An ex-con and ex-gang member who became a “criminal justice activist” was arrested for murder after police found severed body parts in his apartment in New York City.
New York City police said that on Tuesday they found a torso and severed arms in a sixth-floor apartment in the Bronx as they were responding to a call for a wellness check at about 8:25 p.m.
After serving a search warrant, they found the victim’s head and legs in the freezer.
Police identified the man as 44-year-old Collin Small and said he had been shot in the head.
Police believe 48-year-old Sheldon Johnson, a well-known criminal justice activist, killed the victim in the victim’s apartment in the Bronx, dismembered the body, and then brought some of the body parts to his ninth-floor apartment in Harlem.
One neighbor told police she heard gunshots from the apartment, then heard someone yell out, “Please don’t, I have a family!” before hearing two more gunshots, according to a police report obtained by the New York Times.
Police also heard from a building superintendent who saw a man walking in and out of the apartment several times while changing clothing a number of times. He also walked out with a plastic blue storage bin on wheels.
“I thought, I don’t know who this man is, but he is coming in and out with a key, like he owns the place,” said the superintendent.
He called police, and when they arrived and knocked on the door, Johnson opened it, according to the report. Police proceeded to take him into custody after confirming that he was the man that had walked in and out of the apartment.
“I have to change my life.”
The criminal activist had previously served 25 years in prison over attempted murder and other charges. He touted his story while a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast, saying that he had decided to turn his life around after becoming a free man.
“It was at that moment that I really said, ‘I have to change my life, I have to change my life,’ I just can’t do this,” Johnson said to Rogan. “I had a wife, I had kids, I had family still, my son was growing up. He was hearing stories of my so-called notoriety. I just didn’t want to be that dad.”
Johnson is charged with murder, manslaughter, and criminal possession of a weapon.
“I’m innocent!” he exclaimed while being placed in the back of a police car.
Johnson’s employer, the Queens Defenders, refused to comment about his arrest.
“It feels like the devil just crawled through here,” said a neighbor about the allegations.
Here’s a local news report about the arrest:
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