Man to Face Death Penalty at Trial in Triple Murder

Marcel Johnson will face the death penalty at trial for two of the three murders he allegedly committed.

Bucks County Assistant District Attorney Matt Weintraub said Friday shortly after the the 21-year-old Bristol Township man’s arraignment in Doylestown that Johnson met the five aggravating factors in two of the deaths but not the third.

“Frankly, I’m not surprised,” Craig Penglase, Johnson’s defense attorney, said of the news. He added that the news did not come as a shock based on the age of the one victim and because there were multiple victims.

Johnson will face trial in September on two counts of criminal homicide, criminal homicide of an unborn child, two counts of arson and a single charge of possession Officials said the death penalty was pursued for the two criminal homicide counts but the law dictates that the death penalty can not be pursued for criminal homicide of an unborn child.

Witnesses in the courtroom at the time of the formal arraignment  said there was a verbal altercation in the gallery. Weintraub described the incident as an “emotional  outburst” by a member of the victims’ family and he added that person was escorted outside the courtroom.

Police say Johnson killed five-months pregnant Ebony Talley, 22, and her daughter, R’mani Rankins, 4, on November 25. Their bodies were discovered by first responders after Johnson set fire to the apartment where it is alleged he stabbed them.

Police said they arrived to the Avalon Court Apartments around 3:30 p.m. to find heavy black smoke. A short time later, firefighters in full-gear discovered the grisly scene.

A jailhouse source, who worked in the Bucks County prison’s suicide watch section, testified at a preliminary hearing last month that Johnson spilled his guts and admitted to the murders in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. At that time, Johnson was in jail on drug charges and investigators were building the triple murder case against him.

The source, who has a long criminal record in Bucks County, New Jersey and York dating back to the 1980s, told the court Johnson said, “she made me kill her.” The source also claimed Johnson then said he was talking about Talley.

“He didn’t say what caused him to do it, but he said he killed the baby,” the jailhouse source testified in court last month.

Penglase called the jailhouse source’s testimony into question at the time. Despite the source’s statements the district attorney’s office did not offer him a deal or give him any special treatment, Penglase tried to determine the man’s motivations while on the stand.

An autopsy report Talley suffered a several stab wounds from her knees up. Talley’s womb carrying a young boy was punctured and the baby died from his mother’s injuries. The little girl died from a large stab wound on her upper chest and suffered third-degree burns on her stomach, officials read in court.

If Johnson is convicted in the murders and sentenced to death, he would join a short list of Bucks County residents on death row. Currently there are  five  people on death row who were judged for their crimes in Bucks County: Frank Chester (1989), Robert Diamond (2009), Robert Flor  (2006), Richard Laird (1989), and Alfonso Sanchez  (2008).

There are three phases for death penalty cases that defendants go through, according to the department of corrections. The first is conviction and sentencing, which places the convict in solitary confinement for 22 hours a day. The second phase occurs when a governor signs the death warrant. The third is the inmate’s transfer to Rockview State Prison, near State College, where executions take place.

The last person put to death against his will in Pennsylvania was in 1962. Elmo Smith of Montgomery County was electrocuted just 18 months after he was convicted of murdering and raping a schoolgirl.

Three people have been executed since 1978 in the commonwealth with the last being in 1999, state records show. Philadelphia torture killer Gary Heidnik abandoned his appeals and asked  for death since the ultimate was reinstated in the commonwealth.

There are currently are 191 death row inmates throughout the corrections system.

Penglase said on Friday his client maintains his innocence.

Friday’s arraignment originally scheduled for 12 p.m. was held at 11 a.m. after the judge moved up the time.

Johnson remains in Bucks County jail, secluded from the rest of the inmate population.

Previous:

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