Man Pleads Not Guilty To Murder Of Pasadena Housing Manager

PASADENA , CA — A Los Angeles man accused of fatally stabbing the manager of a supportive-housing apartment building in Pasadena, prompting the lockdown of a junior high school and forcing area residents to shelter in place during an extensive police search, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a murder charge.

Telly R. Johnson, 41, is also facing a knife use allegation stemming from the slaying of 52-year-old Byron Young Nettles, who was stabbed in the heart at 9:05 a.m. March 1 in front of the apartment building in the 100 block of South Euclid Avenue.

Paramedics took Nettles to a hospital, where he died after undergoing surgery.

Police set up a perimeter containment and conducted a block-by-block search for the suspect, involving helicopters and K-9 units, in an area bounded by Green Street and California Boulevard, from Los Robles Avenue to Marengo Avenue.

Mayfield Junior High School at 405 S. Euclid Ave. was locked down and area residents were told to shelter in place while police continued the search. The lockdown and shelter-in-place orders were lifted at 2:30 that afternoon, but residents were urged to report anything suspicious as the suspect remained at large.

Detectives asked the U.S. Marshal's Pacific Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force to surveil a location in Los Angeles, and Johnson was taken into custody without incident about 9:25 p.m. March 1 in the 1900 block of Cordova Street, when detectives executed a search warrant at a residence and vehicle.

Nettles' wife, T-Shawn Demethris, said her husband ran the supportive housing facility where he was attacked.

"He was just so helpful to everybody," she told KCAL9.

A witness told the station that Nettles and Johnson got into an argument over Johnson's wife.

"He (Nettles) dealt with him before," witness Elizabeth Jacobs told Channel 9. "They were talking about the guy's wife and he (Nettles) said, `I can't help her, she's a drug addict. I don't have the power to help her."'

That's when the suspect attacked Nettles, Jacobs alleged.

City News Service