‘Less time than she spent on Earth’: Family reacts to sentencing of teens in South City carjacking turned killing
Two teens have been sentenced after Kay Johnson, 38, was murdered in her driveway in front of her daughter, 14.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - The pain has not faded, and for Kay Johnson’s family, it never will.
“What does justice mean?” her sister, Jamie Steil, asked. “Her life is still gone. We can’t get her back ever. All we have are memories now.”
This week, Deshaun Harris, 16, was sentenced to 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree murder and other charges for Johnson’s 2023 killing. Prosecutors say Harris, 15 at the time, fatally shot the 38-year-old mother during a failed carjacking in 2023.
“For me, it’s never gonna be over,” Steil said. “It will never be over for my parents either.”
On the evening of January 24, 2023, Johnson was pulling into her garage on Compton Avenue in St. Louis’ Mount Pleasant neighborhood when Harris and another teen, 13-year-old Brian Wellington, ordered her out of the car. When she didn’t comply, Harris shot her in the face.
Johnson was pronounced dead on the scene, murdered as her 14-year-old daughter sat in the enger seat and was forced to watch.
“They took something they shouldn’t have, and it wasn’t theirs to take,” Steil said. “Now we’ll never see her again.”
Wellington pleaded guilty to a lesser murder charge last month and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“They’re serving less time than the time [Kay] spent on earth,” Steil said. “That doesn’t make sense to me. My sister’s life is gone.”
Authorities say the teens were believed to be involved in a string of carjackings around that time, including the armed theft of a priest’s car outside a South City church, an incident caught on surveillance video.
Still, in the wake of the sentencing, Johnson’s family expressed no hate, only heartbreak. Steil said she holds no resentment toward the teens’ families and hopes the young men can change.
“If they’re able to find goodness within themselves,” she said, “I hope they learn to make better choices for them and society.”
The tragedy has furthered the mission of Precious Jones, who lost her son to gun violence in 2022. She now leads the nonprofit Breaking Generational Poverty, which focuses on gang prevention and helping St. Louis youth find better paths.
“It inspired me to want to go out and turn pain into purpose,” Jones said.
She says her heart breaks when she sees more young people caught in cycles of violence and incarceration.
“Those young boys did something horrible, and now their lives are over. They threw away their youth,” Jones said. “I have a permanent heartbreak until I see a difference with our youth.”
Jones hopes that once behind bars, the teens will have access to programs that offer hope and healing. She believes it’s not too late but that the must be there when they’re ready.
“When they get out, they need to be given a chance, so the cycle doesn’t continue,” Jones said.
Since their sentencings, First Alert 4 has learned from the Missouri Department of Corrections that Wellington has been assigned to a youth correctional facility in Farmington where he’ll have access to schooling, mental health resources and, eventually, re-entry services.
Harris, who was sentenced Monday, has yet to be assigned to a facility or prison.
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