A woman will serve 50 years after the bodies of her niece and nephew were found in the back of her car.
Nicole Johnson, 36, of Maryland, was sentenced to life in prison suspending all but 50 years on Monday.
Police say that an officer found the bodies of the youngsters during a traffic stop in Essex in July 2021. The official reportedly noticed “the unmistakable odor of decomposition,” WJZ reported.
After the officer noticed the smell, Johnson pulled out a suitcase from the trunk. That’s where officials located the decomposing body of her seven-year-old niece, Joshlyn Marie James Johnson. Officials say she may have been dead for a year by the time her body was found.
The body of the child’s brother, five-year-old Larry O’Neal, was located inside a tote in the trunk.
The woman had been taking care of the children since her sister left them with her in 2019. Police say the sister tried to get the children back but Johnson did not return them. Police did not release the identity of the children’s mother. In May 2020, the woman and children were staying in a hotel. She told investigators she hit the girl when she tried taking food out of the fridge.
She fell and hit her head. The aunt then put her body in a suitcase, the outlet reported. She later put that suitcase in her trunk for several months.
Two months before the traffic stop, the boy had an injury and never woke up. Johnson put his body in a plastic bag next to his sister, the outlet reported.
Johnson pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree child abuse involving the death of a victim younger than 13 in Baltimore County Circuit Court in August.
The woman’s mother told local outlet KATV that she wanted her daughters to be held responsible for what happened to the children.
“I’d tried to get any help I could. I was waiting for my grandkids to come back home. But they never came back to me,” she said in 2021.
