Days after the tragic killing of 20-year-old Azsia Johnson, the New York Police Department has arrested a suspect in connection to the young mother’s death, though the details of the alleged murderer’s relationship with his victim make the story far more chilling.
If you didn’t hear, Johnson was pushing her three-month-old son in a stroller around 8:20 PM on the Upper East Side on Wednesday when a man dressed in a black sweatshirt and black pants approached her from behind and shot her once in the back of the head at point-blank range before fleeing on foot.
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The baby was left unharmed, according to police, and initial reports were littered with gossip about the child’s father being the one to commit the crime. It seems there may be some validity to them, though, as 22-year-old Isaac Argro was arrested on Friday and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell made the announcement yesterday morning, with Mayor Eric Adams dubbing the targeted killing as “horrific.”
“These are real lives, when a mother is pushing a baby carriage down the block and is shot at point-blank range it shows just how this national problem is impacting families,” Adams said earlier this week of Johnson’s slaying.
The victim’s mother, Lisa Desort, has been speaking out, as PEOPLE reports. “I knew it was going to come to this, and I told my daughter this,” she told ABC7 NY. “For some reason, she felt like she needed to be tracked, so she text her sister and said, ‘This is my location, just in case.'”
Johnson was reportedly headed to meet with Argro “to work things out” between them. Her mother revealed that she had aspirations of becoming a pediatric nurse after “[graduating] high school with merits.”
“She had a child early and she was the most wonderful mother that you can imagine. She was hard working. She worked every day. She’s got more credit than a 30, 40-year-old person has. She aspired to have houses and give her children the best of everything.”
RIP Azsia Johnson.