Mom charged in Precious Doe slaying

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For four years, she was known only as Precious Doe, a girl whose headless body was found along a road. Yesterday, police identified the girl, arrested her mother and stepfather on murder charges and pronounced the sad mystery solved.

The girl with big brown eyes and neat cornrows was identified as Erica Michelle Marie Green, just shy of 4 when she was found.

Her mother, Michelle M. Johnson, 30, and stepfather, Harrell Johnson, 25, were charged with murder and endangering the welfare of a child.

Police said Harrell Johnson admitted that while under the influence of alcohol and the hallucinogenic drug PCP, he became angry with Erica when she refused to go to bed, grabbed her, kicked her and threw her to the ground, leaving her unconscious. After she died, he said he used hedge clippers to sever her head.

Both suspects were being held in Oklahoma, where they live.

"We have closure," Police Chief James Corwin said. "The little girl that we've known for four years as Precious Doe has a name."

Police said a tip enabled them to identify Erica, but they would not elaborate.

The girl's body was found on April 28, 2001. Days later, her head was found nearby, wrapped in a trash bag.

In the months after she became known as Precious Doe, hundreds attended candlelight vigils, volunteered to answer witness hotlines and passed out fliers with an artist's rendering of the girl. The FBI took blood samples from family members of missing black girls, and the case was featured on television's "America's Most Wanted."

Authorities said the girl was killed in Kansas City, where the family had been staying with a friend. According to court papers, Harrell Johnson beat the girl one night in April 2001 and the couple left her unconscious on the floor for two days. They did not seek medical help, the mother said, because both had warrants out for their arrest.

The break in the case apparently came after community activist Alonzo Washington, who has long championed efforts to find out who the girl was, placed another advertisement seeking leads in a local paper.

Michelle Johnson was being held on $500,000 bail in her hometown of Muskogee, Okla., prosecutor Michael Sanders said. The prosecutor asked that her husband be held without bail and that the couple be extradited to Kansas City as soon as possible.

Oklahoma records show Michelle Johnson has convictions for theft and forgery. Harrell Johnson, who was being held in jail on unrelated charges, has convictions for several offenses, including assault with a dangerous weapon and possessing a sawed-off shotgun.

In Kansas City, people who long had been transfixed by the case welcomed news of the arrests.

Billy Stegall, a retired post-office worker, discovered Erica's head in 2001 and has gone back to the site regularly to pray.

"I just asked the Lord to say who she is so she could be at peace, because she wasn't at peace and I wasn't at peace," he said.