WACO, Texas (KWTX) – Margaret Stewart told a former Waco police detective that she recruited her best friend, a gang member on parole, to help her recover her stolen drugs and gun and drove the SUV when her friend and another man shot and killed Bryan Johnson. in November 2020.

Stewart, 32, is on trial in the 19th District Court in Waco in the shooting death of Johnson, 33, who was shot in the back of the head while sitting in a car at G’s Food Mart in the 1900 block of JJ Flewellen Road. . Stewart is charged with murder and aggravated assault, but is on trial this week only for first-degree aggravated assault.

Prosecutors Will Hix and Rebeckah Lawson rested their case Tuesday after calling former Waco police officer Jeff Rogers and Stewart’s co-defendants Berry Raydell Freeman and Tamarium Lashawn Johnson to the stand.

Lawson told jurors in opening statements that Stewart suspected Bryan Johnson of stealing a gun, marijuana and crack cocaine from her and enlisted Freeman and Tamarium Johnson to help her recover the stolen items. She said Stewart was driving a rented Nissan Rogue while Freeman and Tamarium Johnson, known as “TJ,” shot Bryan Johnson in his car.

“You can’t have a road shoot without a driver,” Lawson said. “That’s exactly what he did… And the driver in a drive-by shooting is just as guilty as the people who pulled the trigger.” Freeman is serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the case. Johnson’s felony case remains pending, and he declined to answer any of Hix’s questions Tuesday.

Freeman, on parole, told jurors he is a “confirmed gang member” who has no problem getting guns when he needs them. He initially testified Tuesday that he made up the story to make it appear he was cooperating with police and prosecutors’ investigators because he knew how to manipulate the system.

“I just wanted to take my 20s and get out of the way,” Freeman said. “I made it all up just to get it over with.”

Freeman continued to insist he gamed the system during cross-examination by defense attorney Jack Hurley.

“I don’t remember saying anything, really,” Freeman said. “I only remember manslaughter and 20 years and everything after that was a blur, really. They had 20 on the table and I took it.”

During the redirect from Hix, Freeman said he was the only person involved in the shooting.

“Serious? Were you driving the car?” Hix asked. “No, I wasn’t driving the car. You already know everything. I choose not to make any further statements,” Freeman said.

Afterward, Hix and Lawson played about 40 minutes of video of an interview between Freeman and Jeff Aguirre, an investigator for the DA’s office. Freeman was accompanied by his attorney, Darren Obenoskey, and Aguirre opened the interview by asking Freeman why he was the only one in the case going to prison.

While Freeman initially tried to downplay his involvement and refrained from implicating others, he eventually said that Stewart believed Bryan Johnson had stolen her “weed, her crack and her gun” and asked him to help her get it back.

He said he was armed with a .380 handgun, while Tamarium Johnson had a Kel-Tec 9mm rifle. While he said he fired seven shots into the car Bryan Johnson was in, he told Aguirre he was “100 percent sure” Tamariam Johnson fired the fatal shot that struck Bryan Johnson at the base of his skull.

He said Stewart left them on North 10th Street and later removed the cartridges from the vehicle and deleted them.

“My intention was not to kill anyone,” Freeman said in the video. “I just wanted to get his stuff back. I was just going to scare him.”

Freeman began to cry on the video and told Obenoskey that he wanted to apologize to Bryan Johnson’s family because his own brother had been killed.

After the video ended, Hix gave Freeman the opportunity to apologize to members of Bryan Johnson’s family seated in the courtroom.

“I apologize and I hope one day you all can forgive me,” Freeman said.

During Rogers’ testimony, prosecutors played about 45 minutes of a taped interview with Stewart before she was charged in the incident. She told the detective that she had been victimized several times and was tired of it.

“I’m tired of people taking me and robbing me and I just wanted someone to help me get my stuff back,” she told Rogers. “I didn’t want anyone to be killed for having children.”

In other prosecution testimony Tuesday, DeMarcus Harris, who is serving time in Ellis County for a probation violation, testified that he may have been the fourth person in the car that night but did not have a gun. He said he saw Tamarium Johnson with the Kel-Tec rifle in the backseat and that Freeman said they “wanted to do a drill,” which he said he knew meant shoot someone.

They dropped him off on North 10th Street, he said, adding that they returned later that evening and asked him to get rid of a handgun and rifle for them. He said he told them he wouldn’t.

The trial continues Wednesday morning.

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