A man who violently carjacked two women in their 70s in separate incidents as a teenager in 2019 was sentenced by a DeKalb County judge to 15 years in prison without the possibility of parole.
Aaron Neil Johnson, 22, was convicted by a jury of armed robbery and other charges on April 1, DeKalb District Attorney Sherry Boston said.
According to the DA, Johnson skipped the final day of his trial when the jury handed down its verdict. He was wanted on a bench warrant for months until he was located on Aug. 1, Boston said, and Johnson did not quietly surrender to authorities.
Johnson was only taken into custody after a two-hour standoff with South Fulton SWAT and DeKalb deputies, Boston said. She added that chemical agents had to be used to subdue him before officers forcibly removed him from the house where the standoff took place.
Johnson and two other defendants were initially arrested after two separate carjackings that took place Dec. 5 and Dec. 7 of 2019, Boston said.
In the first incident, Johnson and his co-defendant Joshua Bryant approached a 74-year-old woman at a Chevron gas station on Gresham Road in Atlanta, the DA said. Byrant hit the woman several times, knocking her to the ground and causing her to break her hip. Bryant and Johnson then stole the woman’s car with her dog still inside.
The dog was later found on the street and returned to the victim, Boston said, but the car was never recovered.
Two days later, Johnson and Bryant stole a black Toyota Camry from another gas station in Fulton County, Boston said. They used the Camry to drive to a Kroger parking lot in Lithonia, where Johnson snatched a 78-year-old woman’s car keys out of her hand. He jumped back into the Camry and he and Bryant circled the parking lot, looking for the woman’s Mercedes-Benz.
The victim rushed to her car first, but when Bryant and Johnson found her, Johnson brandished a gun and told the woman he’d shoot her unless she moved away from the car, Boston said. Johnson and Bryant then drove away in the Mercedes, which was wrecked and recovered three days later.
Prior to Johnson’s trial, Bryant had pleaded guilty to counts of robbery and aggravated battery on Sept. 1, 2023, the DA said. He received a 20-year sentence.
Boston also said a third codefendant, Tiffany Swanson, served as a lookout for Johnson and Bryant. She pleaded guilty to one count of robbery on the same day Bryant entered his plea. Swanson was sentenced to about 14 months in prison followed by nearly four years of probation.
