Jawanda Johnson: Pregnant Mother Gunned Down In Front Of Her Kids By Estranged Husband

Jawanda Johnson was shot up to six times in front of her three children by her estranged husband on June 22, 2017. Johnson was nearly six months pregnant. Her husband, Terrell Cook, was found days later dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Jawanda F. Johnson tried to get away from him. She did. She filed for a restraining order -- but it was reportedly denied by a magistrate. Johnson couldn't take the stress so she moved out, not only that. She was also pregnant.

Nevertheless, police in Richmond, Virginia were called to the 2200 block of Chalfont Drive in a South Richmond apartment, where Johnson, 26, was staying at to get away from her estranged husband, 28-year-old Terrell D. Cook. 

Johnson and her kids had purportedly gotten home from shopping and found Cook outside her apartment. She tried to get inside her residence before he could make it to the door, but he overpowered her.

Officers arrived at the home about 2:40 p.m. on a shots fired call. There, they found Johnson inside the home. She had been shot five or six times. Her three children  — two of them his — witnessed the execution-style shooting of their mother.

They rushed her to the hospital, but she died, according to TV station WRIC. She was 5-and-a-half months pregnant.

According to the news station, police had been called to Johnson's residence five times this year alone, with three domestic calls coming just in the last week.

“The system failed the family,” Shana Le Master, a neighbor who heard the fatal shots that day, told WRIC. “The magistrate denied her and she died the next day.”

Cook had a history of violence, including child abuse, according to court records exposed by local media. The child abuse was so bad that Cook was sentenced to five years in prison, but reportedly only served four months.

WRIC also says this: Police tell 8News the magistrate denied that restraining order because the couple was married and Cook had been listed as living at Johnson’s Fairfield home. However, detectives tell us that a protective order, slightly different, was obtained and authorities were trying to serve Cook with it but they couldn’t find him.

Later, police found Cook's body in Christiansburg. He died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, officers said.