MELBOURNE, Fla. — A West Melbourne man has been sentenced for the 2022 murder of his former girlfriend.
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Melbourne Police officers responded to a 911 call just after 7:45 a.m. on Dec. 20, 2022 from a home on Colbert Circle reporting that a person had been shot.
Officers arrived to find the victim, 23-year-old Sha’Dayla Johnson, facedown on the floor of her carport with multiple gunshot wounds to her back. Investigators noted the wounds suggested she was walking or running away from the suspect when she was shot.
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Johnson was taken to Holmes Regional Medical Center but later died there.
Investigators questioned Johnson’s father, who was also in the home at the time of the shooting. He confidently identified then 23-year-old Carlos Lemont Jones II as the only other person in the area at the time of the shooting.
Surveillance video and a license plate reader also placed a black Nissan registered to Jones in the area just after the shooting.
Johnson’s father went on to explain that she and Jones previously lived in an apartment together, but had broken up approximately two weeks earlier after a particularly contentious argument.
The father told police Carlos had been continuously calling and harassing Johnson in efforts to get back with her, but she refused to speak with him and ignored his calls and texts.
Later that same morning, Palm Bay police notified the Melbourne Police Department that Jones had entered their lobby to turn himself in. According to Palm Bay Police, when Jones entered the lobby, he spontaneously commented that he was “facing 35 years in prison” but would not elaborate further.
Carlos JONES II (24) sentenced to life in prison for the 2022 murder of Sha'Dayla Johnson. JONES shot the victim after she failed to respond to his calls and texts. Sentencing, conviction, and summary info at: https://t.co/U2n2YLxsMl pic.twitter.com/YbDaa26w7G
— State Attorney 18th Circuit FL (@SA18PIO) December 6, 2023
During an interview with Melbourne detectives, Jones admitted to intentionally shooting Johnson earlier that morning with a semi-automatic pistol he bought just a week earlier.
Jones told investigators he “woke up that morning in an angry state” because Johnson had not been answering his phone calls or texts. Jones said “it was at that very moment” when he decided he was going to shoot and kill her.
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According to police, Jones admitted that he knew Johnson had to work at 8 a.m., so he drove to her home on Colbert Circle just after 7:30 a.m. to confront and kill her.
He pulled his black Nissan behind Johnson’s car in the driveway to block it in and confronted her as she was leaving her front door to go to work.
Jones said they “exchanged a few words” and when Johnson turned away to go back into the house, he shot her in the back 15 times as she was walking away from him.
Jones said he could only estimate that he shot her 15 times based on the fact that he had three rounds left in his 18-round magazine after the shooting.
After the shooting Jones said he went to his own apartment to change clothes then discarded the clothes he wore during the murder and a box of ammunition in a dumpster at his apartment complex.
After dumping the items, Jones said he drove northbound on Interstate-95 and threw the magazine with three rounds out the passenger window. He then traveled to the area of Nagle Drive in Rockledge and threw the gun in a storm drain.
According to police, Jones said he received a call from his mother a few hours after the murder, pleading with him to surrender, so he turned himself in to police.
When asked if he was remorseful over the shooting, Jones said “no” and that, if he had to do it again, he would have killed Johnson’s father as well.
Jones was arrested and charged with premeditated first-degree murder with a firearm and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. He was officially indicted in January and convicted in September of a lesser included offense of second-degree murder while discharging a firearm, causing death.
During a contentious sentencing hearing Wednesday, the state argued Jones should serve life in prison for the murder while his defense team asked for the mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years.
Circuit Judge Steve Henderson agreed with prosecutors and sentenced Jones to life in prison. He’ll be transferred to the Florida Department of Corrections to begin serving that sentence in the coming days.
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