WASHINGTON – An attorney for the man charged in the beating death of a District of Columbia actress and yoga instructor argued Friday that his client did not commit the brutal killing and that detectives sought to coerce the suspect, who the lawyer said is mentally ill.
Duane Adrian Johnson, 29, is charged with murder in the killing of Tricia Lynn McCauley, who went missing on Christmas Day and was later found dead in the back seat of her white Scion. She had been beaten and strangled, and her legs had been bound with a seat belt, police said.
Police said Johnson, who did not know McCauley, had been spotted driving the car and that he had the keys to the vehicle on him when he was detained.
After Johnson was arrested, according to charging documents, he told police that McCauley had offered him a ride. He said he and McCauley had sex and that afterward, she committed suicide by hanging herself with a seat belt. He then told detectives that he drove around the city with McCauley’s body in the back seat and that he thought she was “sleeping” and would “wake up.”
During a hearing in D.C. Superior Court, public defender Mani Golzari argued that Johnson’s comments were evidence of mental illness.
“These are the ramblings of a mentally ill man. They are trying to connect these ramblings to a murder,” Golzari said. “With someone with a mental-health issue and no high school diploma, a lot of things can go wrong in an interrogation.” Golzari later called the police questioning of his client a “coercive environment.”
Johnson told detectives that he had not slept for three days and had often gone weeks without sleeping, Golzari said. The lawyer said a video showed that before he was questioned, Johnson sat in a chair in the interrogation room for four hours. At one point, he stretched out on the floor under a desk.
Golzari argued that evidence cited by authorities so far did not directly link Johnson to the killing, and he said McCauley’s death “could have occurred prior to Mr. Johnson being connected to the car.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Misler did not address Golzari’s allegations that his client was treated improperly. The prosecutor successfully argued that Johnson should remain in jail pending trial.
During the hearing, Golzari also provided new details about a man who had once been accused of sexual assault and called police to tell them that, at one point, he had been in the vehicle with Johnson and McCauley’s body but thought McCauley was “unconscious,” not dead.
Judge Hiram Puig-Lugo dismissed the information about the witness, saying that the man’s arrest had occurred 19 years earlier and that he had not been convicted in that case.
Johnson, wearing an orange D.C. jail jumpsuit, sat through most of the nearly two-hour hearing with his head down, occasionally looking up. Authorities previously identified him as Adrian Duane Johnson, but current court records list him as Duane Adrian Johnson.
McCauley, 46, was a popular actress in the local Washington theater scene. Her friends reported her missing after she failed to show up to dinner on Christmas evening.
![[Photo Source: Heavy]](https://breaking911.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/tricia-mccauley-adrian-duane-johnson-e1482877762156.jpeg)
Puig-Lugo found that there was enough evidence to order that Johnson remain in jail until trial. The judge also cited Johnson’s “voluminous” previous criminal cases, including 12 prior convictions. The judge also said Johnson had two pending misdemeanor theft cases at the time of his arrest in McCauley’s death and was on probation in two other cases.
Johnson’s attorney argued that most of his client’s previous cases were misdemeanor charges.
“We look forward to going to trial and to demonstrate that Mr. Johnson did not commit this offense,” Golzari said.
Johnson’s next hearing was scheduled for April 10.
(c) 2017, The Washington Post ยท Keith L. Alexander
