Halloween party killer gets 40-to-life sentence
Nija A. Johnson, 18, pleaded guilty in February to fatally shooting two young woman last October in Newburgh.
An 18-yearold from Newburgh will spend at least 40 years in prison for fatally shooting two young women and wounding five other people at a Halloween party last October, Orange County Dis- trict Attorney David M. Hoovler said Thursday.
Nija A. Johnson was sen- tenced by Judge Craig Stephen Brown in Orange Couny Court to multiple state prison sentences in connection with the Oct. 30, 2016, incident at 119 Broadway, in the city of Newburgh, Hoovler said in a press release.
Johnson pleaded guilty on Feb. 16 to two counts of second-degree murder and five counts of second-degree attempted murder in connection with the early morning shootings.
Johnson was sentenced to 20 years to life in state prison for each of the two counts of murder, to be served consecutively; and he was sentenced to 25 years in state prison and five years of post-release supervision for each of the five attempted murder counts. Those sentences will run concurrently with each other and the murder sentences.
Johnson won’t be eligible for parole until serving at least 40 years of his sentence. Johnson, who was 17 at the time of the murders, admitted that he intended to kill someone he had been in a fight with when he fired a pistol at least 10 times, striking seven partygoers.
Omani Free, 18, and Tabitha Cruz, 20, died in the shooting. One of the five survivors must now use a wheelchair, and another has bullet fragments in his body, Hoovler said.
Johnson was captured out of state on Nov. 4.
In court, Johnson admitted the only reason he stopped firing the gun, which still was loaded, was because he was “forcibly disarmed” by another person attending the party, Hoovler said.
The .40-caliber pistol Johnson used had an extended magazine designed to hold 20 rounds. It was recovered behind 119 Broadway in Newburgh after the shootings.
“This defendant will likely remain a threat to society even after serving four decades in prison, and hopefully the parole board will carefully consider whether he ever should be released,” Hoovler said in a prepared statement Thursday. “The loss of two innocent young women’s lives, and the serious, and in some cases life-altering, injuries suffered by five other young people caused by these senseless shootings is almost incomprehensible.”
Hoovler said Johnson told an officer that “Nobody fights anymore. We use our guns to settle things.”