Metro Weekly

Mississippi Man Accused of Slaughtering Ex-Boyfriend

Following a two-state car chase, police arrested Marcus Johnson, a Mississippi man who allegedly murdered Carlos Collins.

Photo: Viorel Margineanu / Dreamstime.com
Photo: Viorel Margineanu / Dreamstime.com

Police arrested a former Jackson Police Department officer who allegedly killed his ex-boyfriend in a bloody attack at a Jackson, Mississippi apartment complex.

Police mounted a search for 33-year-old Marcus Johnson in connection with the murder of 25-year-old Carlos Collins, a registered nurse who hailed from Yazoo City.

Collins was killed on April 9 at the Tapestry Northridge Apartments, off Parkway Drive near Old Canton Road, in the northeastern part of Jackson.

According to WAPT, members of Collins family said police told them that Collins succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained during the attack, and that an axe was used during the murder.

Those family members also said that Collins had filed several restraining orders against Johnson.

Hinds County Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart said Collins died after being shot multiple times and that the manner of death was homicide. 

Jackson Police Department Chief Joseph Wade told WLBT that Johnson was arrested following a brief car chase near Vicksburg.

According to Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace, the department put out a bulletin on Wednesday afternoon warning law enforcement to be on the lookout for a black Honda Accord.

Around 5:45 p.m., Warren County Deputy Dustin Keys spotted a black Honda approaching the Vicksburg city limits and notified other local law enforcement officers.

Pace, Keys, and other officers soon began pursuing a vehicle matching the description in the bulletin as it crossed into Louisiana.

Once the car entered Louisiana, officers from the Delta Louisiana Marshall’s Office, the Madison Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Louisiana State Police joined the pursuit. 

Officers were able to successfully deflate the Honda’s tires near Rayville, Louisiana, where it rolled to a stop, and Johnson was arrested. 

Johnson is in custody at the Richland Parish Detention Center in Rayville, where he will remain until extradited back to Jackson. He is expected to face charges of murder and shooting in an occupied dwelling.

A spokesperson for the Jackson Police Department told the Clarion Ledger that Johnson previously worked for the Jackson police department. He left after only eight months with the department.

He was allegedly separated from the department pending disciplinary actions leading up to his termination but resigned just before being fired.

After leaving the police department, Johnson was arrested and charged with impersonating an officer at the Palisades Apartment near Jackson State University in 2014. 

According to the Clarion Ledger, Johnson wrote a fake citation to a female student, and then offered to void the ticket if she would “hook up” with him. A police report said Johnson was in possession of a stolen Jackson Police Department radio and an old ticket book. He also used a current officer’s badge number in the incident.

Johnson was charged with false pretense, grand larceny, and two counts of impersonating an officer in that 2014 incident.

Collins’s mother, Ashla Hudson, told WJTV that Johnson, whom she described as an ex-boyfriend of her son’s, had allegedly followed him to M-Bar Sports Lounge, a local bar, on Saturday night. 

Collins alerted security guards of Johnson’s presence. But even though Collins had a restraining order against Johnson, the security guards said “they couldn’t do anything because they didn’t actively have the restraining order there,” Hudson said.

“So, leading up to this morning, I figure if they had arrested him Saturday night, my son still [would] be alive,” Hudson said.

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