THE INVESTIGATORS: Man who confessed to streamed killing on Instagram released from prison weeks before attack
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The 9News Investigators have learned the man accused of gruesomely killing a woman and streaming the violent encounter on Facebook Live was released from prison just weeks before the attack.
Earl Johnson Jr., 35, said he loved his son as he was hauled off to prison Tuesday.
”Yeah I love my son. I do whatever for my son,” Johnson said.
Prison is likely where he will spend the rest of his life now that he’s facing a first-degree murder charge. Police say he brutally murdered 34-year-old Janice David, beating, choking, and stabbing her to death after going on a three-to-four day drug binge with her.
The entire killing was streamed live in a 15-minute video on Facebook.
”Apparently they were involved in some drug usage together for a couple of days and as an end result, as everyone has seen on Facebook Live, it’s very gruesome,” said Sgt. L’Jean McKneely. “It was a very evil act.”
The 9News Investigators have learned this is not Johnson’s first run-in with the law. He was locked up back in 2005 on several armed robbery charges. He pleaded guilty to the charges in 2007 and was sentenced to 15 years behind bars with credit for time served.
According to court records, his attorney at the time filed a request to reduce his sentence after he had served 4 years but that request was never approved. Johnson did serve the full 15 years and WAFB’s Scottie Hunter was told he was just released from prison back on Jan. 17, 2022. That release came roughly 90 days before police say he confessed to this heinous murder.
”We launched our investigation and had a recording of the video. We already had him in custody. We interviewed him and he admitted to committing the killing,” said McKneely.
While it’s unclear why David’s life was taken — police say they are glad Johnson is off the streets.
It is not known if Johnson and the victim had been connected outside of those three to four days they did drugs together.
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