Michael Maurice Johnson: Man acquitted in Phylicia Barnes case faces new charges

Michael Maurice Johnson, who was convicted and later acquitted of killing 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes, was charged with strangling and raping a young woman in Baltimore County.

The alleged victim told police that Johnson, 40, heard her talking on the phone about a boy and flew into a rage. He attacked her throughout the night, beating her, choking her until she lost consciousness and raping her. He was charged on Monday and remanded in custody the next day, denied bail. No attorney was listed in court records.

Barnes, an honor student from North Carolina, was visiting family in northwest Baltimore in 2010 when she disappeared. Her body was later found in the Susquehanna River. Johnson, who knew Barnes through a relationship with her older half-sister, was the last known person to see her alive and was charged with her murder.

The case was based on circumstantial evidence – prosecutors suspected he was possessed by the teenager and had strangled and killed her. The key piece of evidence was a neighbor’s observation of Johnson attempting to move a large plastic container on the day she disappeared. Although prosecutors believed the girl’s body was inside, they could not prove it.

Johnson was convicted by a jury in 2013. That verdict was overturned and his second trial was dismissed in 2015. City prosecutors re-charged Johnson and sent him to a third trial in 2018, where a judge acquitted him.

“The bottom line is that there are far, far too many unanswered questions … for any trier of fact to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Judge Charles J. Peters said at the time.

According to court documents in the new case, Johnson lived in York, Pennsylvania. The alleged victim, who is 19, said she knew him since June of last year and “considered him a sugar daddy and began dating him.” She lived with him in Pennsylvania for three months last year “until her foster family reported her missing,” police wrote in charging documents.

When police found her, she had visible injuries, including burst blood vessels in her eyes, and she was having difficulty speaking because her tongue and mouth were severely swollen. She said Johnson assaulted her over a six-hour period, at one point even using a fan cord.

Johnson told police the alleged victim became angry at him for texting another woman and she responded by punching him in the face and arm. Police noted scratch marks on his forearms and a bump on his head, which they believe indicate the alleged victim was trying to defend himself against strangulation.

Phylicia Barnes’ father, Russell, told The Banner he believes Johnson killed his daughter and fears he will harm someone else.

“My deepest condolences go out to the victim’s family and we pray that this time things will be different,” he said.

When Barnes disappeared in December 2010, city police were frustrated with her attempts to keep the case public and raised questions about whether there was a double standard based on her race. The body of Barnes, who was black, was found in April 2011, and the medical examiner concluded she had died of asphyxiation.

Johnson was arrested and charged a year later. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime.

Prosecutors told jurors the then 26-year-old exchanged 1,200 text messages with the teenager in the six months before her death. Defense attorneys said none of the messages were sexually explicit or suggestive, but prosecutors countered that he “groomed” her and was careful with his words.

Further evidence supporting this theory is a “sex tape” recorded this summer that shows Barnes, Johnson, Barnes’ older sister, who was dating him, Deena, and Johnson’s younger brother touching each other “naked.” Johnson tried to touch Barnes that same night, but Barnes slapped his hand away, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors concluded that Johnson waited to have Barnes alone, strangled her, and then removed her body from the apartment by stuffing it into a storage container. His cell phone was turned off during the time the murder allegedly took place and he had been calling from work.

“Little sister is awake and active,” Johnson wrote to Deena Barnes the afternoon the girl disappeared.

Johnson was in the process of moving out of the apartment, and defense attorneys said he was simply removing personal items.

After Phylicia Barnes’ body was found, Maryland State Police tapped Johnson’s phone. He wondered if his DNA might have been found under the girl’s fingernails and said they had wrestled the day she disappeared. He also talked about fleeing the country.

“I feel like everything is about to get out of control. I don’t know if I’m ready to deal with it,” he said, according to the recording.

His lawyer said he simply felt pressured because the police had wrongfully acted against him.

The first case, in which Johnson was defended by current prosecutor Ivan Bates, resulted in a conviction, but questions were later raised about a prison informant and Judge Alfred Nance overturned the guilty verdict at the sentencing hearing.

In Johnson’s second trial, in which he was represented by the public defender’s office, Judge John Addison Howard declared the trial void after the jury heard a recording that was not supposed to be played. He then reversed his decision and granted a motion for acquittal on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to prove the case.

Prosecutors took the case to the state’s highest court and succeeded in having him charged again, this time before a judge.

“We mourn the Barnes family and this tragedy, but convicting an innocent man is not justice for Phylicia Barnes,” Johnson’s attorney Katy O’Donnell said outside the courthouse. “We hope that one day it will be discovered what really happened to Phylicia Barnes and that her family will get the peace they deserve.”

This article is being updated.