Death penalty off table in fatal stabbing
Corey Johnson, 17, is charged with murder in Gardens attacks.
The Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office will not seek the death penalty for the teen charged in the fatal stabbing of a 13-year-old boy in Palm Beach Gardens.
Corey Johnson, 17, is charged with first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Jovanni Sierra on March 12 during a sleepover at a home in BallenIsles Country Club. He is also charged with two counts of attempted murder for stabbing 13-year-old Dane Bancroft and his mother, Elaine Simon. He did not injure his friend and Bancroft’s brother, Kyle, who was also in the home that night.
Johnson told Palm Beach Gardens police he stabbed Sierra because the teen allegedly “made fun” of his Islamic beliefs. Previous investigations uncovered that Johnson had neo-Nazi affiliations.
The state attorney’s office filed the paperwork announcing its decision this week, according to court documents.
Johnson was at Simon’s home on March 11 for a sleepover with her two teen sons and Sierra. Sierra celebrated his 13th birthday a day early with a round of paint ball with friends and then a meal at an Italian restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens. Karen Abreu, Sierra’s mother, told The Palm Beach Post in March that her son noticed some of his friends at the restaurant who he’d be spending the night with later and asked if they could join his party. One of those teens was Johnson.
Johnson and Kyle Bancroft had been friends since elementary school and often stayed at the Gardens home. Dane Bancroft and Sierra were seventh-graders at Watson B. Duncan Middle School.
Just before 6 a.m. that Monday, Simon said she heard what sounded like moans. When she walked up the stairs of her BallenIsles home to see what was going on, Johnson attacked her with the knife. After she was stabbed more than a dozen times in the face, neck and wrists, she fell down the stairs, according to police. That’s when her son, Dane, came to protect her. He was stabbed 32 times.
Family told The Post that Dane Bancroft had a kidney removed, sustained liver damage and had several surgeries in the days after the stabbing.
Johnson remained barricaded in a room until a SWAT went in and arrested him. Investigators said he brought the knife with him to the home.
Johnson had previously been investigated for instances of disturbing behavior both in school and on the internet as early as middle school, according to law-enforcement documents. In school, Johnson was described as having “violent tendencies,” spoke about places to put a bomb and made anti-Semitic and homophobic statements.
Both local and federal authorities monitored his social-media posts after threats on Instagram aimed at a Catholic school in England were traced back to Johnson. In 2016, one of the threats read, “We have our sights set on you, and by Allah we will kill every single infidel student at this school #McAuleySchoolMassacre.” Nearly 100 kids were taken out of school as a precaution by parents that day.
Both the FBI and a counterintelligence agency in Europe were ready to charge Johnson with the threats, court documents show. Just days before the stabbings, the FBI told local authorities that the arrest affidavits would “be coming in the next several weeks.”