Suspect in Columbia infant’s death back in custody
Matthew Sanders
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A woman charged with second-degree murder for the 2021 death of an 8-month-old girl has been arrested in Arkansas after being mistakenly released.
Jennifer A. Johnson, of Fayette, was arrested and jailed in Pulaski County, Arkansas, according to online court records. A Boone County prosecutor confirmed Johnson was in custody. An extradition order was filed Friday, according to court records.
An arrest warrant was issued for Johnson earlier this month after she was released on parole from a Missouri prison. Johnson was supposed to be turned over to Boone County custody to face trial for second-degree murder in the baby’s death but was not, said Boone County Prosecuting Attorney Roger Johnson.
“The defendant was in custody at the Boone County Jail on a warrant that had been issued in the original case. She was delivered at Department of Corrections,” Roger Johnson told ABC 17 News. “Department of Corrections let her out of custody with a ticket to go down to Arkansas. Once our assistant noticed that, she filed for a warrant to be issued, and we didn’t want to comment during the time that the warrant was out because our hope was that she would get located and taken into custody before she realized that there was a warrant.”
A relative of Jennifer Johnson, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from the victim’s family, said Johnson moved to Arkansas to live with her sister after being released from the Department of Corrections. According to the family member, that location was approved as part of her home plan because it aligned with the supervision of her assigned parole officer.
“The victim’s family, this has been a difficult week for them because they’ve been concerned about this issue,” Roger Johnson said. “We’ve been in communication with them to let them know as well that she’s in custody.”
Roger Johnson said this is the first time he’s seen something like this occur.
“We’ve talked with officials from the Department of Corrections, and she really shouldn’t have been let out of custody because we have the pending case, and she was in custody on our warrant,” Roger Johnson said. “We’re working with Department of Corrections and with the jail to make sure that we can address the issues that we had at Department of Corrections and make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Roger Johnson added that Missouri law requires the Department of Corrections to check for any outstanding warrants before releasing an individual from custody.
“We’ve talked to Department of Corrections, and they said they actually did that. They called the clerk’s office here, and they checked, and they weren’t able to locate a warrant. So it looks like they did the search that they were supposed to, but they didn’t identify that she should have also been in custody on our murder warrant,” Johnson said.
Columbia police arrested Jennifer Johnson in April 2021, after being called to a home in the 1000 block of Elleta Boulevard in north Columbia.
According to court documents, police were dispatched to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Columbia on the morning of April 18, 2021, where they were informed that an 8-month-old, Hannah Kent, who was under her care, had died.
Jennifer Johnson allegedly told police that she last saw the infant alive at 2:15 a.m. after giving her a bottle, the probable cause statement says.
Jennifer Johnson was previously charged with two counts of assault in Howard County in 2019. The complaint in the case states she strangled and bit another woman.