Jessica Johnson, a 30-year-old Black woman from Gary, Indiana, was a mother of five described by her sister as a loving, caring, and fun person. But behind that, she was living in a state of fear. “I know she was scared,” her sister later said. “She used to tell her friends she didn’t know what to do and how to get out of it.”
On the night of April 25, 2021, that fear was realized.
Johnson was driving her white Dodge Journey SUV in Chicago’s Rosemoor neighborhood with her boyfriend, 29-year-old Edward Roscoe, in the passenger seat. Around 10:20 p.m., as they traveled along the 500 block of East 103rd Street, prosecutors said Roscoe fired a pistol five times, striking Johnson. The city’s gunfire detection system alerted police, who arrived to find Johnson in the driver's seat with multiple gunshot wounds to her head and body. She was rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
Surveillance footage captured a man getting out of the SUV’s passenger side and running from the scene. That man was later identified as Roscoe. He returned to the home in Gary that he and Johnson shared with another couple and confessed, telling them he had shot and killed her after an argument. Alarmed by his behavior, the roommates packed up their children and left. After seeing a news report about a woman shot in a car like Johnson’s, they called 911.
The roommates later helped investigators by identifying Roscoe in a separate surveillance video taken near the crime scene. The footage showed him walking through a gangway and throwing a baseball cap into a dumpster. They confirmed the hat belonged to Roscoe, who had posted a picture of himself on Facebook wearing the same distinctive hat on the day of the murder. Police recovered the cap from the dumpster. An arrest warrant was issued, and Roscoe was found and arrested in Houston, Texas. He was extradited to Chicago and ordered held without bail on a murder charge.
The murder was the culmination of a history of domestic abuse. In January 2020, Roscoe had allegedly choked Johnson unconscious during a fight in front of their children and threatened to kill her. Just months before her death, in December 2020, the couple’s 4-month-old son died of a skull fracture after Roscoe dropped him. While no criminal charges were filed in the infant’s death, authorities in Gary were investigating. At the time he killed Johnson, Roscoe was out on bail for a separate gun case.
Edward Roscoe later pleaded guilty to the murder of Jessica Johnson. He was sentenced for the crime, bringing the case to a legal conclusion.
