CHARLOTTE — A young man will spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of a 17-year-old girl in west Charlotte.
Alysha Johnson had just graduated from Hopewell High School in 2019 and had plans to attend nursing school.
Before she could accomplish that goal, Johnson was killed along Beatties Ford Road.
Juan Zamora was later arrested and charged in connection with her death. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Wednesday.
According to court documents, Zamora and others tried to carjack Johnson at random in front of a store. However, when she fought back, Zamora shot and killed her.
On Friday, Channel 9’s Hunter Sáenz spoke with Johnson’s friends and family after they faced her killer in court. They told Sáenz that they finally have a sense of closure.
“She was just always there for everyone she loved,” said Roziairah Young-Kosh.
Young-Kosh said Johnson was more than a friend to her; she was a sister.
“She was really one of my ride-or-die friends. One of the people I would go to for anything. Such a light,” said Young-Kosh.
She said six years after the murder, she still doesn’t know why the situation escalated the way it did.
“For the first couple of years, it was hard to deal with. But I can say now, I’m healed, and I’ve been healing, and I just shed the light and the love that we had for her,” said Young-Kosh.
On Friday, a judge sentenced Zamora to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
One of the other suspects, Andy Garcia, pleaded guilty to lesser charges in connection with Johnson’s death and was sentenced to up to 18 years in prison.
The second suspect, a 15-year-old, was also charged in this case and pleaded guilty to lesser charges.
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