Son finds woman, 40, fatally stabbed in home

The Baltimore Sun

Baltimore police reported yesterday the slaying of an East Baltimore woman who was found by her son stabbed in the basement of her home. The victim, Phyllis S. Johnson, 40, was the 11th woman slain this year and the city's 162nd homicide victim, according to police figures.

Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman, said Johnson's son entered the home in the 1700 block of N. Broadway through the basement and found his mother lying in a pool of blood about 10:40 p.m. Tuesday. Paramedics took her to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she was pronounced dead about 10 minutes later.

Police do not have a suspect and know of no motive in the killing.

Octavia Pompey, 64, an ex-mother-in-law of Johnson, said in an interview yesterday that one of the victim's two sons called to tell her about the homicide. Pompey's son, Bryan K. Johnson, had been married to Johnson, but he was killed in October 2001, according to an article in The Sun at the time.

Pompey said the last time she had seen Johnson was over Christmas, when she and her sons came to her house. She said the woman suffered from drug addiction. "She's been through some things," Pompey said. "When she was clean, she was a really nice girl."

Johnson's slaying was the second homicide in the city's Oliver neighborhood in less than a week. Police also identified yesterday a man whose body was found Sunday inside a trash bag placed inside a trash can in the 1500 block of N. Bond St.

The victim, Christopher M. Barrett, 52, of no fixed address, had been shot, police said. No arrests have been made in that case. Relatives of Barrett could not be located.

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