After two weeks of testimony, Baltimore prosecutors rested their case Friday in the second trial of Michael Maurice Johnson for the killing of an honor-roll student from Monroe, 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes.
Friday’s testimony focused on text messages and wiretapped phone calls that were gathered by Maryland State Police as the case was being taken to the Harford County grand jury in October and November 2011. Police initiated those proceedings and presented other efforts in hopes of generating discussion of the case by Johnson while police were listening, Sgt. David Feltman testified.
In the discussions police gathered, Johnson is heard contemplating his possible outcomes but not connecting himself with the crime. Prosecutors had a Maryland state trooper read a text message from Johnson to his girlfriend saying, “We will say whatever we have to to win this case.”
He also talks of fleeing the country.
Johnson’s defense attorneys have said the conversations show the concerns of someone in that situation. The attorneys say some are taken out of context since he knew he was being targeted by authorities.
In cross examination, defense attorney Katy O’Donnell asked the trooper to continue reading the messages that followed. Johnson’s messages continued, “It’s a good chance it will be a trial … When [only] one side of the story is being told, you’re” in trouble.
On a recorded phone call, a relative says investigators asked him questions about Johnson’s breakup with Phylicia’s older sister. Johnson is heard saying, “So that’s supposed to be my motive? Our breakup?”
In another conversation, Johnson is heard talking to his brother about a police request to take his DNA. He tells his brother that he fears his DNA could be under Phylicia’s fingers from “play-fighting” a day before her disappearance. Johnson says that police “need something more solid to make it look like it’s” him.
Phylicia was visiting her older half-sisters when she disappeared in December 2010. Four months later, her body was found in the Susquehanna River near the Maryland and Pennsylvania border.
Johnson was charged with the killing in April 2012, and in 2013 was acquitted of first-degree murder but convicted of second-degree murder. He was the last known person to see Phylicia alive. Judge Alfred Nance later ordered a second trial, saying prosecutors had withheld information about a supposed eyewitness who said he saw Johnson with Phylicia’s body. At the retrial, that witness was not called by prosecutors.
The case relies mostly on an account from Johnson’s neighbor, who testified that Johnson was struggling to move a plastic storage container from the apartment on the day Phylicia went missing.
Prosecutors believe Phylicia’s body was inside the container.
Prosecutors also presented evidence from Johnson’s phone with Web searches for forensic testing and DNA, books about high-profile killings, and a video of Johnson having sex with a woman a police detective said was as a prostitute. Johnson’s previous attorneys said Thursday that the information was “extremely prejudicial,” as that evidence had not been presented at the previous trial.
Johnson’s current defense team will be able to call witnesses on Monday.
