Corey Johnson

Corey Johnson, a 17-year-old known to friends and family as "C.J.," was a helpful and polite young man with dreams of becoming a lawyer. He was a Black teenager living in Miami, Florida, part of a large and loving family. His mother, 39-year-old Takeeya "KeKe" Fulton, was a devoted school bus driver and the mother of seven children. Corey was remembered by neighbors as a kind young man who was always willing to lend a hand.

The sense of family and home was shattered in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, July 31, 2016. Corey was asleep in his family’s residence in the 20300 block of Southwest 115th Avenue in a residential neighborhood of southwest Miami-Dade County. At approximately 3:47 a.m., following a domestic argument, his mother's partner, 32-year-old Antwon Lamar Fair, entered the home and began shooting.

The house, filled with sleeping family members, became a scene of unimaginable violence. Corey was struck by the gunfire, as were his mother, his 19-year-old sister Nukeria "Keria" Harris, and his 12-year-old brother. When Miami-Dade Police officers arrived, they found Takeeya Fulton and Nukeria Harris deceased inside the home. Corey and his younger brother were found alive but with critical injuries. They were both rushed to Kendall Regional Medical Center for emergency treatment. Tragically, Corey Johnson died from his wounds at the hospital. His 12-year-old brother, who had been shot twice in the chest, survived. Three of Corey's younger siblings, who were also in the home, were physically unharmed but were left to grapple with the horrific events.

The Miami-Dade Police Department immediately began a homicide investigation, quickly identifying Antwon Fair as the sole suspect. Fair was the father of three of Takeeya Fulton's surviving children. An alert was issued, describing Fair as armed and dangerous and providing details of the white 2009 Chevrolet Impala he was believed to have fled in. The car was located by detectives in Miami the next day. The search for Fair himself became a multi-state effort.

Just three days after the shooting, on August 3, 2016, authorities tracked Antwon Fair to Savannah, Georgia. He was apprehended without incident by members of the U.S. Marshals Service Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force and local Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police officers. Following his arrest, Fair was held in custody pending his extradition back to Florida to answer for the devastating attack.

The community mourned the loss of three lives and the deep trauma inflicted on the surviving children. Distraught family members gathered at the scene, their grief captured by news cameras as they cried out for their lost loved ones. "I love my family, man," one relative, Gus Lanier, told reporters. "I can't see my peoples no more!" In the aftermath, a judge granted a family member custody of the four surviving children and ordered that they receive emergency grief therapy to help them cope with the immense loss. A GoFundMe campaign was also created to help the family with the unexpected funeral expenses.

Antwon Fair was extradited to Miami-Dade County to face multiple charges, including murder, for the deaths of Corey Johnson, Takeeya Fulton, and Nukeria Harris. The case then proceeded into the court system, marking the beginning of a long journey toward justice for a family and community torn apart by a senseless act of domestic violence. As of the latest available reports from August 2016, the legal proceedings against Fair were underway.