On Sunday, February 27, 2011, the couple began arguing while seated inside Ms. Johnson's Jeep which was parked outside their home in Cherokee Heights.  A neighbor heard screaming coming from the vehicle, intervened and separated the couple.   After calling police, the neighbor noticed blood on Ms. Johnson.  Leroy Johnson had stabbed her five (5) times in her shoulder and neck.  When first responders and Memphis Police officers arrived, Ms. Johnson made a dying declaration to an officer that her husband had stabbed her because she was leaving him.  She was transported to Regional Medical Center where she later died from her injuries.
Leroy Johnson pleaded guilty to second degree murder and accepted a mandatory sentence of twenty (22) years in prison, with no possibility for parole.  
The plea was entered before Honorable Judge Carolyn Wade Blackett.
Assistant District Attorneys Chris West and Sam Winnig, of the Shelby County District Attorney General's Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit, prosecuted the case