West Palm Beach — Corey Johnson Apologize on thursday For killing 13-year-old Giovanni Sierra in 2018 oversleeping. He accused ISIS, an extremist Islamic group, in his ruling that his lawyers influenced his pre-murder thinking.
“I know I’ve contributed to the spread of evil in this world,” Johnson, now 21, told the court.
But that wasn’t enough.
Circuit Judge Cheryl Caracuzzo sentenced Johnson to life imprisonment at the end of a three-hour hearing at West Palm Beach.
“I don’t think rehabilitation is likely,” Carakuzzo issued a ruling to Johnson, denying his request to spend 40 years in prison instead. She quoted his willingness to kill for the views of the radicals.
The quest for faith: A thirst for “purity” has driven Corey Johnson into radical Islam, lawyers say in a murder trial.
The relationship ends: Text with girlfriend shows that Corey Johnson is heading for violence before stabbing a deadly oversleep
Mother testifies “He was very unhappy,” Corey Johnson’s mother told the jury for the first time after her son was accused of fatally stabbing the boy.
In November 2020, the jury was guilty of one murder and one attempted murder on March 12, 2018, in Johnson’s case at a close friend’s house at the Valen Isles Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens. I was found guilty.
Prosecutors said Johnson, who was 17 at the time of the attack, had killed Sierra after Johnson said he thought it would offend the newly professed Muslim faith. He also stabbed homeowner Elaine Simon and her second son, Sierra’s best friend Dane Bancroft.
Johnson’s lawyer did not dispute the online action at William T. Dwire High School, which attracted the FBI’s attention and caused “indescribable damage” to former Jupiter residents.
They said that severe depression, medications such as Zoloft, and online activities such as watching ISIS videos stimulated Johnson’s behavior and made him “psychotic and delusional.” They asked the jury to admit that he was not guilty of madness.
Sierra’s mother and grandmother spoke at a hearing of the decision and asked the judge to sentence Johnson to life imprisonment. The Sierra family also shared memories of a boy who died on his 13th birthday during a hearing.
Sierra’s mother, Karen Sierra Beres, called on March 12, 2018, the worst day of her life. She played a slideshow with her son’s photo before testifying during the hearing.
“I remember calling for a while to hear my son pass by,” she told the court.
Birthday party, oversleeping precedes attack
The incident happened during a Sunday night oversleep at Simon’s house, where she lived with her two sons. After that, Sierra’s birthday party was held at Downtown Palm Beach Gardens Restaurant.
Johnson told police that he met Sierra for the first time at the party and attended the event with his friend Kyle Bancroft, Dane’s brother. Dane Bancroft and Giovanni Sierra were classmates at Watson B. Duncan Junior High School in Palm Beach Gardens.
The boys gathered that night at Bancroft Simon’s house, which Johnson frequently visited, Simon told police. He and Kyle Johnson met in day care many years ago.
According to court records, Johnson launched the attack in Sierra after everyone in the house fell asleep. He told police that he had a motive to partially kill him because he issued a statement calling those who believed Sierra was an insult to his Islamic beliefs “gods.”
A text message revealed that Johnson took pictures before the attack and sent them to a Muslim girl who appeared to have an online relationship.
According to police and prosecutors, the sound of Johnson stabbed Sierra and tore his throat caught the attention of Simon, who went upstairs from his bedroom to investigate. Johnson then pointed his knife at Simon, stabbed her several times, and then attacked Dane Bancroft when the teen tried to save his mother.
Johnson then raised Kyle Bancroft and told him he had killed his brother and Sierra. Dane Bancroft, now 17, told the jury that Johnson looked “almost happy” when he stabbed him.
Kyle Bancroft said in his testimony that he had a moody memory of seeing Johnson jumping up and down with a bloody knife in the bathroom in the hallway.
“I was half awake and half asleep,” Kyle recalled. “I wasn’t completely sure if I was playing a prank or in a dream.”
Police used tear gas to crush Johnson. Johnson hid in the closet after the attack ended in the gated community near the PGA Boulevard and the military trails.
Defense claimed that mental illness prompted Johnson to be killed
During the trial, lawyers argued whether Johnson was sane when he killed Sierra.
The defense alleged that Johnson, described by a defense psychologist as “an empty ship about to belong,” was manipulated by radical content, including Islamic State propaganda videos posted on the Internet.
His lawyer said he discovered the video when he tried to learn more about Islam. He is a faith he began to profess a few months before his murder. Forensic scientists found some graphic videos on their smartphones after Johnson was arrested.
Prosecutors said Johnson would deliberately seek out radical content and harm those who believed it was inferior to him. A psychiatrist who testified to the state said in his opinion Johnson knew what was right when the attack happened.
At a sentencing hearing on Thursday, neuropsychologists diagnosed Johnson with high-functioning autism after reviewing hundreds of documents and video interviews.
Johnson has above average intelligence, but delays maturity and severe mental illness, Dr. Michael Scott told the court.
Grandmother talks about Johnson’s difficult childhood
Johnson’s maternal grandmother, Joan Dikocco, testified Thursday when she was young that she had seen domestic violence between her father and mother who were dealing with mental illness.
Johnson and his father formed a bond by playing video games, but she said she had met her father only once after her mother returned to Palm Beach County after her parents divorced. Johnson’s father died of drug overdose about 10 years ago.
His grandmother described Johnson as a loving child who wanted to spend time with his family, but as he grew older, his mother was repeatedly hospitalized for depression and drug overdose. When he saw it, he said he was “withdrawn.”
When he was a student at Jupiter’s Independence Middle School, his problems surfaced years before the attack. Students reported that he stalked on social media and behaved strangely.
That action quickly led to an online threat and attracted the FBI’s attention. While Johnson was a student at Dwire, he was suspected of threatening a Catholic high school in the United Kingdom in 2016, urging nearly 100 parents to pull their children out of class.
In her first public comment since the puncture wound, Johnson’s mother, Jennifer Johnson, became increasingly unhappy in the weeks leading up to the puncture wound during the trial and at some point expressed suicidal ideation. I testified.
During that period, he dropped out of Dwire and saw his online relationship with the girl end just a few days before he overslept, police and prosecutors said.
He was prescribed Zoloft because of his mental health problems, but prosecutors say he stopped taking strong prescription drugs shortly before the attack.
Johnson turned to the Internet in his quest for the meaning of life, Palm Beach County lawyer Carrie Hout told the jury. His research has led him to embrace Islam.
Initially obsessed with the promise of brotherhood of faith, his investigation provided him with the views of the militants of ISIS, a terrorist group officially known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Hout said.
DiCocco said he tried to send him to the mosque rather than learning about religion from online videos.
Johnson was previously interested in white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, but because these groups did not “walk” when observing Johnson’s views on issues such as smoking, drinking, and premarital sex. I lost interest. Defense said.
Outside the court after the judgment, Sierra-Beres accepted Dicocco. She told reporters that she was forgiving everyone and trying to keep getting stronger for her son, who should have turned 17 this year.
“I just wanted to feel their love,” she said. “They know the pain of losing a loved one.”
@ Gerard_Albert3
This article was originally published in the Palm Beach Post. Corey Johnson was sentenced to life imprisonment for a teenage oversleeping murder in 2018