Delaware Teen Gets 9 Years To Life For 2020 Murder Of Yonkers Man

YONKERS, NY — Justice has been served in the calculated assassination of a Yonkers man.

Westchester County District Attorney Miriam Rocah announced that an 18-year-old from Delaware was sentenced to nine years to life in prison for the 2020 murder of Yonkers resident Javon Merrill.

"Today’s sentence is justice for Javon Merrill’s family and holds this defendant accountable for committing this cold-blooded murder," Rocah said.

On October 27, 2020, around 9:30 p.m., then 15-year-old Maliki Johnson, who was prosecuted as a juvenile offender, used a .38 pistol to shoot 27-year-old Merrill in the chest as he was exiting a store on Ashburton Avenue in Yonkers.

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After the shooting, which was captured on video, Johnson fled the scene and discarded a sweatshirt. Police recovered the sweatshirt, which was then linked to the defendant through DNA evidence. Merrill was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he died.

An investigation conducted by the Yonkers Police Department, with assistance from the Westchester County Department of Laboratories and Research, used video surveillance, DNA forensics, and witness interviews to identify Johnson as the shooter.

Johnson was arrested nearly a year later on August 4, 2021, in Dover, Delaware, and was arraigned on an indictment in Westchester County on August 10, 2021. The Dover Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service First State Fugitive Task Force helped make the arrest.

Johnson pleaded guilty to murder in the second degree on March 3.

The case was before Judge Helen Blackwood in the Youth Part, and was prosecuted by Homicide Bureau Chief Lana Hochheiser and Assistant District Attorney Celia Curtis, both of the Trials and Investigations Division.