Former Hoggard student pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — A former Hoggard High School student will spend up to eight years in prison for killing a man in 2016.

Zibree Brawley-Washington, 20, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Johnny Lee Johnson on Monday. Jury selection was set to begin in the case Monday afternoon.

On September 20, 2016, Johnson was being dropped off at his father’s home at 105 N. 13th Street, near New Hanover High School. The woman who gave him the ride told investigators that Johnson knew Brawley-Washington and had seen the man ride up on a bike prior to her leaving that evening.

When she left, Johnson was talking to Brawley-Washington near the home. Witnesses who lived and worked on the street reported hearing a gunshot, and then seeing a black male fleeing on a bike shortly after the woman left that area.

Johnson’s father found his body on the front porch minutes later. He had suffered one gunshot wound to the back of the head.

Surveillance cameras at New Hanover High School recorded images that prosecutors would
have argued showed Brawley-Washington riding up and down the street before and after the murder.

While not admissible in court, an anonymous tipster provided information that Brawley-Washington had committed the murder and that a local female gang leader, Angelina Garcia, had put him up to it.

The tip also led investigators to the location of the bike that was believed to have been ridden by Brawley-Washington. Garcia is now serving a 20 year sentence in a Georgia prison for arranging an attempted gang-related murder outside of Atlanta.

Brawley-Washington attended school the day after the murder and told at least one of his
classmates that he had messed up and needed to leave town. Agents with the U.S. Marshals Service eventually captured him in Philadelphia on October 4, 2016.

Brawley-Washington refused to provide his name or date of birth at the time of his arrest.