Mother outraged by killer’s early parole

The mother of a murdered teenage girl is outraged that her daughter’s killer has been granted early parole and will be deported.

Junior Johnson was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1996 shooting death of 16-year-old Christie Rose Christie.

Tracy Christie spoke to CityNews reporter Cynthia Mulligan on Monday, expressing her outrage at the parole board’s decision.

It was the second time he had applied. Johnson was denied early parole in 2007, a hearing Christie also attended. 

“He served 16 years out of 25 years,” she told CityNews in an exclusive interview. “My daughter was 16, so I feel he served a year for every year that she had lived. He had taken a life, didn’t do time that he was supposed to have done, and I just feel so empty inside now.”

Johnson will be deported to Jamaica. A date for his deportation hasn’t been disclosed.

Christie’s mother said she may appeal the parole board’s decision. But she said her son told her not to so she could move on with her life.

Christie was babysitting her younger brother, then eight months old, at their home on Glamorgoan Avenue, near Ellesmere and Kennedy roads, on Jan. 29, 1996. A friend of Christie’s convinced her to open the home and two masked men entered. Johnson, then 17, shot Christie in the stomach.

Before she died in hospital just hours after the shooting, she was able to identify her killer.

Her dying words have haunted her mother all these years.

“‘Mom, I’m fighting to stay alive and if I die could you please just keep fighting and make sure that he doesn’t get out of jail. I don’t want him to hurt anybody else.’” she said. “And I promised her that I would. I promised I would be her voice and I did. I kept my promise. I still feel that I let her down because he got out of jail.” 

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