Street Baptist Church, she said. She called 911 at 3:17 p.m. “Someone just pulled up and shot my friend,” she told a dispatcher. “He’s bleeding bad.”
A bullet had punctured Williams’ femoral artery in his left leg, and he later bled to death, authorities said.
Streeter did not tell 911 that Johnson shot Williams, “because I didn’t want to tell on him,” she testified. But she identified him upon hearing that Williams, 26, had died.
Still she later signed an affidavit at the office of William Kendrick, Johnson’s defense attorney, attesting that she did not see Johnson shoot Williams, and that she witnessed Johnson only flee the area to protect his daughter.
She claimed a secretary typed up that account, and she signed it without reading it. But Kendrick confronted her with a version in her own handwriting, and she admitted she had lied in her earlier testimony.
When asked why she gave the affidavit, she said, “I was trying to get my sister back. She was mad at me ... because I told on her husband.”
Asked the current status of her relationship with her sister, she said, “Torn apart.”
The trial Thursday was in its third day of testimony. Johnson, 30, is charged with murder, aggravated assault and using a gun to commit a crime. He faces life in prison if convicted.
This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 2:52 PM.