BALTIMORE _ A Baltimore judge has acquitted the man accused of killing 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes in 2010, bringing an end to a high-profile case that spanned three trials.
Circuit Judge Charles J. Peters granted a motion for judgment of acquittal after hearing four weeks of testimony, clearing Michael Maurice Johnson of second-degree murder in the North Carolina teenager's death.
In hearing arguments before the ruling, Peters repeatedly questioned prosecutors about their theory of the case. There was no direct evidence, but prosecutors have maintained that circumstantial evidence all pointed to Johnson, who dated Barnes' older half sister and was the last known person to see Barnes alive.
Authorities theorized that Johnson developed an obsession with her, pointing to 1,200 text messages sent by the then-26-year-old and the teen, and strangled or suffocated her in a Northwest Baltimore apartment on Dec. 28, 2010. Her nude body was found four months later, floating in the Susquehanna River.
The key evidence was an observation by a neighbor who said he saw Johnson struggling to move a storage container. Prosecutors believe the girl's body was inside, but couldn't prove it.
Peters, in his questioning of the prosecution, said there was inconsistent evidence about whether the storage container allegedly used to move Barnes' body was even missing at all.
"Without the tote," Peters said, using the term authorities have used to describe the container, "you have no case."
There were no sexually explicit or suggestive messages exchanged between Johnson and Barnes, but prosecutors said he was "grooming" her and careful with his words. Peters took a dim view of that evidence of Johnson's motive. "You're telling me he's obsessed with her," he said. "He sees her two times in 11 days" before she went missing, he said.
Assistant State's Attorney Michael Dunty countered that both times, Johnson saw the girl when no one else was around.
Johnson was convicted by a jury in 2013, but the verdict was thrown out after a judge ruled evidence casting doubts on the credibility of a key witness _ who claimed Johnson showed him the girl's body _ was withheld from the defense.
That witness was not called again in the next two trials, and in 2015, a different judge acquitted Johnson. But that ruling was reversed on procedural grounds in the appellate courts, setting up the third trial.
Johnson has been free since the 2015 acquittal.
