Stepson given 80 years in Modesto slaying

A judge has sentenced a 33-year-old man to 80 years to life in prison for shooting to death his stepfather at his northeast Modesto home nearly four years ago.

A jury in November found Dasheme Hosley guilty of first-degree murder in the death of 39-year-old Karl Johnson. The defendant was sentenced Tuesday in Stanislaus County Superior Court, according to prosecutors.

Authorities have said in court that Hosley was goaded by his mother into shooting Johnson by claiming he had hit her.

After the November verdict, Robert Chase, Hosley's defense attorney, said his client deserved a voluntary manslaughter charge; not murder. He said Hosley suffered abuse as a child and witnessed the killing of his father when he was 3 years old.

Deputy District Attorney Marlisa Ferreira, who prosecuted Hosley and his mother, said there are a lot of people abused as children who don't commit murder, and his troubled childhood wasn't enough for the jury to return with a lesser charge.

In October 2010, the victim's wife, 55-year-old Carol Harris Johnson, was convicted of second- degree murder. In April, she was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Hosley and his mother were prosecuted separately.

The shooting occurred in Aug. 30, 2008, at the home in the 2900 block of Lincoln Oak Drive in Modesto.

Police broke the case by wiretapping more than 7,000 calls, text messages and other cell phone transmissions between Carol Johnson and her family before arresting her on suspicion of murder.

At her trial, Carol Johnson's defense attorney argued that she was a woman abused by a husband fighting a longtime drug addiction.

The prosecution argued that Carol Johnson, also known as "Momma Carol," was the aggressor in the marriage, getting drunk and repeatedly threatening her husband with her two grown sons.

Dasheme Hosley's younger brother, DeLeon Hosley, also was arrested in connection with Karl Johnson's death. DeLeon Hosley pleaded no contest to being an accessory to murder.

Bee staff writer Rosalio Ahumada can be reached at rahumada@modbee.com or (209) 578-2394.