Terelle Johnson arrives at Justice Court in Wiggins on Wednesday, June, 20, 2018, before his preliminary hearing on a first-degree murder charge in the decapitation death of his mother, Sherry Johnson. Johnson is on trial this week in Stone County Circuit Court.
John Fitzhugh
File Photo
Terelle Johnson admits he killed his mother, a 51-year-old guidance counselor named Sherry Johnson. A Stone County jury’s job is to determine whether he should be acquitted because he was insane when he committed the crime.
The trial in the gruesome first-degree murder case started Tuesday in Stone County Circuit Court before Judge Steve Simpson. He warned the Johnson family before testimony started that they shouldn’t gasp or otherwise display their emotions in front of the jury.
“This is a very emotional and difficult case and testimony to hear,” he told family and friends seated together in the courtroom.
Johnson’s attorney, Jim Davis of Gulfport, argued his client should be acquitted because he did not know what he was doing when he killed his mother in their Wiggins home. Prosecutors Matthew Burrell and Billy Stage insist Johnson knew exactly what he did.
Johnson, in fact, confessed the day after his arrest at the house, where his mother’s decapitated body was found in the yard, her head on the other side of a privacy fence.
Stage told jurors that Johnson beat and strangled his mother to death after they fought over credit cards, then cut off her head. “His words,” Stage said, “ . . . He used his hands and teeth to decapitate his own mother.”
Insanity defense advanced in murder case
Johnson, 35, was sitting on the front porch of his mother’s house, where he also lived, when sheriff’s deputies arrived for a welfare check on June 6, 2018. Relatives were worried because they had not heard from Sherry Johnson for a few days.
Deputies found her bedroom door locked, video played for the jury showed.. Johnson, walking around shirtless in shorts, said she locked it before she left town. He claimed she was on a cruise, but nobody believed him.
Deputies found her headless body in the yard. Johnson said during his confession that he put it there so the house wouldn’t smell bad. Officers soon discovered her head and, with a search warrant, entered her bedroom. There, they found the ceiling and walls smeared with blood. They also found a butter knife and serrated knife.
Sherry Johnson had fought for her life.
Attorney Davis wanted to call two witnesses who would have testified that on the day she is believed to have died, June 3, she told both of them on the telephone that her son was “psychotic” and had “lost his mind.”
Simpson ruled before the trial started and outside the jury’s presence that the testimony would not be permitted because it amounted to hearsay. Sherry Johnson can’t confirm what she said. Simpson noted that Davis will have an expert witness testify to Johnson’s mental state at the time of the crime, which would be more credible, the judge said.
Terelle Johnson is being tried this week in Stone County on a first-degree murder charge in the decapitation death of his mother, Sherry Johnson. John Fitzhugh File photo
Drugs influenced defendant, prosecutors say
Prosecutors, who are with the District Attorney’s Office, contend Terelle Johnson was influenced by drugs, not insanity.
“This defendant knew what he was doing on this day,” Assistant District Attorney Stage said during opening arguments. “When he killed his mother, he knew it.”
Davis said during opening arguments that Johnson’s state of mind when he committed the murder was what mattered, not how he behaved days later.
Davis told jurors that Johnson had a “serious mental condition.” The attorney added, “He is clearly delusional in his thought process.”
After opening arguments, prosecutors presented testimony Tuesday afternoon from a brother of Johnson’s who lived nearby. He said that he called law enforcement for a welfare check because he wanted to look for his sister in her house, but Terelle Johnson refused to allow it.
Several expert witnesses also testified about the crime scene, as did a former sheriff’s deputy.
Testimony will resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The prosecution will resume its case, followed by the defense. The case could go to the jury in the afternoon, the judge said.
Johnson, a tall man with broad shoulders, sat next to his attorney in a white button-down shirt. He wore leg irons in court but no handcuffs.
No testimony will be allowed about his criminal record. While jailed in 2015, he is accused of biting off another inmate’s nose and lips, permanently maiming the man.
This story was originally published August 21, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
Anita, a Mississippi native, graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Southern Mississippi and previously worked at the Jackson Daily News and Virginian-Pilot, joining the Sun Herald in 1987. She specializes in in-depth coverage of government, public corruption, transparency and courts. She has won state, regional and national journalism awards, most notably contributing to Hurricane Katrina coverage awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service.Support my work with a digital subscription
