Three Baton Rouge, Louisiana, teenagers are in police custody after fatally shooting a pregnant woman just days away from giving birth.
Kerisha Johnson, 36, died on Sunday at the alleged hands of three teenage suspects: Marques Porch, 19, Gregory Parker, 19, and Derrick Curry, 19, who allegedly fired rounds into her car in a case of mistaken identity, ABC News reports.
The shooting happened around 12:30 a.m. on North Carrollton Avenue near Renoir Avenue. Johnson was killed attempting to pick up people from a party she had just dropped off moments earlier, according to WAFB.
Officers found Johnson dead inside her car after responding to reports of shots fired. She tried to flee but was struck by the gunfire, killing her and her unborn child. Johnson was “due to give birth within several days,” authorities said.
The party was reportedly promoted as an Easter celebration for teens. Johnson was driving toward the party when “several individuals” started firing into her white sedan, believing she was shot into the air near the party earlier in the day while driving a similar car.
“It was just senseless,” Deanna Williams, a childhood friend of Johnson, told WBRZ. “She was an innocent person.”
An arrest warrant states that video footage shows the alleged gunmen “raising firearms, pointing them at the victim’s vehicle and then firing” before fleeing the scene.
Porch, Parker, and Curry were all booked into the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison and were charged with second-degree murder and first-degree feticide. Porch, who allegedly told authorities he provided the firearms to the other two teens before the shooting, was shot during the gunfire but sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
“They all stated that they believed the white car was a vehicle from earlier in the night where [an]occupant had fired a round into the air as it drove past the teen party,” the warrant stated.
Porch was “immediately terminated” from his job as a corrections employee with the West Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office following his arrest on Sunday. During a court hearing on Monday, the three suspects were ordered held without bond after the shooting.
