PB woman to be arraigned on murder charges

A Poplar Bluff woman will appear in a Butler County court Tuesday after she recently was ordered to stand trial for the 2018 death of a man killed during an apparent drug transaction gone wrong.

Shanesha Burns is to appear at 1 p.m. before Presiding Circuit Judge Michael Pritchett for arraignment on the Class A felony of first-degree murder and the unclassified felony of armed criminal action or in the alternative second-degree murder, also known as felony murder.

She is accused of either “acting alone or knowingly in concert with another” to cause the shooting death of Jermaine Johnson.

The 32-year-old’s body was found May 20, 2018, by a citizen who was seining a ditch for crawfish on County Road 612 in eastern Butler County. He reportedly suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died as the result of a gunshot wound to his torso.

The charges against Burns resulted from the ongoing investigation into Johnson’s death.

“Throughout the course of the investigation of the homicide of Jermaine Johnson, it became apparent he was killed due to a drug transaction run afoul,” Butler County Sheriff Mark Dobbs earlier said.“Shanesha Burns is known to have made threats to killing or having Jermaine Johnson killed on May 19 (2018) about 10 hours prior to his actual death,” Dobbs said

Dobbs said Burns admitted to being present when Johnson was killed as the result of an illegal drug operation sale.