Johnny Brown charged with killing girlfriend during disagreement in Linden Hills apartment
MINNEAPOLIS — Prosecutors have filed charges against a 50-year-old man in connection to the death of a 43-year-old woman in Linden Hills on Sunday night.
According to the criminal complaint, Johnny Brown called 911, saying he and his girlfriend had gotten into a fight, and his girlfriend had pulled a gun, which had gone off. He thought she was dead, and provided the street address before hanging up. He called again 20 minutes later to reiterate the events, and said he was ready to turn himself in.
Officers forced entry into the locked apartment on the 4200 block of Sheridan Avenue South. There they found the woman, Kesha Moore, dead of a gunshot wound to the head. Investigators found a single 9mm casing at the scene. Moore was a registered owner of a Luger ECS9, a 9 mm gun, but officers could not find it.
While investigators were at the scene, a family member arrived at the apartment and told police that Brown had called them to say "I f--ked up, I killed your cousin. I turned myself in."
Brown was not at the scene, and documents allege he turned off his phone and never turned it back on. Then the next day, he went to get a new phone number, which investigators traced to the area of 18th and Newton Avenue North in Minneapolis.
He was arrested later that day during a traffic stop. His new girlfriend was in the car with him, charges state.
In a post-Miranda interview, Brown said he and Moore had gotten into an argument on the day of the shooting, because Moore was concerned that he was cheating. When he left the room to go get a drink and came back, Moore was pointing a gun at him, documents say.
Brown added that he was able to take the gun away, but accidentally bumped the trigger, which resulted in Moore getting shot in the head. Charging documents note, however, that the type of gun requires a trigger pull of at least 5 pounds.
He said his memory of the incident was "foggy" because of how much alcohol he drank.
Brown has a prior felony offense going back to 2007, during which he illegally possessed a firearm which he shot in the air during a disagreement a former girlfriend. He served 110 months in prison.
Brown was charged on Wednesday with two counts of second-degree murder and one count of possessing ammunition.
Brown's bail was set at $1.5 million. His next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 18
Domestic Violence Resources: For anonymous, confidential help, people can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or 1-800-787-3224.
