Death sentence prompts outburst from Johnson

Convicted murderer Dexter Johnson was sentenced to death in a Harris County courtroom yesterday — but he didn't take the punishment quietly. When the sentence was read, Johnson, 19, reportedly "gazed up and pressed his lips together. His eyes filled with tears. Then he looked toward his family and lifted his hand as if to wave to them." And then he threw a chair, causing folks in the courtroom to hit the deck. According to the AP, about a dozen court officers tackled Johnson and took him out a side door.

It wasn't the only outburst of emotion at the sentencing: Some members of Johnson's family collapsed and others, KHOU reported, "crawled on the floor in despair." In the hallway outside the courtroom, Johnson's mother told the Chronicle that Johnson was unfairly convicted. "My son is no murderer," Renee Johnson said. "He didn't have it in his blood. There was no evidence. ... God is gonna fix this."

Johnson was convicted of being part of a gang that carjacked Maria Aparece and her boyfriend, Huy Ngo, in June 2006 as the pair sat in Aparece's car outside Ngo's house. Prosecutors said Aparece and his four accomplices threatened the couple with a shotgun and pistol, then forced them into the back seat of the car and drove them around town while taking Aparece's cash and credit cards and trying to get her ATM code. Then, prosecutors said Johnson raped Aparece in the car while Ngo was forced to listen; afterward, Johnson and his friend Keithron Fields took Aparece and Ngo into the woods and shot them in the head. "Can you imagine how violent he was the night he killed my daughter?" Aparece's father, Protasio Aparece Jr., said after Johnson was removed from the courtroom.

Johnson, Fields, TImothy Randle, Ashley Ervin and an unidentified juvenile are suspected in a summer 2006 crime spree during which two other people were also murdered. Fields, Randle and Ervin are facing capital murder charges in connection with those crimes.