King County Sheriff’s Office detectives plan to meet this week with prosecutors to determine whether to final additional charges against a man in connection with a 34-year-old woman found dead Nov. 8 in her Kent home.
Lakessha LaShawn Johnson died as a result of a gunshot wound suffered in a November 1998 shooting in unincorporated Renton, according to a Sheriff’s Office media release on Wednesday.
Johnson was the passenger in the front seat of a car that was leaving the Skyway Bowl in November 1998. Ronnie Brown was in the back seat of the vehicle. Brown reported at the time that he picked up a bag that contained a gun and it went off, striking Johnson in the back.
Brown was found guilty of charges relating to the incident and served approximately two years in prison. Brown is currently in prison on unrelated charges, according to the media release.
On Monday, Kent Police and the King County Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed the woman died as a result of the gunshot wound from 13 years ago. An initial Kent Police media release said the shooting occurred in 1996, but the Sheriff’s Office updated that report as a 1998 shooting.
Johnson died from a gunshot wound and the manner of death is homicide, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office.
Johnson suffered a gunshot wound through the spinal cord that left her almost immobile from the waist down, said a Medical Examiner’s Office spokeswoman.
The major crimes unit of the Sheriff’s Office will investigate the case because it handled the assault of Johnson.
Because the shooting did not happen in Kent, Kent Police reached out to police in Renton and Seattle as well as the Sheriff’s Office to determine where the shooting occurred and pass along information about Johnson’s death.
“Unfortunately, given the substantial amount of time that has passed between her original injury and her death last week, we have had to go to some extraordinary means to identify the law enforcement agency that initially investigated her assault,” Kent Police Lt. Pat Lowery said.
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