The Deck - Jermaine Johnson (2 of Spades, Arizona)

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

Our card this week is Jermaine Johnson, the 2 of Spades from Arizona. In 2006, central Phoenix was shaken after a beloved member of the community was killed while he was minding his own business, hanging out with his friends. For 16 years, Phoenix police have attempted to hunt down the killers, only to hit dead ends at every turn. But they have far from given up hope because they know there are people in the community who hold the answers to the questions that have haunted the city since 2006: who killed Jermaine and why? If you have any information about the murder of Jermaine Johnson in 2006, reach out to the Phoenix Police Department at 602-262-6151, or call Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS — that’s 480-948-6377. Or 1-800-343-TIPS — that’s 1-800-343-8477.  To learn more about The Deck, visit www.thedeckpodcast.com. To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org Follow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Our card this week is Germaine Johnson, the two of spades from Arizona. In 2006, central Phoenix was shaken after a beloved member of the community was killed while he was minding his own business hanging out with his friends. For 16 years, Phoenix police have attempted to hunt down the killers, only to hit dead ends at every turn. But they have far from giving up hope because they know there are people in the community who hold the answers to the questions

that have haunted the city since 2006. Who killed your main and why? I'm Ashley Flowers and this is The Deck. . It was around 11.45pm on October 20th, 2006, and Detective Barry Geesman with the Phoenix Police Department was at home kicking off the weekend when he got a call that there had been a homicide in central Phoenix and he needed to respond to the scene right away. When he got there the scene was already bustling with activity. Patrol cars were lining the streets and officers had roped off an alley that was sandwiched between some office-type businesses and a house. And although Detective Giesman hadn't been

briefed on the situation yet, he was probably hopeful that this would be an open-and-shut case. I mean, it was a Friday night, and there were plenty of buildings nearby ripe with possible witnesses, or at the very least, surely there was some surveillance footage around for them to work with. When Detective Giesman was given the full lowdown, he learned that just before 9 p.m. dispatch had received several 911 calls about lots of gunshots and a man down. Officers arrived moments later to find a young man lying in the middle of that alley.

His ID indicated that he was 27-year-old Germain Johnson. It was clear he'd been shot multiple times, but was still somehow clinging to life. But shortly after being rushed to the hospital, he passed away. On scene still, we're two young men who said that they were both with Germain when he was shot. One was Germain's 22-year-old cousin Milo, and the other was their 17-year-old friend Kyle. We've changed both of their names for this episode. Through speaking with Milo and Kyle, police were able to piece together a timeline of what led up to the shooting. That evening, Dermain, Milo and Kyle went to the nearby Quark and Bottle liquor store

to get some cigars, and as they're walking in, they saw this group of men standing around outside of the store. Dermain and Milo recognized two of them because exactly a week prior, they had actually gotten into a fight with those guys. During that altercation, Milo said that he and Jermaine were sitting in the parking lot of Arrowwood apartments about a block away from where Jermaine was eventually killed. And that's when a group of people walked up to their car. One of the guys asked Jermaine, quote, what's the A-like? And he means like the letter A. Milo said that he and Jermaine didn't know what exactly that meant, so Jermaine repeated the guy's question back to him.

Like, what's the A-like? No it is worth noting that A is slang for acid or LSD, so it's possible that's what these guys were talking about, but there are also far more innocent explanations, like Milo thought maybe he meant A for Arizona. Anyways, Milo said that the guy went on hassling Germain, but eventually a woman who was with the group of guys separated them. Now at some point, during the incident, guns were drawn. No one was shot, but Germain's car did get grazed by a bullet.

Milo and Germain didn't see those guys again until this day, standing outside the liquor store with some other people. So, Germain, Milo and Kyle bought what they wanted at the liquor store, and then when they walked back outside, this group of guys had already left. Germain and Milo and Kyle carried on their merry way, but they didn't get very far. Because as the three of them cut through an alley that went behind the business right next to the liquor store, that's where they were confronted by those same two guys from the group.

And they both looked like they were ready to fight. Here is Detective Michelle Servantes. She's working the case today. According to the people that were with Germain, there were words exchanged like, hey, it's all good, let's talk it out. And everybody thought things were good. and there were words exchanged like hey it's all good let's talk it out and Everybody thought things were good But things weren't good the guy who'd gotten into a shouting match with germane last week Walked up to germane while reaching into his waste band to grab a gun

Milo and Kyle said that germane stopped the guy before he pulled out the gun and said something along the lines of There's no need to shoot it out. We're both men, we can box. To which the man replied, let's fight. The guy took a few steps back and said, weapons down while pulling out his gun, which looked like a semi-automatic pistol. Milo said that he acted like he was gonna put the gun down, but as he was setting it down, he was acting weird,

like he kept looking around and scanning the area. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the guy pointed his pistol at Germain and fired four or five shots. In a complete panic, Milo and Kyle rushed to find cover. They heard more gunfire from what sounded like a different gun and then saw two guys running away. That's when they noticed Germain laying in the middle of the alley in a pool of blood. Milo ran all the way home, instructed his mother to call the police, That's when they noticed Germain laying in the middle of the alley in a pool of blood. Milo ran all the way home, instructed his mother to call the police, and then ran back to the scene to be with his cousin.

And that's when police arrived. Milo and Kyle didn't really know the guys, but they thought that their nicknames were maniac and savior. Now, it's not clear to me how they knew their nicknames. Maybe Germain called them those names before they shot him. Perhaps they were calling each other those names we don't know. And police reports aren't clear about it. Whatever the case, Milo and Kyle were also able to provide a description for police.

They were black males. 18 to 20 to 25 years old. Both were approximately 5'9". Both were approximately 155 pounds. Xavier was described as being a dark-skinned male with short hair. Maniac was described to have short hair. One of the guys, either Milo or Kyle, pointed out to investigators that Germaine's car was nearby. It was actually parked right over at the Fountain Oaks apartment complex, which was right beside the alley.

Officers went to examine it and they found a dent in the car's trunk that looked like it was from a bullet, which supported Milo's statement that Germaine was involved in an argument the previous Friday that involved a shooting. So police knew that they needed to process the car along with the scene where Jameen was shot. So at the scene, we had some blood, we had some other items, we had some beer cans and some other cans of another liquid.

And then obviously we had the casings that we collected. We don't even know if those cans were even involved, but they were nearby, so you have one shot at doing a processing of crime scene, so if you think it's possibly related, you want to collect it. And it may not even, later on, we determined that I wasn't even related at all, but because it was nearby, we did collect it,

and we did process it. Cacings and beer cans weren't the only things investigators found though. They also discovered a piece of paper with a phone number scribbled on it, along with the name, Shoranda. The paper was near where Jermaine had fallen, so police thought maybe it had slipped out of his pocket, and naturally they wanted to talk with Shoranda. One morning rolled around, Detective Giesman called the number on the piece of paper, and on the other end was a woman named Shuranda who identified herself as Germain's sister. She had already been notified of his death and talked to police, so she didn't have anything

else super helpful to add. Now she was at the hospital when Germain was taken there, along with some of his family. But one person who hadn't been at the hospital was Jermaine's mom Veronica. So Detective Giesman asked about her. Joranda said that she was all the way in Alabama visiting family, but she'd already been informed of what had happened and she was trying to fly back to Phoenix that day. Authorities had plenty to do in the meantime. Specifically, Detective Giesman wanted to get back to his initial hunch.

Surely someone around the crime scene saw something. So they started knocking on doors. But that wasn't as fruitful as he'd hoped. A few people said like, yeah, we heard gunshots last night, but that was about it. Unfortunately, the area that it was in, I mean, this happened in an alley at night time. It's unknown how many people were outside

their apartments at the time. Most like it was dark because it is in an alley. Allies are not usually lit up, especially in this area. There's a lot of people in that area that will not speak to police, unfortunately. So that's a big hurdle right there. These individuals that were involved most likely are only known on the street by nickname, so it's very hard to track them down.

There is quite a bit of crime that occurs in that area. There are at least two large apartment complexes in that area where drugs are common in that area as well as gang related activities. Whether people weren't talking because they were scared or because they truly didn't see anything, police didn't know. But either way, they weren't getting the information that they needed to solve the case. So investigators turned to nearby businesses to see if they had any surveillance footage. But none of them did, not a single one. So after striking out on their hunt for video, investigators checked to see if the cork and bottle liquor store kept records of people's IDs who buy alcohol or cigarettes there, hoping maybe the two suspects bought something before shooting your main.

But the store manager said that they didn't keep any kind of records like that. So next, investigators went to the nearby apartment complex, Fountain Oaks. main. But the Sora manager said that they didn't keep any kind of records like that. So, next investigators went to the nearby apartment complex, Fountain Oaks. And they asked the office manager if she knew anyone by the nicknames Maniac or Xavier, but she didn't. At this point, I would say detectives were back to square one, but they had been stuck there, already kind of grasping at straws. Even after a germane's mom Veronica got to town, she couldn't add much. She and a bunch of other family members gathered to talk to police and they all said that they weren't aware of any enemies germane had, and they said that he hadn't talked to them about

any trouble recently either. So it seemed to detectives that the only person who knew the most and was willing to be honest with them was germane's on-again off-again girlfriend Julia. But we know there was at least something, right? Milo and Kyle talked about that altercation a week before, and that story was backed up by Julia. She said pretty much the same thing that he had gotten shot at about a week before. And they kept going back to Julia every once in a while,

just to see if there was anything else. And from reading the police report, it seems like it wasn't until the days following the murder that Julia told investigators, the shooting she told them about before, where Jermaine had gotten shot at, was more like a shoot out. Like Jermaine had told her he returned fire,

which was new information. So investigators decided to put together a photo line lineup of two individuals that they thought could possibly have been involved in that shootout, because they were known to go by the street names, Xavier and Maniac. Now they intermixed those with photos of other men, and they showed the photo lineups to Milo asking him to point out which, if any, of the guys were present at that shooting. Police would also go over the photos with Kyle, but neither of those line-ups provided the results that police were hoping for. It could be that these witnesses, when they initially gave the names that they did give to us,

when it actually came around to picking these individuals out of a photo lineup, they may have gotten scared. But since they didn't pick these two individuals out, we basically have to go back to the drawing board and hope that there's going to be other people to come forward to tell us about it. Or we get some positive results from the items that we submitted to our crime lab for analysis.

It wasn't long until they did get results back from the crime lab. Everything from the scene had been sent off, and one of the things there got a hit. But, detective Sylvantis didn't want to elaborate on which of the items that was, like if it was one of the beer cans or something else at the scene. We did get a DNA hit on something that ended up not being probative to the investigation. When you go into a crime scene, you only have one shot so you collect what you think may be probative. In this case, the item that we got the DNA hit on was not

probative. She also didn't elaborate on what she meant by not probative. Like, were they able to get a full DNA profile from the item, match it to someone in Codis and then rule them out through an alibi or something, or did the testing only produce a partial profile that didn't meet the criteria to be uploaded to any databases? Or were they able to track it to someone, but it became clear that they didn't have anything to do with the crime, so that was likely discarded trash from before the crime even happened rather than actual evidence in the crime. There are so many different things that not probative can mean when you're talking about DNA, but unfortunately we don't have those answers.

Whatever the case, while the DNA hit got their hopes up, it ultimately ended up being another dead end for investigators. As the days and weeks dragged by, detectives caught wind of some rumors going around town, that at least sort of answered one of the questions looming over the case. Why were these two guys so mad at your main? It was rumored to be over a girl, or possibly money owed to somebody. Having a hunch about motive does next to nothing when you don't have any suspects. And by the time November rolled around, police were getting tired of waiting for the

assailants to come forward on their own. So they began handing out flyers directing people to silent witness, which is an organization that lets people submit tips anonymously, basically Phoenix's version of Crime Stoppers. They passed out flyers at the Corke and Bottle liquor store, several apartments near the murder scene, anywhere they could think of that was possibly connected to Germain's murder. Despite their efforts, as the months passed, Germain's case went ice cold, but his family didn't give up hope, especially his mom Veronica.

Even as years went by, Veronica kept diligently calling and meeting with detectives to see if there were any updates in her son's case. The passage of time did nothing to sway how desperately she wanted her son's killer behind bars. She missed her talented, loving son more than anything. He was remembered as a hard worker at his job, as a customer service representative at a local call center. But when he wasn't working his regular hours or taking on overtime, he loved playing sports

and writing songs and recording music with his cousin. Part of Jermaine's obituary, in the Arizona Republic Red quote, with his unique personality, he would always embrace you with a hug and a friendly smile." End quote. Those hugs and that smile were things Aronica knew she'd never get to experience again, because a pair of cowards decided to snuff out his bright light. In 2014, Veronica told AZCential.com that she felt tracking down her son's killers was a final act of love.

She said quote, I'll go to the end. I just want to see those people come to justice. It won't bring your main back, but the unknowing just kills you." Veronica said that her son had the biggest heart, and she knew he'd be proud of her for pushing for justice. In 2016, for the 10-year anniversary of Germaine's death, the family held a press conference that was covered on local news station ABC 15.

Veronica made a public plea for any witnesses to come forward. I just pray that God touches the person's heart that's seen this so that they can come forth and tell us what happened. We need some closure in our family. Despite the plea, the case would remain stagnant for another three years. Until 2019, when investigators got their first big tangible tip. In March of that year, investigators got a call that an inmate named Robert at a local

jail had information about a murder. He knew who did the killing and where the weapon was buried. Investigators weren't sure what specific homicide he was even talking about, but they were open to new leads on any of their cold cases. So detective Servantes went to talk to Robert, and he had quite the story to tell. He said that a while back, he was talking to this long-time friend of his who will call Edward, and their conversation turned to the topic of guns. Robert recalled that his buddy Edward used to have a certain kind of gun and that he hadn't

seen him with it in a while. So he asked what had happened to it. And Edward said that he had buried the gun with demons in it, which Robert understood to mean Edward had killed someone with it. Edward told Robert that he had wrapped the gun in plastic and buried it in the ground. Edward even drew a map for him and showed him where it was buried, which was near the intersection of 40th Street in McDowell Road, a block away from where Germain was gunned down in 2006. But that wasn't the only thing leading detectives to believe Robert was talking about Germain's

murder. There was something else that he mentioned that made their ears perk up. Robert said Edward had a friend who grew up in California, and apparently Edward and his friend had been in a shootout a few years back over a dispute about a woman at the Arrowwood apartment complex. Now that's the exact complex where Jermaine and his cousin Milo had been in a shootout a week before Jermaine was killed. Detective Syervantis showed Robert a Google map of the area that he mentioned to see if he could pin point the exact location Where he said the gun was buried and he did He said it was in front of an apartment complex in a green irrigation or utility box Which are totally different things, but really what mattered to investigators was the location

This felt so promising. So detective Servantis wasted no time. She got a search warrant for the Greenbox Robert mentioned, but there was no gun in or around the box. And that dead end tip is the last big lead investigators received in germains now 16-year-old case. In some ways, detectives feel like they're no closer to solving it than they were in 2006. And not knowing who these individuals are, we don't know if they're gang members,

which if somebody has information and these two, if they were, I don't know, because we don't know who they are, but if they were gang members, you're not going to have a person snitch on a gang member. It just, it doesn't happen because there's going to possibly be retaliation. I don't know if this was gang related because we have no information on that. And, you know, there's, we have parts of our city that just will not give information to the police and fear of retaliation or in fear of being labeled as a snitch. Even with the frustrating lulls and roadblocks in the investigation,

detectives haven't given up. He's still a victim of homicide. Nobody's life should be taken in this way. Germain was just walking down the alley with a couple of people. There was nothing that provoked it at that time. It's pretty cold-hearted to what these individuals did by just coming up to him and were they the ones that were involved in the first incident a week prior, very possibly that they were, let it go. It's not worth taking someone's life over. You know, Dermain had family, you know, loved, and he's missed.

And I believe that's why I went into homicide is because all these people deserve some sort of closure or justice. And if he was involved in any illegal activity it doesn't make him any less of a victim. He's still someone's son, brother. People knowing what happened and not coming forward to tell us. Us detectives speak for these victims now because they don't have a voice and I think the families deserve to know and to have justice and have closure and hold the person's responsible for who did this. Domain's family has waited 16 long years to see his killer brought to justice.

They deserve answers and closure. And whoever the monsters are that did this to Domain, they deserve to be held responsible. So please, if you have any information at all about the murder of germane Johnson in 2006, reach out to the Phoenix Police Department at 602-262-6151 or call silent witness at 480-Witness. That's 480-948-6377. Now, you may have already looked at your feed and noticed that I posted two episodes today.

There's this one and another bonus episode. You can listen to that episode on Willy Troy Price Senior, King of Diamonds, right now, wherever you listen to podcasts. The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis to learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve? So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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