In the late afternoon hours of Sunday, February 18, 2018, Yaphette Johnson, a 24-year-old Black man, drove a gold Ford Expedition into the parking lot of the Devonshire Apartments on Vegas Valley Drive in Las Vegas. He parked the SUV outside the complex's office around 6:20 p.m. What transpired in the next ten minutes would end his life and spark a homicide investigation that would rely on the silent witness of surveillance cameras.
Residents of the apartment complex reported hearing
multiple gunshots that evening, but tragically, no one made a call to 911. It wasn't until the following morning, around 9:45 a.m., that a resident discovered Johnson's body, slumped behind the wheel of his vehicle. The Clark County coroner's office would later confirm that he died from multiple gunshot wounds, and his death was officially ruled a homicide.
Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department detectives began to piece together the events of that evening. Surveillance video from the apartment complex captured a man pacing down a sidewalk before approaching the passenger side of Johnson's SUV. In the footage, the man is seen pulling a handgun from his jacket, aiming it into the vehicle, and firing multiple times before fleeing the scene. Initially, police stated that the shooting appeared to be drug-related.
Less than a month after the discovery of Johnson's body, investigators made a significant breakthrough in the case. On March 15, 2018, Metro police arrested two men, 21-year-old Matthew Johnson and 20-year-old Brandon L. Webb. Both men were taken into custody and booked into the Clark County Detention Center. They faced serious charges, including murder with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit murder, robbery with a deadly weapon, and conspiracy to commit robbery. At the time of their arrest, it was not immediately clear if Matthew Johnson was related to the victim.
