Woman to spend more time in prison for West Palm teen's death than the gunman who killed her

WEST PALM BEACH — After one jury acquitted the gunman of murder, prosecutors urged a second to convict his unarmed girlfriend instead. Were it not for her, 16-year-old Tamia Johnson would still be alive, said Assistant State Attorney Marci Rex.

Jurors agreed. They convicted 32-year-old Keosha Carn of premeditated murder after witnesses said she called her boyfriend, Larry Young, and told him to "shoot it up" during a fight in a West Palm Beach neighborhood. Young obliged, hitting none of his suspected targets but striking Johnson yards away in the back seat of her parents' car.

"If that call had not been made, I would not be standing here in front of you," said Tammy Canady, Johnson's mother, during Carn's sentencing hearing Thursday.

Circuit Judge Howard Coates sentenced Carn, a mother of five with no prior felony convictions, to life in prison without parole. He first listened to the testimony of Carn's loved ones, who described an attentive mother, one who was generous to a fault and "not who she was painted to be."

The judge did not remark on Carn's character but instead called Johnson “a completely innocent 16-year-old who had her life snuffed out." Johnson was a sophomore at Palm Beach Lakes High School. Her mother celebrated what would have been her 19th birthday on July 7.

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Young, who had 10 prior felony convictions, avoided the same fate as Carn when he convinced a different jury last year that Johnson's death was an accident. Convicted of manslaughter, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison instead.

Prosecutors had singled Young out for the death penalty but quickly embraced the juries' positions. Carn was "actually more culpable" than the man who pulled the trigger, Rex said ahead of Carn's sentencing hearing this week.

Canady sat on the opposite side of the courtroom gallery from Carn's mother. Canady told the judge that she should have watched her daughter graduate this year but had to accept the diploma herself instead.

"At least that young lady can still see her children," Cannady said, pointing behind her at Carn. "She can see them on birthdays, on holidays. Pity? No pity."

Family feud between gunman's girlfriend, her aunt led to fatal shooting

A fight between Carn and her aunt, Shalontay Ashe, preceded the fatal shooting outside a West Palm Beach apartment complex on Dec. 10, 2021. Jurors in both murder trials watched video of the confrontation near 17th Street and Spruce Avenue, recorded on a witness’ cellphone.

The scene was chaotic. Two groups of women spat threats and insults at one another, one screaming, “It’s going to be a murder scene!”

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Ashe testified that she heard Carn call Young on the phone, urging him to come “shoot it up.” Ashe said she saw someone who looked like Young run across the street minutes later with a long black gun in his hand before taking aim from the middle of an empty field.

Johnson and her parents sat in a parked car down the street. Johnson's stepfather testified that he lifted his foot off the brake pedal to put the car in reverse at the same moment that a stray bullet struck his daughter in the head.

Keosha Carn denied telling boyfriend to open fire

The teen's killer had fled from the Pleasant City neighborhood by the time West Palm Beach police officers arrived, but he left behind shell casings and an indistinct memory in the heads of Ashe and her sister, Latesha Lyman. They told investigators that they saw the man's gold-plated teeth illuminated by the muzzle flash of his gun.

Young has gold teeth, too.

The sisters' statements set the trajectory for the investigation. Officers used nearby license-plate readers to confirm Young's presence during the shooting. While combing through his social-media accounts, they found a photo of him posing with an assault rifle.

Officers also confiscated Carn's cellphone after they said she began to delete the more than 30 calls she made to Young during the fight that precipitated the shooting.

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Carn denied ever telling Young to open fire. Her defense attorney, Mattie Fore, suggested that the feud between Carn and her aunt prompted Ashe and Lyman to invent the story they told police. However, a third woman with no relationship to the sisters also told jurors that Carn said Young was on the way to "shoot this s*** up."

"Unfortunately for Tamia Johnson and her family, Larry Young was not a good shot," Rex said at the conclusion of Carn's weeklong trial.

Jurors deliberated for an afternoon before convicting Carn of all charges.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm teen Tamia Johnson's death earns life sentence for Keosha Carn