Police officers were significantly affected after a routine traffic stop led to an unspeakable and atrocious discovery in the trunk of a woman’s car, resulting in her arrest. What these officers found is enough to send chills down anyone’s spine. Nicole Michelle Johnson, a 33-year-old woman from Baltimore, Maryland, was speeding at approximately 11 p.m. on a Wednesday night in Essex when she was pulled over by police. The police discovered that she didn’t have a license or insurance and was using a fake temporary tag. Unfortunately, that would soon be the least of their worries as they uncovered a crime much more heinous than a simple traffic violation.
After advising Johnson to report to the District Court in five days and informing her that they were going to tow her car, the woman told the police, “It doesn’t matter, I won’t be here in five days, and you’ll see me on the news. You’re going to see me on the news, making my big debut.” She then went to the trunk of the car to retrieve items, including a maggot-filled clear trash bag with a strong decomposition odor and a black and yellow plastic tote, as reported by CNN.
Nothing could have prepared the officers for what they were about to see. After asking Johnson to open the clear trash bag, she eventually did, revealing a suitcase that she claimed contained blankets. Johnson then reportedly used a blanket to try to conceal the contents of the suitcase, but the officer told her to remove it. When she did, she exposed the decomposing body of a young child, according to police documents.
Sadly, it gets even worse. Although Johnson made a desperate attempt to flee, she was quickly caught, and officers proceeded to open the plastic tote bag that was also found in the vehicle. Inside, they discovered another plastic bag containing the remains of another child. It was later determined that the remains were those of two siblings, seven-year-old Joshlyn Johnson and her five-year-old brother Larry O’Neal, as reported by Inside Edition.
According to the police, the siblings were Johnson’s niece and nephew, and she had custody of them since 2019. Jachelle Johnson, Nicole Johnson’s sister and the mother of the two children, had asked her sister to look after them after moving to Maryland from Ohio in July 2019. Deschall said she tried to reach Nicole several times after dropping her children off and finally made contact in March 2021. Deschall allegedly arranged to have her sister return her children, but Nicole never met her, and she had been unable to reach her sister or the children since. She allegedly hadn’t heard anything from her about Nicole and her kids until detectives notified her of the children’s deaths.
Nicole Michelle Johnson was arrested and charged with two counts each of first-degree felony child abuse, first-degree felony child abuse resulting in death, misdemeanor neglect of a minor, misdemeanor failure to report the death of a child, and unauthorized burial of a body as a misdemeanor, according to court records. She was ordered to be held on a no-bail status.
While speaking with the detectives, the suspect alleged that she hit seven-year-old Joshlyn Johnson several times for misbehaving when they were staying at an inn off Pulaski Highway, causing the girl to fall and hit her head on the floor. Johnson said she then stowed the girl’s body in a suitcase and carried it around for many months before her brother also died. Nicole Johnson also told detectives that her nephew had an injury, and she had seen blood on five-year-old Larry O’Neal’s leg two months before the police made their grisly discovery. According to Johnson, Larry then fell asleep in her car and never woke up after saying he was tired. Nicole Johnson admitted to placing Larry’s body in the plastic tote. At some point, Johnson later placed the boy’s body in the car with her sister’s remains, which she told investigators she had been driving around with for over a year, as reported by People.
An autopsy found that Joshlynn weighed just 18 pounds, while Larry weighed 21 pounds, according to a report by CBS Baltimore. The unspeakable, atrocious, and harrowing ordeal has left many shaken. Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt expressed her grief and promised that the investigation into this atrocious crime will not stop until those responsible are brought to justice. Chief Hyatt commended all of the Baltimore County Police Department members who worked tirelessly throughout this investigation to bring justice to these innocent young victims.
Michelle Johnson expressed her grief in a since-deleted GoFundMe page, saying it was a mistake to trust her sister, who she says just disappeared while she was attempting to get her children back. She explained, “It was supposed to just be a family helping family situation. I trusted her. I was mentally broken from losing the woman that raised me. I’ll never get to see my kids because of a mistake I made in trusting my sister. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t.” She continued, “The mistake I made in trusting will always fall on me, but I never could imagine this outcome.”
It is indeed a very sad situation when you can’t even trust your family to help care for your kids without having to worry about their untimely demise at the hands of a loved one. And one can hardly comprehend the trauma experienced by officers who made the gruesome discovery. We shudder to imagine the final days these children faced and the nightmare they experienced before their passing. This is a sad reminder that there are monsters among us, and sometimes the worst evil comes in the form of family.
