Riverside, CA: CHP officer who shot her husband is charged with murder

A California Highway Patrol officer who told investigators two years ago that she shot her husband because he had verbally and physically abused her was charged Tuesday with murder.

Tomiekia Johnson, 31, was arrested by Sheriff's Department homicide detectives around noon, shortly after the murder charge was filed, according to the District Attorney's Office.

Johnson was charged with the Feb. 21, 2009, killing of her husband, 31-year-old Marcus Lavar Lemons.

According to prosecutors, Johnson was off-duty when she shot her husband near a Riverside (91) Freeway offramp, then drove to her parents' Compton home with Lemons' body in the front passenger seat.

Johnson reported the shooting, claiming her husband was "verbally and physically combative,'' sheriff's officials said at the time.

Sheriff's deputies found Lemons in the front seat of the car with a gunshot wound to the head, prosecutors said.

Johnson was being held in lieu of $2 million bail. It was not immediately known when she would be arraigned.

Shortly after the shooting, Lemons' former fiancee told KCAL9 that Lemons had never been abusive toward her.

"We were together for years, and he's never touched me in any way; so for them to portray him as this monster is unbelievable,'' Darian Milow told Channel 9.

A friend seconded that opinion.

"He would never hurt anybody. Nobody. Nobody. It's not him. It's not,'' Crystal Barhee told the station.