Feb. 20, 2017 – An Excelsior Springs teen learned his fate at a sentencing hearing on Friday, Feb. 17 at the Clay County Courthouse.
Desmond Johnson, 18, who pleaded guilty to first degree assault in December of 2016 was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his role in an assault on Tiffany Yelton on March 10, 2014.
Yelton and her gathered family let out an audible sigh of relief when Judge Shane Alexander handed down the sentence, the maximum for the Class B felony. Alexander called the crime the most violent assault case he had ever presided over.
Johnson, who was 15 at the time of the attack, originally faced additional charges that could have seen him sentenced to 75 years in prison, but a plea bargain saw him plead guilty to only the least serious charge.
After hearing testimony from Yelton and her family and witnesses for the defense, the judge retired to his chambers to consider what sentence he felt he should hand down. Alexander called it an unusual case for a burglary to morph into such a violent attack.
“I’ve presided over a number of burglary cases in my years,” Alexander said. “Most burglars do not want to be seen. They flee if there is someone home. In this case, that’s not what happened. This is the most violent assault I have ever presided over that didn’t result in a death. It’s amazing that the victim lived through it.”
Yelton testified that a nurse attempted to count the number of wounds she sustained in the attack but Yelton asked her to stop after she reached 27. She said she awoke to someone stabbing her in the chest and was able to fight off the attacker to reach her front door. Luckily a neighbor was going by when she drug herself through the door. As her attacker tried to drag her into the house by her hair the neighbor called for help and eventually the attacker fled the scene.
Read the rest of this story in the Tuesday, Feb. 21 issue of the Standard
-Bryce Mereness