In a devastating case that shook Louisiana, 23-year-old Brynnen Murphy was sentenced to 95 years in jail for brutally murdering his pregnant girlfriend, Kaylen Johnson, her 2-year-old son, Kaden Johnson, and her unborn child.
East Baton Rouge District Judge Louise Hines Myers gave the sentence on Tuesday. Murphy was sentenced to 40 years for two counts of manslaughter and 15 years for a first-degree feticide conviction.
Murphy had initially faced two first-degree murder charges following the 2022 crime. Prosecutors later reduced the charges, allowing Murphy to plead guilty to lesser counts in exchange for avoiding trial.
This plea deal brought closure without requiring the mourning family to relive the agony through testimony and graphic proof. According to East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore, while Murphy is not officially serving a life sentence, he is unlikely to ever be released.
According to The Advocate, Johnson’s family declined to provide victim impact statements at the court, with her aunt, LaKeisha Johnson, noting that the emotional toll is still painful. “We’re not good at all,” she said. “He didn’t care about what happened to them.”
The killings occurred on March 5, 2022. Johnson picked Murphy up in her car, and during an altercation, he shot her twice in the head while her son Kaden was in the back seat. He then discarded her body in a wooded place.
What followed was much more troubling. With Kaden still alive, Murphy drove to a 30-foot-high bridge on the Central Thruway and threw the crying toddler over it. However, prosecutors stated that Kaden died as a result of malnutrition and protracted exposure, not the fall.
The bodies were found after Johnson’s relatives reported her and Kaden missing. Concern grew when her abandoned car was discovered with its license plates removed. Murphy originally refused to follow through with going into hiding.
After repeated efforts, authorities arrested him, and he eventually turned himself in, purportedly confessing to both murders.
The plea deal spared the family from the trauma of reliving the brutal details during a trial. District Attorney Moore emphasized that the photos and autopsy reports would have been too painful to present in court.
Assistant District Attorney Jaclyn Christie Chapman confirmed during the hearing that Kaden had suffered a cruel, slow death, emphasizing the inhumanity of Murphy’s actions.
As Murphy begins his 95-year sentence, the community of Baton Rouge is left grappling with the horror of a senseless act that cost three innocent lives.
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