Claudia Banton: Guilty verdict for gunning down her longtime friend on Brooklyn sidewalk
on April 03, 2025
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Claudia Banton after extradition to New York in November 2021.
April 3, 2025, BROOKLYN -- A Brooklyn jury found Claudia Banton guilty of executing her longtime friend in front of a group of people, after a surprise witness at her trial testified the killer’s brother helped throw cops off the suspect’s trail.
Delia Johnson and Banton had spoken at a neighborhood funeral the night of her death, and Johnson was chatting with a group of people by a stoop on Franklin Ave. at Prospect Place in Crown Heights when a blonde woman in a black outfit walked out of a double-parked white Mercedes, shot her in the head, then fired again after she hit the ground.
In the chaos that followed, police got a bad description from a woman at the scene who told them the killer was a man in a white shirt and blue jeans. The officers pulled over the getaway car, but when they saw a woman behind the wheel, they let her go. They realized their mistake a couple of hours later after seeing footage of the killing.
Detectives linked the Mercedes’ license plate to a Claudia Williams in Georgia, one of the names and addresses Banton uses. Cops tracked Banton down three months later in Jacksonville, Fla.
Jurors watched chilling video of the shooting, and of police officers frantically trying to revive Johnson as she gasped for breath and blood poured from her head. They also saw bodycam footage of police pulling over the shooter and letting her go.
Strauss said he hopes to appeal the verdict. “There’s certainly issues here that need to be addressed.”
Murder victim Johnson’s mother said she can finally mourn with a semblance of peace after the Brooklyn Supreme Court jury found Claudia Banton, 46, guilty of her daughter’s Aug. 4, 2021 slaying.
“It’s hard for me to express it, but they came back with a guilty verdict, something I needed to hear. This has been a hard road, a very hard road,” Johnson’s mother, Delia Berry, said outside the courtroom Thursday. “It broke me down. It broke my body down.”
The defendant will be sentenced on May 1st.
The motive for the killing remains unclear.
The shooter calmly walked back to the car with her purse on her shoulder and drove off, police said. Johnson was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Banton previously spent over seven years in a Georgia prison for forgery and has been prior felony convictions in that state as well as New Jersey.
Case Summary
Case Number: IND-73632-21/001
Court: Kings Supreme Criminal Court
Arrest Date: November 18, 2021
Incident Date: August 04, 2021
Charges:
PL 125.25 01 Murder: Intention
PL 265.03 01B Cpw-2nd: Loaded Firearm
PL 265.03 03 Cpw-2nd: Loaded Firearm
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