On August 26, 1999, a woman was found dead on a residential rooftop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, naked from the waist down, her hands tied and ligatures around her neck. Bystanders identified her as Vivian Caraballo, twenty-six. A friend remembered her as someone who talked to everybody in the neighborhood, and her mother told detectives she had been a very intelligent girl who got addicted to crack and could not get out. The autopsy found she had been strangled. Semen recovered from her body went into the DNA database and matched no one.
Eleven days later, on September 6, Joanne Feliciano, thirty-five, was found on the roof of her own building three blocks away, also nude below the waist and strangled with a ligature. A friend called her a sweetheart, very athletic, until drugs took hold. Detectives learned that the two women knew each other and, in the words of one of them, frequented the same drug locations and were both in prostitution. The DNA from Feliciano matched the DNA from Caraballo. On September 25 Rhonda Tucker, twenty-one, who had a young son, was found strangled in her apartment in the Sumner Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and her DNA evidence matched the first two. The detectives described her, too, as a drug user. The squad began calling the killer the Brooklyn Strangler.
On October 4 Katrina Niles, thirty-four, a city worker whom a detective later described as very hardworking before crack took hold of her, was found strangled with a cord in her apartment in the Marcy Houses. Her case did not yield the same DNA. Detectives thought the same man had killed her because of the way the ligature was knotted, but that link was never proved. In February 2000 the body of Laura Nusser, who had a husband and a daughter, was found under the Williamsburg Bridge. Her age is given as forty-three and as forty-four. Four months later Patricia Sullivan, a mother of five who had worked as a paraprofessional in a children's music class, was found naked with a shoelace around her neck. Her daughter Ivy Bryant said her mother was on crack and was still her mother. The DNA from Sullivan matched the others.
Detectives interviewed more than a hundred people, sex workers, dealers and customers among them, and a documentary crew following the Brooklyn North homicide squad took up the case. A homeless drug user ruled out by his own DNA told them in July 2000 about a man he used drugs with who talked about getting violent with sex workers and said he had choked one out. The man was Vincent Johnson, thirty-one, born January 6, 1969, who had a record of minor offenses such as trespassing and drug possession. He had lived in the Bronx and worked construction; his former girlfriend said their life had come apart once they both started on crack, and after they split he lost his job and ended up homeless.
Police brought him to the precinct. On the ride he said he had tuberculosis and kept coughing, and in the parking lot he spat on the ground. In the interview he gave short answers and turned down every offer of water or a drink. Detectives swabbed the spit from the parking lot, and on August 3, 2000, it came back as a match to the DNA from the victims. He was arrested on August 5. He described to detectives how he bought crack and used it to lure the women, and blamed what he had done on an abusive mother. A detective who worked the case thought he was looking for an excuse.
He was charged with the murders of Caraballo, Feliciano, Tucker and Sullivan, the four women whose DNA evidence matched his, and admitted to police that he had also killed Laura Nusser. He was never charged with the death of Katrina Niles. Facing a possible death sentence, he took a plea deal; the published accounts describe it as a plea to one count of first-degree murder and five of second-degree murder. He was sentenced in the spring of 2001 to life without parole, on a date given variously as March 10, April 6 and April 8. The hunt was followed in the Court TV series Brooklyn North.
January 6, 1969: Vincent Johnson is born.
August 26, 1999: Vivian Caraballo, twenty-six, is found strangled on a residential rooftop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
September 6, 1999: Joanne Feliciano, thirty-five, is found strangled on the roof of her building three blocks away; the DNA matches Caraballo's.
September 25, 1999: Rhonda Tucker, twenty-one, is found strangled in her apartment in the Sumner Houses, and her DNA evidence matches the first two.
October 4, 1999: Katrina Niles, thirty-four, is found strangled with a cord in the Marcy Houses; he is never charged with her death.
February 2000: the body of Laura Nusser is found under the Williamsburg Bridge.
2000: four months later Patricia Sullivan, a mother of five, is found with a shoelace around her neck; her DNA matches the others.
July 2000: a homeless drug user tells detectives about a man who said he had choked a sex worker.
August 3, 2000: DNA from Johnson's spit in a precinct parking lot matches the DNA from the victims.
August 5, 2000: he is arrested.
Spring 2001: after a plea deal he is sentenced to life without parole; the date is given as March 10, April 6 and April 8.