Teen’s mother charged in his death, records confirm

ROCKINGHAM — The mother of 15-year-old Casey Johnson was arrested last week and charged with murder in connection to his death, making it now two individuals who are accused in the teen’s death.

The Rockingham Police Department arrested Michelle Lee Johnson on Feb. 19 following her indictment by a grand jury. Court documents reviewed Tuesday confirmed that Johnson is the mother of Casey. RPD confirmed last week that the other suspect charged in the case, Joseph Ray Carroll, is Johnson’s boyfriend. RPD declined to comment on the relationship between Johnson and Casey prior to warrants being made available this week.

Johnson is facing an “unspecified” charge of murder, and there will be a conference to determine the nature of this charge and to evaluate aggravating circumstances in the case at a later date, according to court records. She is being held without bond at the Richmond County Jail and is scheduled to appear in Richmond County Superior Court on March 15.

Carroll is also being held without bond on his first-degree murder charge, and is also scheduled to appear in Superior Court on March 15.

On Jan. 20, officers responded to a residence on Biggs Boulevard in response to a report of an unresponsive teenage male identified as Casey. When first responders arrived at the scene, they initially administered Narcan to Casey, thinking he had suffered a drug overdose, court records indicate. They then began life-saving measures until paramedics arrived, and an officer on the scene reported that Casey “appeared to have been beaten.”

Once he was transported to UNC, he was determined to be brain dead. Following a review by the North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, it was determined that Casey’s cause of death was “homicide” and that he had suffered “non-accidental injuries,” according to a search warrant.

During the early stages of the investigation, Johnson and Carroll had a “similar story” of the incident, investigators said. In RPD’s third interview with Johnson, she described the “method” of the homicide as well as the ways in which Casey and other members of the family had been punished in the past, court records indicated.

Investigators also state in their justification for their search warrant that Johnson told them Carroll had previously initiated violent punishments of Casey and alleged that it was he who inflicted the injuries that led to Casey being found unresponsive.

Last week, Richmond Senior High School held a memorial for Casey, along with Jalen David and Jacob Hughes who also passed away in the last school year, in which they lined the school’s entrance with hundreds of luminaries. Friends, family, classmates and other mourners came out to pay their respects.

Casey’s father, Eric Johnson, flew in from California for the vigil. He told the Daily Journal that night that he is “tremendously grateful for everything that this community has done for my son.”

“The outpouring of love is very humbling for me. I wish it was under different circumstances,” the father said. “God bless this community and this school.”