Nurse Details Injuries in Baltimore County Rape and Strangulation Trial
TOWSON—A nurse who examined Michael Johnson’s former girlfriend after an alleged rape and strangulation detailed in court Wednesday numerous bruises and other injuries the young woman sustained in the assault.
A ripped toenail. Burst blood vessels in her eyes. Tiny telltale spots on the skin of her neck called “petechiae.” Facial and body bruises. A tongue so bruised and swollen the young woman couldn’t swallow her own saliva without pain.
Michael Johnson, 42, of York, Pa., is on trial in Baltimore County charged with attempted first-degree murder, first-degree rape, and first-degree assault. Police arrested him after his girlfriend of one year told officers he’d raped her and spent hours strangling her in her apartment on the 6100 block of Marquette Road in the Rosedale area of Baltimore County.
The teen was in foster care when she met Johnson, she testified Tuesday. He gave her money, took her to restaurants and on trips, and paid for her phone, she said on the stand. He often stayed in her apartment, and she often stayed at his, she said.
The incident started in the early hours of July 1, 2024, and lasted for roughly six hours, the victim reported. She’d made him leave after an argument earlier in the night, she said, but he returned and attacked her from behind as she lay on her bed using her phone.
Johnson was the primary suspect in the 2010 murder of 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes, who detectives believe died from strangulation after a sexual assault. Johnson was ultimately cleared of the crime after a years-long legal saga that saw him facing trial three times. The case was finally closed after a Baltimore City judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to convict.
The 19-year-old alleged victim in the new case said during her hospital exam that she believed she lost consciousness and bladder control during the assault, Melissa Cross, R.N., testified in Baltimore County Circuit Court Wednesday. The teen also reported during the rape exam at GBMC that she thought she’d been strangled five or six times, and at one point was strangled with the cord of an electric fan, Cross said.
Cross noted the following responses from the woman on her written report:
“He said, ‘I’m going to kill you.”
“I thought I was going to die.”
When she was asked what caused her attacker to stop, she replied, “He fell asleep,” Cross wrote.
Cross, who has specialized training in examining sexual assault victims, told jurors the exam results were, in her opinion, “consistent with forced sexual assault.”
DNA collected from vaginal swabs from the young woman’s body matched that of Michael Johnson, testified Steven Hand, a forensic biologist with the Baltimore County Police Department.
One of Johnson’s defense attorneys said in opening statements that it would be no surprise to find his DNA on her body; the two were in a sexual relationship.
The teen told the nurse during her hospital exam that she last had consensual sex with Johnson on June 28, 2024. The rape is alleged to have occurred on July 1, 2024.
Hand testified that DNA can be washed off or degraded through showering.
Baltimore County police detective Timothy Lee also took the stand Wednesday and said he wasn’t able to do a complete interview with the teen until almost a month later because of her condition.
Jurors were shown four cellphone photos Lee took at the young woman’s apartment two days after the assault. Two photos showed damaged walls, one showed a spot on the carpet the victim said was blood, and a fourth photo was of a fan the victim said was used to assault her.
Defense attorney Amy Stone pointed out that the photos didn’t follow typical crime scene protocol. She then showed video of a hole in the wall being made by a family member of the victim who was kicking the wall while being arrested. Stone also pointed out that neither the fan nor the suspected blood droplet were collected for testing.
The prosecution is expected to rest its case Thursday; the jury is expected to begin deliberations Friday.