Quaneesha Nicole Johnson (DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office and Court TV screenshot)
A 30-year-old mother in Georgia will spend less than a decade behind bars for killing the father of her youngest child, hitting him with a metal tire iron, and fatally shooting him while multiple police officers were right outside their home. DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Shondeana Morris on Tuesday ordered Quaneesha Nicole Johnson to serve a sentence of five years in prison, five years of home detention, and 10 years of probation for the 2022 slaying of 29-year-old Demonte Smith, authorities announced.
Judge Morris handed down the sentence after a jury found Johnson guilty on one count of voluntary manslaughter, two counts of aggravated assault — family violence, two counts of third-degree cruelty to children, and one count of possessing a firearm in the commission of a felony. She was acquitted on one count of malice murder.
The seemingly lenient sentence was handed down in light of prosecutors seeking to have Johnson put away for 25 years with an additional five years on probation.
“On the day of the incident, I believe you took all of the necessary steps to ensure your safety after Mr. Smith had threatened to inflict bodily harm upon you,” Judge Morris said during the hearing. She then said police at the scene let her and Smith go back into the house “unescorted” without allowing them to cool off first, which “resulted in the loss of Mr. Demonte Smith and resulted in your conviction for voluntary manslaughter.”
According to a press release from the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office, on the night of Nov. 26, 2022, Johnson “had gone out clubbing with her friends” and left her three children at home with Smith, then her live-in boyfriend. She was supposed to be home by 6 a.m. the following morning.
When she failed to arrive by 6 a.m., Smith called her several times, but there was no answer. Smith was particularly worried because when he’d spoken to Johnson the previous night, she told him she and her friends had been in a physical altercation with other club patrons.
Smith then called several of Johnson’s family members, who were similarly worried, as Johnson’s phone had been turned off. Smith and Johnson’s family began calling local hospitals and jails to locate Johnson.
At about 9 a.m. on Nov. 27, Johnson turned her phone back on and saw several messages from Smith. She then called her family members, who conference-called Smith into the conversation. An angry Smith then threatened to hit Johnson when she got home, prosecutors said.
Johnson then called 911 and asked for a police escort to her home on Edenberry Lane in Lithonia, which is about 20 miles east of Atlanta.
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When Johnson returned to the house about two hours later, one of the DeKalb County police officers who responded instructed her to place her gun in her car. She told the officer there were no other weapons inside the home.
Smith then came outside, where he and Johnson argued in front of the officers. As the officers tried to resolve the dispute, one of the officers said that Johnson “continued to talk over them and was combative with them,” prosecutors wrote.
The officers sent Johnson and Smith inside the house to calm down. As she walked inside, Johnson asked the officers what would happen if she shot Smith “in self-defense,” adding that she had already looked up the state’s self-defense laws. It was unclear what the officers said in response, but they remained on the scene and planned to wait a few minutes before attempting to de-escalate the situation again.
However, before that could happen, Johnson came back outside, grabbed a metal tire iron and her gun from her car, and returned to the house.
“Johnson hit Smith in the head with the tire rod and then shot him. The gunshot can be heard on the 911 recording and Johnson repeatedly saying ‘bye’ to Smith,” prosecutors wrote in the release. “Smith went outside to find the police officers and told them, ‘She hit me in the head with a metal thing and then shot me. Hurry up before I die.’ Smith then collapsed.”
Investigators said Smith had already booked a rideshare to pick him up from the house that day, but he was “shot and killed just minutes before it was scheduled to arrive.”
Prosecutors said Johnson had directed one of her children to call 911 and say that Smith had hit her. But in a subsequent interview at police headquarters, Johnson admitted that Smith had never actually hit her that day, authorities said.
During her trial, Johnson testified that Smith in the past had threatened to hit her and followed through on those threats two weeks before the shooting.
In addition to the lenient sentence, Judge Morris also granted Johnson’s request to remain under house arrest while her attorney appeals her conviction. The state had requested that she be remanded into custody immediately.
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