20 months after paraplegic man killed in Algiers, arrest made in Houston

A man wanted in connection to the December 2015 shooting death of a paraplegic man in Algiers was captured over the weekend in Houston, more than 20 months after the murder, New Orleans police said. 

Jeren Johnson, 25, was killed Dec. 6, 2015, while riding in the passenger seat of his friend's car, according to NOPD and Johnson's mother, Tancy Johnson. She said she received a call about 12:30 a.m. Sunday (Aug. 20) from an officer alerting her the suspect in her son's case, Shanta Massey, had been arrested in Houston.   

Online records from the Harris County, Texas, jail show Massey, 24, was booked into the jail on Baker Street in Houston Sunday on an out-of-state warrant. Johnson, 46, said Monday the officer whose call woke her told her Massey was captured late Saturday related to her son's death and was booked the following morning.  

Police found Jeren Johnson shot to death inside a Nissan Altima that had crashed into a truck in the 2600 block of Gen. Collins Street in Algiers. The 20-year-old driver of the Altima, who Johnson said was her son's friend, was hospitalized for injuries from the crash, police said at the time. Shortly after Jeren Johnson was killed, police said the motive appeared to have been related a possible robbery.

NOPD obtained an arrest warrant for Massey eight days after Jeren Johnson was killed, on Dec. 14, 2015, but Massey has been on the lam since then, NOPD Criminal Investigations Division Cmdr. Doug Eckert said last week. 

Department spokesman Aaron Looney said Monday NOPD's Violent Offenders Warrant Squad received information shortly after midnight Sunday that Massey was located at an apartment complex in Houston. NOPD then notified the Harris County Sheriff's Office and provided them with the warrant information, he said. Looney said Massey was arrested about an hour later on a charge of second-degree murder.

Massey has not been formally charged with an indictment or bill of information and must be extradited to Louisiana to face a murder charge in New Orleans. Harris County records show he is scheduled to appear in court in Houston Sept. 5. Looney said information about Massey's extradition was not immediately available. 

While the NOPD's homicide unit had considered the case "cleared by warrant" since the warrant was obtained, Johnson said she and her family struggled to be at peace until Massey's capture. 

The fatal shooting of her son in 2015 was his second brush with gun violence, Johnson said. He lost the use of his legs in July 2010, when he and another person were struck by stray gunfire during a shooting at a Gentilly playground. The bullet struck him in the underarm, his mother said, and doctors said it sent shock signals to his spinal cord that destroyed nerves.

Johnson said her other two children worried for their safety knowing their brother's killer had not been captured. When she got the news early Sunday, she said, she was struck by "a mix of emotions."

"I'm trying to prepare myself for what's to come ahead and having to see my son's killer for the first time," she said. "Of course it's not going to bring him back, but it does bring me a sense of peace... Knowing that my child's death was not in vein - (His alleged killer) can't hurt anyone else."