‘Y’all going to see me on the news’: Maryland woman with something unspeakable in her car trunk sentenced in court

Content warning: This article describes child abuse and death. Please take care while reading.

A Baltimore County woman will spend 50 years in prison after the dead bodies of two children, her niece and nephew, were found in the trunk of her car during a routine traffic stop, concluding a tragic and horrific child abuse case spanning several years.

According to Baltimore’s WMAR2, Nicole Johnson, now 36, was pulled over in July 2021, driving an uninsured, unregistered vehicle with fake West Virginia tags. Initially, officers planned to have the car towed but first asked Johnson to get her belongings from the car. But when asked about potential court dates stemming from the traffic violations, Johnson reportedly told them, “It don’t matter, I won’t be here in five days. Y’all going to see me on the news, y’all going to see [me] on the news making my big debut.”

A strong odor, trash bags, and a plastic tote

A Baltimore woman was sentenced to 50 years in prison after the remains of her niece and nephew were found in the trunk of her car during a traffic stop in 2021, according to the Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office.
https://t.co/G4Jakpr2i8

— WJZ | CBS Baltimore (@wjz) February 11, 2025

When Johnson began removing her items from the car, officers reported a strong smell, which one officer described as “the unmistakable odor of decomposition,” according to WJZ News. Johnson produced a trash bag and plastic tote from the trunk, filled with maggots. She told the police there were just dirty blankets in the tote, but inside, police found the bodies of two children — 7-year-old Joshlyn Johnson and her brother, 5-year-old Larry O’Neal — Nicole’s niece and nephew.

Authorities determined that Joshlyn could have been dead for about a year, and Nicole admitted she hit her, and she fell and hit her head. Larry, meanwhile, suffered an unspecified “injury,” she said, and died only two months before the children’s bodies were discovered.

Johnson took the children from her sister

Nicole later told the police she hit Joshlyn several times at a hotel over behavior issues and because she was stealing. Joshlyn’s brother, she said, had a cut on his leg, but she provided no further details when she said he went to sleep and never woke up. Nicole never contacted the police. According to authorities, both children were malnourished, each weighing only around 20 pounds when they died.

According to Fox Baltimore, in 2019, Nicole took Joshlyn and Larry from her sister, Dachelle Johnson, when her sister could no longer care for them. Reportedly, Nicole had arranged to return her niece and nephew to their mother, but Nicole’s sister never showed up.

After Nicole’s arrest, police reportedly contacted Dachelle, who confirmed that she left the two children with her sister in 2019 but said she only found out where they were when police told her they were dead.

Nicole pleaded guilty in February this year in Baltimore County Circuit Court to two counts of child abuse involving the death of a victim younger than 13. She was sentenced to life in prison, but a Maryland judge suspended all but 50 years.