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I'm just going to ask you did you kill Marcus Boyd did not kill Marcus on October 30th 1994 25 year old Marcus
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Boyd was sitting on the front steps of his home in South St Louis with his friend Greg elking Boyd's girlfriend and
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their baby were upstairs all he talked about all the time you know was about his baby and about his girlfriend he's
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making me laugh we're kind of laughing at each other but all of a sudden he went serious he was like oh no
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from the narrow pathway next to Boyd's apartment two men came out of nowhere these guys they had completely dark
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clothing and they had masks on elking says the men flew up the porch steps one grabbed Boyd and the other grabbed
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elking and he says get up I remember looking at him right in the guy's eyes the other guy I seen him put the gun
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right up to Marcus's like neck area and when he pulled the trigger I seen The Flash
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boom the third shot I kind of seen Marcus's Soul just go and I knew I knew he was dead
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to elking's horror both men continued to shoot void then they vanished sparing the only eyewitness and where were you
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when this happened I was about three miles away Johnson who was only 20 at the time says he was with his girlfriend
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Erica Barrow and their five-month-old daughter Kiara visiting friends Johnson had been working at Jiffy Lube
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while attending Community College but he also had a dangerous side hustle selling
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small amounts of crack cocaine for extra cash yes I was making some poor choices then
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and I take responsibility for that but that wasn't the sum of who I was on the night of the shooting Erica says
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Lamar was only out of her sight once so we were there because he was making a transaction someone was coming
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and so he was just like I'll be right back Johnson left the house Erica says just
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as she began changing Kiara's diaper and I went out to meet a somebody that I was dealing with he says
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a customer picked him up at the corner of 39th and Lafayette and they made a quick transaction while driving around
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the block by the time I finish changing her diaper and clean everything up he's coming back
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up the steps and how long does that take three to five minutes and he's talking you know nothing out of the ordinary it
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he was just normal minutes later Johnson got a call that his friend Marcus Boyd had been shot
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Johnson's life then began to unravel according to investigators when they asked Boyd's girlfriend who she
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suspected only one name came to mind Lamar Johnson she thought the longtime friends might have had a falling out
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Marcus and I have never had an argument or a fight I loved him I had no reason to want to
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hurt him you agreed to talk to the cops without a lawyer that was risky wasn't it
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well no I didn't have anything on November 3rd 1994 four days after the murder Johnson was arrested in July 1995
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he went on trial the defense relied on Johnson's Alibi Erica Barrow who said he was with her at the time of the murder
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it took less than two hours for the jurors to reach a verdict guilty at Montreal they did not even present a
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motive they never explained why I supposedly did this Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without
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Parole in 2018 St Louis circuit attorney Kimberly Gardner agreed to look at his case I started seeing some red flags
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and I consulted my team and I said I think we have a problem here one of the many red flags for Gardner was the
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timeline of the murder could Johnson have had time to kill his friend Marcus Boyd Erica Barrow said he only left his
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friend's apartment for around five minutes you cannot drive that distance you'd have to be speeding through St Louis to
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even get there and then you'd have to speed all the way back there's no way you could do that at Johnson's trial
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Detective Joe Nickerson testified that it only took him five minutes to go from The Alibi location to the crime scene 48
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Hours asked Chief investigator from the circuit attorney's office Robert Ogilvy to take Aaron Moriarty on that same
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Drive according to testimony it just takes five minutes to get there you're laughing yeah
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the drive was timed using a cell phone yep 12 55 13 minutes 13 minutes one way that's more than double the time
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detective Nickerson said it took as a prosecutor you put people in prison you don't try to get them out as a
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prosecutor no prosecutor I believe wants to secure conviction wrongfully using wrong tactics that's just not what
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we want to do we want to get it right