Geremiah Johnson took a 40-year prison sentence Tuesday for setting a Dundalk grandmother?s home on fire after being suspected of bludgeoning her to death, and then slicing a man?s throat on the way out.
Johnson said he didn?t do it.
His mother slipped off the courtroom bench and crouched on the floor, sobbing, as an attorney and Baltimore County Circuit Judge Robert Cahill talked her 23-year-old son through the rights he sacrificed by pleading guilty to arson and attempted murder of the man. The murder charge for the grandmother?s death was dropped.
“Please don?t do it, baby,” Gloria Buck said. “Don?t do this.”
Johnson?s attorneysaid it was her client?s decision to take the state?s plea offer, knowing that three witnesses identify him as having walked out of Evelyn Amereihn?s burning home, run into her then 16-year-old granddaughter, Christina, outside and slit the throat of the girl?s companion before taking off in September 2005.
Amereihn?s children and other relatives filled several rows in the courtroom, and Christina Amereihn walked outside to wail as a prosecutor described how her grandmother?s ribs were broken during the attack.
“I lay there and think what my sister went through. I wonder if she screamed,” said Jean Sunell, telling the court that she thinks about Amereihn before falling asleep. “I wonder if she fought back. I wonder how long it took her to die. … I wonder over and over again.”
Buck walked out of the courtroom proceedings in tears. She and another son, Garland Johnson, said before the hearing that the defense attorney convinced Geremiah Johnson to plead guilty.
“This is railroading my child,” Buck said, describing her state as “beyond frantic.” She said the defense attorney, Jennifer Aist, told her that “one of my sons will be going to jail for it.”
Christina Amereihn initially told police that the man who grabbed her in the early morning hours of Sept. 18 had short hair, a missing tooth and something wrong with his eye. Garland Johnson says he fits the description better than his brother ? he has glaucoma, is legally blind and has missing teeth but wears gold fronts in his mouth.
Amereihn and her companion, both picked out Geremiah, Aist said. Garland Johnson said Aist told him she thought he did it, and not Geremiah. When asked if she had said that, Aist didn?t deny it. Garland Johnson said he and his brother weren?t involved in the crime.
kcullinan@baltimoreexaminer.com
