The man accused of fatally shooting a St. Paul woman last week had recently found out she was pregnant and was upset with her for telling his girlfriend, according to criminal charges.
Police found 29-year-old Ashli K. Johnson with multiple gunshot wounds inside a vehicle at Hall Avenue and West Stevens Street about 10 minutes before 3 a.m. June 3 after a report of shots fired.
Her vehicle, which was still in drive, had bullet holes on the passenger side and its windows were broken. Johnson had her foot on the break.
Medics at the scene pronounced her dead about half an hour later. She was about one month pregnant at the time.
JOHNSON RECENTLY FOUND OUT SHE WAS PREGNANT AND TOLD DELANEY’S GIRLFRIEND
A cell phone found partially under her body led officers to Clinton Roosevelt Delaney, 28, who was charged Friday via warrant with one count of second-degree murder, according to a criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court.
The charging document details an extended text and Facebook Messenger conversation Johnson had with Delaney’s girlfriend beginning the evening before she died.
The woman has a three-year-old child with Delaney and had plans to marry him when Johnson contacted her on Facebook and told her she was pregnant with Delaney’s baby, according to the complaint. Further conversation ensued and on June 2, Johnson asked her if Delaney had told her about the pregnancy yet, adding that she would be willing to take a pregnancy test to prove it.
The woman sent Johnson a screenshot of text messages she’d had with Delaney confronting him about the pregnancy and agreed to meet Johnson at a motel so she could verify the pregnancy with a test.
Text messages indicate the woman met Johnson at a Motel 6 around 9 p.m. June 2.
SHOTS FIRED SHORTLY AFTER LAST TEXT EXCHANGE BETWEEN JOHNSON AND DELANEY
Hours later, around 2 a.m. June 3, text messages were exchanged between Johnson and Delaney. Johnson was seemingly trying to make plans to drop off money for Delaney, but kept indicating she didn’t trust him or the situation.
Eventually she made plans to leave it outside the residence he was staying at on on Stevens Street so long as he promised to be inside with his friends, the complaint said.
She said she planned to put the money in the tailpipe of his vehicle, but he said he wanted her to leave it in his mailbox instead.
At 2:48 a.m. Johnson sent Delaney a message again telling him to go inside with his friends.
“Fo what? Nobody fina touch you,” Delaney replied, according to court documents. Johnson responded that she could just opt to leave.
That last message was sent at 2:49 am. The first 911 call about shots fired in the area came in at 2:51 a.m.
In addition to Johnson’s bullet-ridden vehicle, police found a 2005 Chevrolet Monte Carlo at the scene that officers later learned was a gift to Delaney from his girlfriend that also had been struck by gunfire. The vehicle’s front left tire was flat and apparently slashed.
A “butcher-style knife” had been located on the passenger seat of Johnson’s vehicle, and she had reportedly told someone that she was upset with Johnson because had just found out she was pregnant and that he had a girlfriend and had also given her a sexually transmitted disease. She told the person she planned to slash his tires, the complaint said.
A week after Johnson’s death, a police investigator got a call from someone who had been at the residence with Delaney the night of the shooting who told authorities he overheard Delaney telling someone else at the house the night that he had “f-ed up” and shot Johnson, adding that he was mad at her for “messing things up with his baby mama,” and that she might be pregnant with his child, charges say.
JOHNSON LEAVES BEHIND FOUR CHILDREN
An autopsy indicated Johnson suffered two gunshot wounds, one of which entered her upper right arm and traveled into her chest. She was 26 to 27 days pregnant.
Delaney’s criminal record includes past convictions for domestic assault, felony-level theft and a felony level conviction for violating a No Contact order in 2016.
No attorney was listed for Delaney in court records.
Johnson’s mother, Ginnie Williams, drove up from Louisiana immediately after hearing about her daughter’s death. She said Friday that while she is “elated” that Delaney has been arrested and charged, “that is not going to bring my kid back.”
Johnson was the mother of three daughters and one son who range in age from 15 to 7.
Williams said her daughter had told her a couple weeks about her latest pregnancy, adding that she didn’t know Delaney personally but that she knew that her daughter had been seeing him.
Now she finds herself wondering why the charges filed against Delaney don’t reflect the death of her unborn grandchild as well.
She wants people to know her daughter was a good person who loved her kids.
“She would do anything for her children,” Williams said, adding that she hopes Delaney spends the rest of his life for taking her away from them.
“I am glad he is caught and off the streets and now it’s time to answer for what he has done,” Williams said. “He has removed her from her children, from her mother, her sisters, her brothers, her friends, everybody”