The father of the ex-con charged with murder after he was found in the same Bronx apartment as a dismembered body believed his son had turned his life around after years in prison.
Sheldon Johnson Jr., 48, was charged Thursdsay with murder, manslaughter and weapon possession for allegedly killing 44-year-old Colin Small, police said.
“I’m surprised and shocked,” Sheldon Johnson Sr., 73, told the Daily News. “I thought he did well in prison. He studied. I was happy he got out of jail. I thought he was reformed.”
Cops were called to the Summit Ave. building in Highbridge Tuesday after neighbors overheard gunshots overnight, with odd surveillance footage showing Johnson Jr. coming to and from an apartment in different outfits, according to police.
Responding officers were met by Johnson Jr. at the door of the unit, where cops discovered a torso and foot crammed into a blue bin. Small’s decapitated head, which had a bullet wound, his severed arm, legs and other foot were inside a freezer there.
The suspect was released from Sing Sing Correctional Facility in May after serving 25 years for a 1997 robbery. He also served just over nine months under the name Thomas Smalls for criminal possession of stolen property in 1997, records show.
Following his release, Johnson Jr. began working as a client advocate for Queens Defenders.
“He said he was going to his job,” Johnson Sr. signaled Thursday through an American Sign Language interpreter. “My son told me that he’s been working, that’s why I’m surprised this happened. I can’t see my son giving up this good job and doing something like this.”
Both Johnson Sr., his wife and their daughter are deaf, a childhood struggle Johnson Jr. recently recalled on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
“I’m also a product of intergenerational incarceration,” Johnson Jr. said on the show. “My father was incarcerated when I was young. I was incarcerated. My grandfather was incarcerated. My great-grandfather was a slave.”
Johnson Jr. began selling drugs on the streets of Harlem when he was about 17 years old, according to his father. Cops are investigating drugs as a possible motive in this week’s grisly murder.
“I think my son grew up a good kid,” the dad told The News. “I know that my son was a good kid growing up.
“We never had a good relationship,” he added.
In 2008, Johnson Jr.’s son, also named Sheldon Johnson, was 14 when he attacked 24-year-old Columbia University graduate student Mingui Yu near the corner of Broadway and W. 122nd St. in Morningside Heights.
The teen punched the student in the face multiple times and the victim fled into traffic. He was struck and killed by a passing SUV.
The younger Johnson was charged with manslaughter in Yu’s death and spent 18 months in a juvenile detention boot camp.
Johnson Sr. said he last spoke with his son about a month and a half ago, saying he sounded “normal.”
“My son told me that he’s been working,” the father said Thursdsay. “That’s why I’m surprised this happened. I can’t see my son giving up this good job and doing something like this.”
