Man cleared in 2010 murder of Phylicia Barnes sentenced to life in prison for brutal 2024 attack of teen
Michael Johnson, the man acquitted in the murder of Phylicia Barnes, was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and another 25 years in a separate case Monday in Baltimore County.
Johnson, 42, was accused of raping and strangling an 18-year-old girl during an attack that lasted six hours in 2024. He was charged with multiple assault and rape counts as well as first- and second-degree attempted murder.
The trial began in April and lasted a few days before Johnson was found guilty in the Baltimore County Circuit Court.
Johnson stands trial for rape, assault
The victim said Johnson, who was 40 at the time, was her boyfriend and they had met after she mistook his car for her Lyft and he took her home.
She told the court that the attack began after he had accused her of texting other men. She explained that she had kicked him out of her apartment in Rosedale after they began to argue, but he came back. She told the jury that she "thought [she] was going to die" during the course of the attack and said that he raped her.
"I let him do whatever he could just so he would stop hurting me," she said.
The teen was so injured she was unable to speak following the attack and had to communicate with police using paper, according to court documents.
Phylicia Barnes trial
Johnson was previously acquitted in the 2010 murder of 16-year-old girl Phylicia Barnes. He was convicted at his first trial in 2013 and served three years in prison. He stood trial three times before a judge acquitted him in 2018.
Barnes was a North Carolina high school student who was visiting her half sister in Northwest Baltimore for Christmas in 2010. She disappeared after the holiday and was found dead near the Conowingo Dam in the Susquehanna River in April of 2011.
Barnes' father, Russell Barnes, said that the family "believe[s] she was asphyxiated and was strangled to death after she was raped."
The Barnes family was present in court for several days during Johnson's latest trial. They said they were hopeful that the justice system would "get it right" this time.
"To hear what happened to this young lady, I didn't get a chance to hear from my sister what took place and what happened to her, and just to hear [this testimony], it just made me feel like I felt what my sister felt," Barnes' older sister Shauntel Sallis said.
