'JUSTICE' IS BLONDE
Activist's guise in 'slay, behead' bust
A criminal justice activist is facing murder charges after cops found a dismembered body inside a Bronx apartment — with the accused killer caught on surveillance video disguised in a blond wig at the scene of the crime, according to witnesses and police.
Sheldon Johnson, a 48-year-old staffer for the public-defender organization Queens Defenders, was led out of the 44th Precinct station house in handcuffs Thursday and was awaiting arraignment after police made the grisly discovery — a human torso in a blue bin and a head stashed in a freezer in the sixth-floor apartment, police said.
Johnson, an ex-con who had turned his life around and became a well-known victims’ advocate, was featured on Joe Rogan’s podcast and rubbed elbows with VIPs like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Sources said the victim in the killing this week, identified as 44year-old Collin Small, may have had a beef with Johnson while they were doing time at Sing Sing prison in Westchester County.
Neighbors told cops the victim was heard desperately pleading with his killer before two shots rang out in the apartment near Ogden Avenue and West 162nd Street shortly after 8 p.m. Tuesday, sources and residents said.
“Please don’t,” Small was heard saying. “I have a family!”
Investigators were called to the building for a wellness check after the shots were heard and neighbors reported seeing a stranger coming and going from the apartment with cleaning supplies, the building superintendent said.
‘He’s hiding something’
Chilling surveillance video footage obtained by The Post shows Johnson stepping off the sixthfloor elevator Tuesday and looking around cautiously before he slowly walks to the apartment and goes inside. He is seen lugging a mop and a bag that sources said was full of cleaning supplies.
The super, who asked not to be identified, told The Post on Wednesday that Johnson had carried a blue bin into the apartment at 2 a.m. — and never brought it back out.
The super also saw the suspect leaving in the Small’s blue Audi and returning in an Uber wearing a blond wig.
“He is coming in, he is dressing differently, changing his character,” he said. “I said, ‘That’s not normal, he is hiding something.’ ”
He said police made an initial check on the apartment but left without busting the suspect.
“The guy stood there,” the super said. “They took him out and everything. They looked in the apartment, but they didn’t find anything. They apologized, said somebody called, and they have to come.”
He said Johnson then asked to speak with him.
“I went back to the house and a neighbor called and said the guy is looking for me, he wants to talk to me,” he said. “I said, ‘I’m gonna go to him, I’m gonna ask him what he wants, then tell the police what he tells me.’ That was the plan.”
But before the meeting took place, police were back and took Johnson in for questioning.
“If I’d gone, you never know what he was going to do,” the super said. “He was gonna frame me or shoot me or offer me something to get rid of the cameras or something.”
Tenant Jose Marquez told The Post he saw Johnson walking a small dog days before the murder.
“It feels like the devil just crawled through here last night,” Marquez said.
The neighbor described Johnson as “quiet” and a “loner.”
“Sometimes we get fooled with the appearance — well dressed . . . he looks clean,” Marquez said. “You are assuming this guy has a professional career — went to work, came back, walked the dog and continued with his personal life.”
‘Turned his life around’
Johnson started working as a client advocate at the public defender’s office in Queens sometime after being released from prison in 2019, after serving 20 years for a series of armed robberies in 1999.
In an interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Johnson — who claimed he used to be a member of the Bloods gang — told Rogan and civil-rights attorney Josh Dubin that he was arrested and sentenced to a maximum of 50 years for using a gun to rob several men who owed him money for drugs.
But after spending some time in and out of solitary confinement, the convicted felon said he decided to “turn his life around” and got his GED while in prison. Johnson said he also took courses on deep breathing and conflict resolution while in the slammer.
The Queens Defenders office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.