YOU’RE THE JUDGE
A TRAGIC ARGUMENT OVER A TELLY SHOW ENDED IN A DOUBLE SHOOTING, BUT WAS IT MURDER?
He was a sparky little boy, who loved drumming and had dreams of making it big.
“I’m going to be on America’s Got Talent,” Ricky Willis told his YouTube followers in a video posted online in 2018.
Ricky, 10, lived with his mum Stephanie Willis, 34, and her boyfriend Tyrone Johnson, 42, in an apartment in Tampa, Florida. Single mum Stephanie and dad-of-five Tyrone had been together for a year. She supported her son’s musical ambitions, was going to help him record a video for his America’s Got Talent audition.
PANICKED CALL
But tragically, Ricky – who was also known as ‘Ryon’ – never got to live out his dreams. In October 2018, weeks after the young boy’s YouTube video had been posted, Tampa emergency services had a panicked call from a tearful man.
Sobbing hysterically, he said, “I just shot my girlfriend and her son for attacking me.” It was Tyrone Johnson.
The police rushed to the scene and found Johnson standing by the front door of the family’s flat, clutching a phone. He was crying, muttering, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” And in the flat, they found bloodstains, signs of a struggle – and a terrible scene in the master bedroom. Stephanie and Ricky were lying side by side, both dead. A gun and a knife lay on the floor in front of a TV showing a live football game between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers. Tyrone Johnson was arrested. When questioned, he sobbed as he admitted shooting Stephanie and Ricky during a dispute over what to watch on TV while they ate dinner. He’d wanted to watch the football – they hadn’t. A row had ensued. But how had it resulted in two horrific deaths?
Johnson was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse for Ricky’s death, and second-degree murder for Stephanie’s death. If found guilty of first-degree murder, he would face the death penalty. At his trial, in November 2021, Tyrone Johnson admitted the shootings. But he pleaded not guilty to the charges of first-degree and second-degree murder, insisting that it was manslaughter, not murder, because he’d acted in self-defence. The jury was shown disturbing images of the victims’ bodies lying together, along with a dramatic video of Johnson’s interrogation after being arrested, in which he claimed to have been screamed at by the pair, after he’d switched on
