The death of a 13-year-old girl in the United Kingdom has been linked by federal authorities to a suburban Chicago man’s alleged request that she make pornographic videos, including of her choking herself.
Khamryn Zyiel Johnson, 27, of far southwest suburban Plano has been in custody since June and was hit Thursday with a five-count child pornography indictment, court records show. His defense attorney, Michael Baker, could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
A detailed criminal complaint was filed against Johnson back in June, but the case was initially kept under seal.
The victim’s mother discovered her nude and hanging unresponsive by an Apple Watch charging cord from a bed post on May 22, according to an affidavit written by a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations.
The girl had been on a video call with a WhatsApp account linked to Johnson, the agent wrote. The call began roughly an hour before the victim was found by her mother, and her phone “last moved” about four minutes before the 29-minute call ended.
She was taken off life support after five days and died on May 26, according to the affidavit.
Law enforcement studied her phone and found that she’d engaged in “sexual conversations” with the WhatsApp account linked to Johnson between May 17 and May 22. The account was linked to a phone number with a “630” area code.
During those conversations, Johnson allegedly told the victim to send him “videos of you choking yourself,” and “when I say choke I mean I wanna see ur face change colors.” In another, he allegedly told her “sit on the bottom bunk and hang yourself like I taught you.”
Johnson also allegedly asked the girl to talk in videos about her age.
The day the girl was discovered by her mother, the girl had been left home alone for about 24 minutes, the mother told police. The mother called for an ambulance 26 minutes after returning home.
The video call began 10 minutes before the mother said she’d left home, and it lasted 29 minutes, records show. The WhatsApp account linked to Johnson tried four times to call the victim’s account in the minutes after the call ended, but the follow-up calls went unanswered.
The agent wrote that the circumstances were “consistent with [the victim] asphyxiating while on a video call with the user of the Johnson WhatsApp Account.”
