New details revealed in Charlotte triple homicide in which suspect fled to California
Recently returned search warrants show that Charlotte-Mecklenburg police seized evidence from triple murder suspect Benjamin Joseph Taylor last month.
Taylor is charged with killing Markayla Johnson and her two children, 4-year-old Miracle and 7-month-old Messiah, earlier this year.
He fled to California’s Slab City, a notoriously off-the-grid desert community, where he camped out, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. Sheriff’s deputies and the FBI there arrested him. A Mecklenburg County grand jury indicted him in April.
CMPD’s investigation started in March, when police asked to search a Charlotte apartment after reports that Johnson and the children were missing, the records show.
Family members hadn’t been able to reach her, a search warrant says. They went to the apartment in an “attempt to make contact with anyone (there), with no answer.”
The heavily-redacted search warrant says that someone — seemingly Johnson — had moved to Charlotte to be with a man she met online.
Someone working at the apartment complex went inside to do a wellness check and told police that he didn’t see “any necessary items to care for a child or baby, to include no food, bedding, clothing, diapers, toys, or anything else related to child care.”
Police found a victim in a storage container and two others in the trunk of a car parked outside. Those victims’ names were also redacted by Mecklenburg County Clerk of Superior Court Elisa Chinn-Gary’s office.
Police collected cell phones, video cameras and laptops from the apartment. They asked for permission to search information posted to Apple’s iCloud.
Taylor’s attorney, Mike Kabakoff, declined to comment on the case. An administrative hearing is scheduled for August.