Woman sentenced for role in her 12-year-old brother’s death

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (KCTV) - A woman has been sentenced to more than two and a half in years in prison for her role in her 12-year-old brother’s death.

On Wednesday, the Leavenworth County Attorney said that 21-year-old Brooke Minshae Johnson of Kansas City, Missouri, has been sentenced to 32 months in prison. That is 2.67 years.

Back in October, Johnson was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with a shooting that happened in the parking lot of KARE Pharmacy on April 14, 2021. That shooting in the parking lot at 2500 S. 4th St. in Leavenworth led to the death of Johnson’s 12-year-old brother.

Johnson will be on 24 months of post-release supervision after serving the 32 months in prison. She will also have to register as a violent offender for 15 years after being released.

The county attorney’s office noted that Johnson is a former UMKC student who was on a full academic scholarship and that she has no criminal history.

On the day of the shooting in April of 2021, Johnson used social media to arrange the sale of a gun to three Leavenworth County residents. Johnson actually planned to sell them a BB gun that looked like a real gun, then drive off with the money before they realized it wasn’t real.

The county attorney’s office said Johnson recruited her 12-year-old brother and a 13-year-old friend to help with the scheme. She also recruited a 17-year-old to drive them to Leavenworth in his car.

They met the prospective buyers in the pharmacy’s parking lot. The two cars parked across from each other. A teenager purchased the gun from Johnson and gave her $400 in cash. As he started to walk back to the car, he realized it wasn’t a real gun. At that point, he shouted to two other people in the car that they’d been ripped off. The two other people in the car were Darvon Thomas and Jaylen Johnson.

Darvon Thomas told Jaylen Johnson to shoot them. Jaylen Johnson got out and began firing a real gun at Brooke Johnson’s car, hitting it multiple times as she left the parking lot. A female bystander was driving by this incident with her 6-month-old baby; their car was hit by a stray bullet.

After leaving, Brooke Johnson realized that her brother had been shot. Instead of stopping at a hospital in Leavenworth, they drove to a children’s hospital in KCMO. Ultimately, the he was declared dead.

The KCPD notified the Leavenworth Police Department that Johnson and others were at the hospital. Leavenworth detectives immediately went there. The county attorney said that Johnson, the 17-year-old and the minor weren’t honest with detectives. An investigation uncovered the truth.

A jury convicted the person who fired the fatal shot, Jaylen Johnson, of first-degree murder in May of this year. He was also found guilty of criminal possession of a firearm by a felon and two counts of criminal discharge of a firearm at an occupied vehicle. In June, he was sentenced to life in prison with a chance of parole after 25 years.

Darvon Thomas, who told Jaylen Johnson to shoot at the car, was convicted of second-degree murder in February of this year. He was sentenced in March to 200 months, or nearly 17 years, in prison.

The 17-year-old who drove Brooke Johnson to Leavenworth was charged as a juvenile and adjudicated of involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced in January of this year to 15 months the state’s juvenile correctional facility.

The $400 in purchase money was never recovered.

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