Foster Son Charged With Killing His Foster Mother and Foster Brother UPDATED

“A 17-year-old is charged with murdering his foster mother and another man in a set of killings homicide detectives described as brutal.

Xavier Johnson sought to rob 64-year-old Renee Gilyard and 20-year-old Jimmy Mao, Philadelphia Police Homicide Capt. Jason Smith said in a news conference Thursday afternoon.

Smith said Johnson “brutally tortured and then murdered” both victims.

“It is my hope that his arrest will provide some degree of solace to their families, friends and communities,” Smith said.

Gilyard, the mother of a Philadelphia police officer, was found dead overnight Wednesday [January 15, 2020] in her East Germantown home. She was stabbed twice in the neck inside a bathroom. Her purse was emptied and SUV was taken.

Johnson was placed in her home three days before the killings. Police caught up with him in West Philadelphia later Wednesday morning when he crashed the missing SUV following a short police pursuit.

Mao was stabbed in the face and neck, Smith said. His body was placed in a black duffel bag and thrown down a hill in Southwest Philadelphia. It was recovered by police on Wednesday evening.

Smith said Mao and Johnson previously lived together in a different foster home on Angora Terrace. It was near where Mao’s body was located.

Homicide detectives believe Johnson took a PlayStation gaming console, video games and cash, Smith said.

A third person, 16-year-old Jacob Merritt-Richburg, remains missing. Police linked him to Johnson and Mao. The investigation into his disappearance remains open.

A kitchen knife was recovered, Smith said. Forensic testing is ongoing to determined if it was the murder weapon.

“There’s a good possibility that it is,” Smith said.

Johnson, who is police custody, but has yet to be interviewed, faces a slew of charges including murder, robbery, abuse of a corpse and weapons charges. He is charged as an adult.

Smith said Johnson has five prior arrests that included aggravated assault.

Mao’s family members held a vigil for him Thursday at 6:30 p.m. around the same area where his body was found.

Mao had a child on the way and was finishing his GED, according to his family. His sister told NBC10 English was his second language which is why he was in foster care. She also said he was only at the foster home on Angora Terrace for two weeks before his disappearance.

A spokesperson for DHS told NBC10 Teen ‘Brutally Tortured and Murdered’ Foster Mom, Another Man, Police Say they couldn’t discuss the specifics of the case due to confidentiality laws but they did release a statement on the two murders.

“We are heartbroken over the recent deaths,” a spokesperson wrote. “Foster parents are unsung heroes, providing safe and loving homes for children in their care and service to the community. The losses we face today are unthinkable and we grieve along with the families and communities.”

Teen ‘Brutally Tortured and Murdered’ Foster Mom, Another Man, Police Say

[NBC Philadelphia 01/17/2020 by Vince Lattanzio and Rudy Chinchilla]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: “Jimmy Mao was a truant teen, but at 20, his sister said, he was turning his life around.

Renee Gilyard, a foster mom to many over the years, couldn’t bear to see children grow up without an adult’s loving but firm influence, so once her own children were grown, she opened her home to others.

The two never met. Their connection was Xavier Johnson, a 17-year-old who police say killed them two weeks apart.

They said Johnson, arrested Thursday, stabbed Mao to death over a PlayStation and some cash on Dec. 29 and dumped his body near the SEPTA tracks close to the foster home they shared. After moving into foster care at Gilyard’s East Germantown home, police say, Johnson attacked her, stole her credit cards, and fled in her car.

In the course of 17 years, Gilyard, 64, had fostered more than 30 kids, her son Quin said Monday. She was partial to teenagers, he said, ones she could lay down some ground rules for and leave to their own devices.

“She always was super sympathetic to people’s problems,” Quin Gilyard said. “We didn’t have it bad coming up, but we weren’t rich at all. But I didn’t know that. I thought I had everything.” Gilyard raised him and his brother, now a Philadelphia police officer, in her home on Mechanic Street.

Mao, meanwhile, had been in foster care for about four years, his sister Niki said. He told his eight siblings he preferred the structure he found in the system, that it was a “way to get his head up,” she said.

As detectives continue to trace Johnson’s violent path, the victims’ families are left to wonder how an alleged killer was able to move in with both of them.

“I just feel like we could’ve done better, that everyone could have,” Niki Mao said. “I can’t believe he would take my brother away from me. Who could have a heart to do that?”

Jimmy Mao loved video games and basketball. He had a daughter on the way with his longtime girlfriend. On the night of his death, Mao was in his foster parents’ home on Angora Terrace in Southwest Philadelphia, playing PlayStation online with some friends, his sister said. He was chatting with them through a headset he was wearing, and in the middle of the game, the microphone recorded him saying, “Can you please not come in my room?” according to his sister.

Ten minutes later, she said, Mao’s PlayStation suddenly shut off. His friends texted him, asking him if he was OK. He didn’t answer. Hours later, Mao’s foster father, Jarrod Jones, reported him missing, according to law enforcement sources.

Mao’s family flew into a panic, enlisting the help of the Guardian Angels to plaster posters around the city.

There were few leads. Then, on Jan. 7, Mao’s brother started receiving ransom texts demanding money and promising Jimmy’s safe return, law enforcement sources said. The messages baffled the family and brought little progress.

They wouldn’t learn until a week later that Mao was already dead, his body stuffed into a duffel bag and thrown down an embankment a few hundred yards from his foster home.

On Jan. 11, as the Mao family continued its search for Jimmy, Renee Gilyard welcomed Johnson into her home as the latest in a long line of teens to benefit from her kindness.

“Everybody loved her in that whole neighborhood,” Quin Gilyard said of his mother. “She’s been there for 30-something years, in that same house, on that same block, and she never had any problems, ever.”

But right away, Gilyard said, his mother had misgivings about Johnson. Shortly after he arrived, as he was unpacking his belongings in Gilyard’s house, a detective was questioning him about Mao’s disappearance.

In the evening of the day Johnson arrived, Gilyard took him to Central High School to watch her grandson play basketball, because she didn’t trust the teen alone in her house, her son said. Quin Gilyard was there, coaching the game. He remembered Johnson as being quiet, somewhat aloof.

“He wasn’t standoffish, but he was kind of like a recluse,” the son said. “She didn’t trust him from the moment she got him.”

Johnson missed his 11 p.m. curfew two days in a row, Quin Gilyard said. On Jan. 14, Renee Gilyard called police, thinking Johnson had broken into her house after he didn’t come home in time and she had locked him out. It turned out that her son, driving by, saw Johnson outside and let him into the house.

Gilyard accepted that explanation, but made it clear, law enforcement sources said, that she didn’t want Johnson in her home and would find him another foster care placement.

Later that morning, police said, Johnson stabbed Gilyard to death, leaving her body in a bathtub. He left the house and went to hang out with friends. He took them to McDonald’s and bought sneakers with her stolen debit card, law enforcement sources said.

“He was only there for three days. The first day he was there, there was an 11 o’clock curfew, and he didn’t come back til 3,” Quin Gilyard said. “The second day he didn’t come back until 1. The third day he murdered her.””

She took in foster-care kids. He was trying to ‘get his head up.’ Both died after crossing paths with a Philly teen, police say.

[Philadelphia Inquirer 01/20/2020 by Vinny Vella and Mike Newall]

Update 2:“A teenager charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of his foster mother in January and in the stabbing death two weeks earlier of another young man in foster care was held for trial on all charges Tuesday despite a key witness “going south” on the witness stand.

Xavier Johnson, now 18, was accused of fatally stabbing Renee Gilyard, 64, in her East Germantown home, stealing her debit card, and fleeing in her Nissan Rogue SUV. He was also charged in the December stabbing death of Jimmy Mao, 20, in the Southwest Philadelphia foster home they shared, then dumping his body down an embankment near SEPTA tracks.

In court Tuesday, the prosecution’s main witness, an 18-year-old man who was with Johnson when he allegedly crashed Gilyard’s SUV into a truck on the 4300 block of Sansom Street in West Philadelphia following a police chase, recanted what he had allegedly told detectives in a videotaped statement.

The video was not played in court, but Homicide Detective John Harkins read a two-page summary of a videotaped statement in which the witness allegedly said Johnson admitted to stabbing the two victims and dumping Mao’s body.
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Assistant District Attorney Adam Geer asked that the name of the witness not be published out of concern for his safety and because he was 17 at the time of the incident.

Municipal Court Judge James DeLeon, after hearing testimony from Harkins, the witness, and a police officer, held Johnson for trial on all charges.

Officer James Boone testified that on the morning of Jan. 15, police were told to be on the lookout for a black Nissan Rogue possibly driven by Johnson, then 17, because it had been stolen in a homicide. About 10:20 a.m., he said, he spotted the SUV in West Philadelphia, and it took off at high speed when the driver saw his police car.

After running through red lights and stop signs, and striking two parked cars, the SUV hit a truck that was parked in the middle of the Sansom Street, Boone said. He said Johnson was in the driver’s seat, the witness was in the front-passenger seat, and two girls were in the back.

According to the summary of the witness’ statement, Johnson told him he had taken Gilyard’s vehicle and debit card after rushing into her home early one morning, knocking her down, and stabbing her. The witness also said Johnson used the debit card to get money, bought sneakers and paid for them to eat at a McDonald’s.

Police have said that Johnson killed Mao and stole a PlayStation and cash from him.

The witness also told detectives, according to his statement, that Johnson said he had choked Mao and stabbed him in the neck before putting Mao’s body in a duffel bag, then dumping it down an embankment. Johnson also showed the witness a cell-phone video of him stabbing Mao, the statement said.

On the witness stand Tuesday, when asked if he recalled making those statements, the witness repeatedly replied “No.”

He also contended that on the day of the crash, one of the girls was driving the SUV, not Johnson.

Defense attorney Leon Goodman argued that there wasn’t any evidence beyond the witness’ alleged statement that points to Johnson as having killed Mao. He said that at this stage in the court proceedings, he was not contesting the charges in relation to Gilyard’s death.”

Teen to face trial for murder in stabbing deaths of his foster mother and a 20-year-old man
[Philadelphia Inquirer 11/24/2020 by Julie Shaw]