A 23-year-old man in Louisiana will most likely spend the rest of his life in prison after killing his girlfriend, who was pregnant with his child, before fleeing with her 2-year-old son and throwing the still-alive toddler off a 30-foot-high bridge to his death.
On Tuesday, East Baton Rouge District Judge Louise Hines Myers sentenced Brynnen Murphy to 95 years in prison for the cold-blooded murders of 24-year-old Kaylen Johnson, her son Kaden Johnson, and her unborn child.
Myers sentenced Murphy to 40 years in prison for each manslaughter conviction, plus an additional 15 years for feticide.
In April, Murphy pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter and one count of first-degree feticide in the killings.
He was initially arrested in 2022 and charged with two counts of first-degree murder. He was then indicted for second-degree murder before reaching an agreement with prosecutors from the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s Office.
According to The Advocate, Johnson’s family members declined to give victim impact statements during Tuesday’s sentencing hearing.
Following the proceedings, Johnson’s aunt, LaKeisha M. Johnson, told the newspaper that the loss of her niece, who was four months pregnant at the time of her death, and young Kaden was still too difficult for the family to discuss.
“We’re not good at all,” she reportedly told the paper. “I don’t care what happens to him. He wasn’t concerned about what happened to them. “If we hadn’t been on it the way we were, that boy would still be running wild.”
East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore told Baton Rouge CBS affiliate WAFB that Murphy’s plea effectively resulted in a life sentence and saved the family from having to relive the horrific events during trial.
“Obviously, autopsies were involved in this, and some of those photographs have to be shown, and then just the description by the pathologist of how the deaths occurred, and how the bodies were disposed of, it would be brutal for a family to go through this,” he said to the reporter. “There’s no other sentence than what he agreed to today, so this is a guaranteed sentence; he’s practically doing life in prison.”
Murphy, as previously reported by Law&Crime, admitted to killing Johnson in front of her son and dumping her body in the woods while the boy remained in the car.
He then threw Kaden off a 30-foot bridge, leaving the toddler crying.
The mother and son were last seen alive on March 5, 2022, but family members became concerned after they couldn’t reach Johnson for nearly a week.
The family then reported her and Kaden as missing, according to Baton Rouge NBC affiliate WVLA.
At about 2:40 p.m. on March 11, 2022, police conducted a wellness check at Johnson’s home on Old Hammond Highway. While there were no signs of foul play inside the house, police discovered Johnson’s cellphone had been disconnected.
Johnson’s family began to fear the worst when her car was found abandoned on a dead-end street with the license plates removed, and an initially uncooperative Murphy reportedly went down.
“We found her car without a license plate. From there, it raised an eyebrow.
When one of the guys approached him, he refused to provide any information and fled,” said a Baton Rouge Police Department spokesperson. “He knew we were actively searching for him.
He knew the mother and two-year-old were missing. So the family started reaching out. “He was out on the streets and decided to turn himself in.”
Murphy allegedly confessed to both killings when he was arrested, telling detectives that they had an argument after Johnson picked him up on March 5, 2022, according to the Advocate.
Murphy shot her in the head twice after Johnson pulled over her car. Throughout the shooting, the toddler was strapped into a car seat in the back. Murphy allegedly dumped Johnson’s body in a roadside drainage ditch.
With Kaden still in the backseat, Murphy allegedly drove to a 30-foot elevated bridge on the Central Thruway and threw the crying toddler overboard. However, prosecutors stated that the child suffered no serious injuries as a result of the fall.
“It was determined that Kaden sustained no injuries from being thrown over the bridge,” Assistant District Attorney Jaclyn Christie Chapman stated at the plea hearing. “But instead died as a result of starvation and exposure to elements for a sustained period of time.”
According to police, the mother and son appeared to have been dead for approximately a week.
