A 24-year-old woman, accused of fatally stabbing a mother in an elevator in the Bronx, was ordered to remain in custody without bail on Friday during a hospital bedside arraignment, according to officials.
Beyonce Johnson faces charges of murder, manslaughter, and weapons possession after allegedly attacking 30-year-old Shashamanie Thompson. The incident occurred around 10 p.m. on December 27, inside their apartment building on Ogden Avenue near West 167th Street in Highbridge, where Thompson was stabbed in the stomach and left eye.
During the arraignment at the hospital, a Bronx Criminal Court judge decided Johnson should be held without bail.
The conflict between Johnson and Thompson reportedly stemmed from an ongoing dispute about Thompson’s dog being left in the hallway, police indicated.
Johnson’s 21-year-old boyfriend, Saleh Ceesay, who lives approximately two miles away, was also arrested at the scene. He is facing similar charges of murder and manslaughter.
According to court documents, Johnson told officers after their arrest that the issue involved the victim keeping a dog in the hallway, and that neighbors had reported this to building management.
Though Thompson had eventually rehomed the dog, the long-running feud flared up again when she ran into Johnson and Ceesay in the lobby of their building, according to authorities.
After they all got into the elevator together, Johnson allegedly whipped a knife out of her purse and stabbed Thompson. Ceesay is accused of grabbing Thompson in a headlock and punching her as the slaying unfolded.
Thompson’s 9-year-old son was spending the holidays with his grandparents at the time of her murder.
“I picked him up the day before Christmas,” the victim’s father, Mark Thompson, told the Daily News. “New Year’s, we were going to spend over there with him and his mother. That was the intention.”
Mark, who created a GoFundMe to help support his grandson, remembered his daughter as a “lovely person” with a “good heart.”
“A strong person. She’s a fighter. She don’t give up,” he said. “I mean, for that to happen to her, it would have to take two people to do that to her.”
Ceesay was arraigned right away and ordered held without bail as Johnson, who’s bipolar, was taken to an area hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. She remained in the hospital following her arraignment.
Shashamanie, with her dying breaths, named the suspect’s apartment number, according to prosecutors, telling cops, “The girl in 6D did this.”
Johnson has two prior arrests, including for criminal contempt, harassment and violating an order of protection in November 2021. The victim in that case was a 19-year-old woman. In April 2018, Johnson was arrested for criminal mischief.
