Uptown Murder Charges Detailed

KSTP News has a copy of the first degree murder charges against Billy Ray Deshawn Johnson and Donte Lamar Jacobs here: "Uptown charges".



With potentially five people acting in concert in this gruesome crime, it's going to be difficult for any of them to argue that it was anything but an act of unmitigated evil. I suspect the defense attorneys for the three occupants who stayed in the car while the robbery/murder was going down will eventually say they didn't know what Johnson and Jacobs were going to do when they got out, but the odds of success on that defense are between slim and none, and slim just left town. The bad thing (for them) is that that may be their only chance.

Once again, the police did yeoman's work on this case, as a further KSTP News report details: "Police used fingerprint off of cell phone to hunt down teen suspect in Uptown murder".

A witness who drove to the scene in a white Ford Taurus with Johnson, Jacobs and two other unnamed people told investigators that Johnson and Jacobs were planning to commit robberies that night.

The witness, who was not identified, reported seeing Johnson and Jacobs approach Zebuhr and Strong, rob them and then claimed to have seen saw Johnson shoot Zebuhr, according to the complaint.

Police further tied the Johnson to the crime, prosecutors alleged, through the cell phone in Strong's purse. It was recovered in a garbage bag behind a residence in Columbia Heights. One of Johnson's fingerprints was allegedly on it.

A white Ford Taurus that found burning late Tuesday burning in Brooklyn Park was the same car used in the crime, Klobuchar said. Two people seen leaving the scene were arrested, and Klobuchar said charges against them were pending.

Let's hope the police grab up the remaining predators before they hurt someone else.