A man has finally been arrested, for the murder of Azsia Johnson, while pushing her 3-month-old baby in a stroller.
NYPD Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell announced via Twitter Friday that 22-year-old Isaac Argo “has been arrested and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon in regard to the tragic shooting of Azsia Johnson on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.”
“@NYPDDetectives continue to be relentless in their pursuit of justice,” she continued.
Johnson’s family reported that Argo is the father of the 3-month-old baby she was with when she was fatally shot in the head Wednesday night.
United States Marshals and the NYPD Fugitive Task Force took him into custody. A police source said, “The mother of the ex-boyfriend stalked and abused Johnson.”
On Wednesday night, Johnson was pushing a stroller on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when someone approached her and shot her in the head. She was then rushed to Metropolitan Hospital where she was pronounced dead. Thankfully, her baby was not harmed in the altercation.
In one of her final text messages, Johnson told a family member she was meeting with her 3-month-old’s father to work things out.
“I knew it was going to come to this, and I told my daughter this,” her mother Lisa Desort told the outlet. “For some reason, she felt like she needed to be tracked, so she text her sister and said, ‘This is my location, just in case.'”
DeSort said a mutual friend introduced Argro to her daughter about a year ago, when the young woman was feeling sad over another relationship that had just ended.
The “honeymoon” phase of Johnson’s relationship with Argro lasted about a month before things “started turning bad,” DeSort said, painting a picture of a rage-filled and controlling boyfriend.
The mom said Argro showed up uninvited at her house one day and was upset that Johnson had arrived there late.
“That’s when the red flags were raised for me because she didn’t even tell him to come over,” DeSort said. “He was upset and when she came home, you could see his whole demeanor change, he was pacing back and forth and breathing hard.”
DeSort said she warned him to “calm your attitude,” to no avail.
“He went outside and put on that killer rap, that drill rap…I started getting scared the way he was pacing back and forth. I had known him for a month and something wasn’t right, his energy was real bad,” she said.
Johnson was so worried about his conduct that she moved into a domestic violence shelter last fall to protect her older child, DeSort said.
She said Argro worked as a FedEx deliveryman and griped around Christmas time that he didn’t get his paychecks and quit. But she suspects he was fired.
“He said, ‘I’m doing an effed up job, just to support a baby I don’t even know is mine,’” DeSort recalled.
On New Year’s Day, Johnson went to Argro’s house in Jamaica, Queens and wanted to take home some baby clothes, but he tried to stop her from leaving, DeSort said.
Johnson, who was pregnant at the time, called her mother crying, and DeSort said she phoned the police.
“He beat her. She had black eyes and scrapes on her neck. She said ‘He’s hitting me, I want to leave, I want to leave, but he won’t let me leave,’” DeSort recalled.
Johnson ended the relationship after the incident, but Argro continued stalking and harassing her even though she kept blocking him, DeSort said.
In March, he allegedly managed to get through to her on the phone and said “If you don’t unblock me bitch, I will kill your mother today,” DeSort said.
DeSort said she called the domestic violence counselor who had been assigned to Johnson after the New Year’s Day incident and reported Argro’s conduct.
The counselor told the appalled mom that Argro had a right to speak his mind because it was “freedom of speech,” DeSort claimed.
Desort said her daughter “graduated high school with merits, with the inspiration of becoming a pediatric nurse” and hoped to provide a great life for her baby and her toddler son.
“She had a child early and she was the most wonderful mother that you can imagine. She was hard working. She worked every day. She’s got more credit than a 30-, 40-year-old person has. She aspired to have houses and give her children the best of everything,” Desort said.
She shared that Johnson refused to have her little ones wear hand-me-downs and believed, “They were new babies. They deserved new clothes.”
“My daughter was amazing,” Desort said.