May 5, 2023 – Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah announced today that an 18-year-old from Dover, Delaware, was sentenced to nine years to life in state prison for the 2020 murder of Yonkers resident Javon Merrill.
DA Rocah said: “Today’s sentence is justice for Javon Merrill’s family and holds this defendant accountable for committing this cold-blooded murder.”
On Oct 27, 2020, at approximately 9:35 p.m., then 15-year-old Maliki Johnson, who was prosecuted as a juvenile offender under the law, used a .38 pistol to shoot the 27-year-old victim in the chest as the victim was exiting a store on Ashburton Avenue in Yonkers. After the shooting, which was captured on video, the defendant fled the scene and discarded a sweatshirt. The police recovered the sweatshirt, which was linked to the defendant through DNA evidence. The victim was transported to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Yonkers, where he died.
An investigation conducted by the Yonkers Police Department, with assistance from the Westchester County Department of Laboratories and Research, utilized video surveillance, DNA forensics, and witness interviews to identify the defendant as the shooter. The defendant was arrested on August 4, 2021, in Dover, Delaware, and was arraigned on an indictment in Westchester County on August 10, 2021. The Dover Police Department and the United States Marshals Service First State Fugitive Task Force assisted with the arrest.
The defendant pleaded guilty to Murder in the Second Degree on March 3, 2023.
The case was before Judge Helen Blackwood in the Youth Part, and was prosecuted by Homicide Bureau Chief Lana Hochheiser and Assistant District Attorney Celia Curtis, both of the Trials and Investigations Division.
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Anna Young, Public Information Officer
(914) 995-6551
ayoung@westchesterda.net
