CHARLOTTE, NC – Following over a week’s search for a missing mother and her two children, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) confirmed their death in a grim discovery. Police have since arrested Benjamin Joseph Taylor, 35, in Imperial County, California, who now faces triple murder charges along with a count of death concealment. He is currently held in the Imperial County jail, awaiting his extradition process to North Carolina.
CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings communicated his grief about the ordeal, stating that such episodes involving grieving families, notably when children are involved, prove the hardest part of his duty.
The department shared through social media last Friday that it had been investigating an apartment complex along Orchard Trace Lane, near U.S. Highway 29 and the Interstate-85 Connecter, following the discovery of human remains.
The remains, recovered around 1:45 p.m. that day, were, on Saturday, provisionally identified as that of 22-year-old Markayla Johnson and her children– Miracle Johnson, 4, and Messiah Johnson, 7 months. All three individuals had been reported missing since the 8th of March.
In a Saturday afternoon news conference, Chief Jennings voiced suspicion of an at-large person of interest, stating the individual in question had been in a relationship with Johnson while assuring readiness to initiate a nationwide manhunt if required.
In a subsequent police announcement on Sunday, Taylor was revealed to be the individual connected to the case arrested the prior day. Following the arrest, Jennings vocalized his repulsion at the senseless violence leading to the fatal losses, extending his condolences to the grieving family and community at large.