Main, left to right: Kaylen Johnson and Kayden Johnson (East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office). Inset: Brynnen Murphy (Baton Rouge Police Dept.).
In Louisiana, a 23-year-old man is facing a lifetime in prison after committing a heinous crime. He murdered his girlfriend, who was carrying his child, and then callously drove away with her 2-year-old son. Tragically, he proceeded to throw the defenseless toddler off a 30-foot-high bridge, leading to the child’s untimely death. The East Baton Rouge District Judge Louise Hines Myers recently sentenced Brynnen Murphy to serve 95 years in prison for the merciless killings of 24-year-old Kaylen Johnson, her son Kaden Johnson, and her unborn baby.
Specifically, Myers sentenced Murphy to 40 years on each of the manslaughter convictions and an additional 15 years on the feticide conviction.
Murphy in April pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter and one count of first-degree feticide in the killings.
Initially apprehended in 2022, Murphy was originally charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Subsequently, he faced additional charges of second-degree murder before eventually striking a plea agreement with the prosecutors from the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s Office.
During the sentencing hearing, it was noted that Johnson’s relatives opted not to present victim impact statements. After the conclusion of the legal proceedings, Johnson’s aunt, LaKeisha M. Johnson, expressed to The Advocate that the profound loss of her pregnant niece and young Kaden had left the family too grief-stricken to articulate their feelings.
Love true crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life crime stories delivered right to your inbox.
“We’re not good at all,” she reportedly told the paper. “I couldn’t care less about what happens to him. He didn’t care about what happened to them. If we wouldn’t have been on it like we were on it, that boy would still be free running wild.”
East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore told Baton Rouge CBS affiliate WAFB that Murphy’s plea was effectively a life sentence that also saved the family from having to relive the horrific events during a trial.
“Obviously, autopsies were involved in this, and some of those photographs have to be shown, and then just the description by the pathologist of how the deaths occurred, and how the bodies were disposed of, it would be brutal for a family to go through this,” he told the station. “There’s no other sentence than what he agreed to today, so this is a guaranteed sentence; he’s practically doing life in prison.”
As previously reported by Law&Crime, Murphy confessed to killing Johnson in front of her son and dumping her body in the woods with the boy still in the car. He then threw Kaden from a 30-foot bridge while the toddler was still alive and could be heard crying.
The mother and son had last been seen alive on March 5, 2022, but family members began to fear the worst after they were unable to contact Johnson for nearly a week. The family then reported her and Kaden missing, Baton Rouge NBC affiliate WVLA reported.
Police at approximately 2:40 p.m. on March 11, 2022, performed a wellness check at Johnson’s home on Old Hammond Highway. While there were reportedly no signs of foul play inside the house, police noted that Johnson’s cellphone had been disconnected.
Johnson’s family began to fear the worst when her car was discovered abandoned on a dead-end street with the license plates removed, and an initially uncooperative Murphy reportedly went to ground.
“We found her car without the license plate on it. And from there it raised an eyebrow. One of the guys made contact with him, he refused to give information and disappeared,” a spokesperson for the Baton Rouge Police Department said. “He knew we were actively looking for him. He knew the mom and the 2-year-old were missing. So from there, the family was reaching out. He was out on the streets and he decided to turn himself in.”
With Kaden still in the backseat, Murphy then reportedly drove to a 30-foot elevated bridge on Central Thruway, which is where he tossed the crying toddler over the side. But prosecutors said the fall didn’t seriously injure the child.
“It was determined that Kaden sustained no injuries from being thrown over the bridge,” Assistant District Attorney Jaclyn Christie Chapman said during the plea hearing. “But instead died as a result of starvation and exposure to elements for a sustained period of time.”
Police reportedly said that the mother and son appeared to have been dead for about a week.
