‘We could not be involved,’ former DA says of Ahmaud Arbery murder case

But the trial had gone well for Johnson so far, and the presiding judge on Monday dismissed one of the two charges she faced.

Over several hours on the stand, Johnson said she immediately recused her office from the case involving Arbery’s Feb. 23, 2020, killing after learning it involved Greg McMichael, who previously worked as the chief investigator in her office.

“We could not be involved because of who it was,” she said.

She detailed a volley of phone calls between her and members of her office that afternoon as word of the 25-year-old Black man’s killing made the rounds. She had been told the shooting involved a burglary, she said, and that McMichael’s son, Travis, shot and killed Arbery during a struggle over a shotgun.

It would be months before she learned the truth, she said.

Credit: Pool photos

Credit: Pool photos

Glynn County police investigators were trying to determine whether the shooting was justified, so they called one of Johnson’s assistant DA’s trying to get legal advice.

“Based on the fact that someone was dead, we could not help them and I needed to do something to try to get them some help,” Johnson testified.

She contacted George E. Barnhill, then DA of the neighboring Waycross Judicial Circuit, and asked if he would be willing to meet with police and answer their questions, she said. His office was located less than an hour from Brunswick.

“Did you believe you had the duty to have the police officers’ questions answered?” Johnson’s defense attorney, Brian Steel, asked his client.

“Yes,” Johnson replied, saying that’s why she called the neighboring DA. “I didn’t know Travis McMichael but I did know his father.”

Johnson said she never told Barnhill to protect either of the McMichaels or to suggest to police that Arbery was killed in self-defense. A few days later, her office sent an official recusal letter to Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office informing them they would need to find another prosecutor for the case.

Greg McMichael called his former boss and left a frantic voicemail about an hour after he, his son and a neighbor jumped in pickup trucks and chased Arbery through their Glynn County neighborhood for approximately five minutes.

She called him back the next day.

“I called him and I told him I heard his son had almost gotten killed and I hoped he and his son were OK,” Johnson said. “I intentionally didn’t talk to him about any facts of the case.”

Credit: Terry Dickson/ The Brunswick News

Credit: Terry Dickson/ The Brunswick News

She said the men were “pretty shooken up,” and she suggested they seek counseling.

Call logs introduced by the prosecution showed the two called each other back and forth more than a dozen times in the weeks leading up to Greg McMichael’s arrest.

The McMichaels and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, were charged by the GBI in May 2020 after Bryan’s cellphone video of Arbery’s killing was leaked online, prompting worldwide outrage.

In 2021, all three men were convicted of Arbery’s murder following a high-profile trial held at the Glynn County courthouse. They were convicted of hate crimes the following year for targeting Arbery because of his race.

In all, Johnson said she spoke to her longtime chief investigator seven times between the afternoon of Arbery’s killing and the release of the video showing his murder. She detailed the civil unrest in Glynn County and beyond as people demanded police make an arrest in the case.

Her conversations with Greg McMichael, she said, were largely about his safety.

“It was starting to boil over at this point,” Johnson said. “I felt this was a powder keg.”

She also told him when the neighboring prosecutor wrote a letter to the county police department explaining why he believed Arbery’s shooting was justified and no arrests were warranted, she said.

And when an article about Arbery’s killing published in The New York Times in late April 2020, Johnson said she returned one of Greg McMichael’s phone calls and advised him to hire an attorney.

At the time, Johnson said she was under the impression the 25-year-old had been involved in some type of burglary. That was until May 5, when she saw the shaky cellphone footage of Arbery’s killing.

“Watching that video, did you believe Mr. Ahmaud Arbery was a perpetrator?” Steel asked her.

“No,” Johnson replied. “It looked like he was murdered to me.”

When Greg McMichael called her cellphone that evening, Johnson didn’t answer. Two days later, she said she voluntarily turned over his voicemails and personnel file to the GBI.

“I knew at this point that he was a murder suspect,” she said.

Deputy Attorney General John Fowler asked Johnson about a time years earlier when she assisted her former employee after he lost his arrest powers.

Greg McMichael let his police training lapse in 2014, and Johnson acknowledged reaching out to the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council on his behalf. Her chief investigator was trying to get to retirement, Johnson said, and she was willing to give him the chance to get there.

Credit: Terry Dickson/The Brunswick News

Credit: Terry Dickson/The Brunswick News

Fowler also honed in on the fact that nobody knows what was said during her phone calls with McMichael in the weeks leading up to his arrest. None of the calls were recorded, and Johnson said there were no notes about what was said.

“These calls were between you and Greg McMichael and nobody else, correct?” Fowler asked.

“I’m telling you what happened in the calls,” Johnson said. “That’s what happened.”

Asked by Fowler about losing her 2020 reelection bid and whether she thought the handling of Arbery’s murder was “bad publicity,” Johnson said that wasn’t what she was worried about.

”I wasn’t concerned about it being bad publicity,” Johnson replied. “I was worried that (Arbery’s parents) thought I had covered up the murder of their son.”