GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – Two months after Lovily Johnson’s felony murder trial ended in a hung jury, the Wyoming mother today pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the July, 2017 neglect death of her infant son.
Johnson, 23, left her six-month-old son strapped in a car seat in a stifling Wyoming apartment for more than a day, investigators said. Johnson brought his decomposing body to a Grand Rapids hospital.
The guilty plea was entered Tuesday, Nov. 13 before Kent County Circuit Court Judge Mark A. Trusock.
Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker said his office will recommend a minimum sentence within a guideline range of 15 to 25 years. Second-degree murder carries a maximum penalty of up to life.
Johnson will return to court for sentencing on Jan. 10.
Today’s guilty plea precludes a second jury trial, which was set to get underway on Nov. 26.
Kent County jurors in September were unable to reach a verdict after deliberating for more than 30 hours over a six-day period.
Defense attorney Jonathan Schildgen called the boy’s death a tragedy, not a murder.
"The jury agreed that it was not as simple as calling her a murderer,'' Schildgen said. "We are happy with the resolution.''
He said the plea agreement gives Johnson a chance of being out of prison before she is 40 years old.
"It is something we would have likely accepted if available to us before the first trial,'' Schildgen said, adding that Johnson "loved her son.''
Becker said he was ready to try the case a second time. “A child died; a six-month-old baby who didn’t have a chance,’’ he said after the first trial.
Johnson was charged last year with felony murder and first-degree child abuse for the death of her son, Noah.
Felony murder is punishable by mandatory life in prison; first-degree child abuse is punishable by up to life.
Investigators say the boy had been dead many hours before Johnson brought him to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids in July, 2017.
He had been left strapped in a car seat for 32 hours in an attic bedroom at a home in Wyoming where Johnson was living. The child weighed only 12 pounds when he died.
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