A jury found Keith Johansen, 39, guilty in the first degree murder of his 25-year-old wife Brandi Celenza in April 2018 at their Felter Lane home in Palm Coast. Johansen had been angered by his wife’s online “infidelities.” She was the mother of a boy, 6 years old at the time, who was in the house when Johansen shot her twice.
Circuit & County Court
After Lying to Cops, EMTs and His Own Parents About Killing Brandi Celenza, He Takes the Stand to Say He’s Now Truthful
Keith Johansen, who faces a first-degree murder charge in the shooting death of his wife, Brandi Celenza, said he lied about killing her–fabricating stories that she’d killed herself accidentally or by suicide–to protect her name: he didn’t want his parents to know they’d done meth. Now he’s claiming he killed her in self-defense because she was out of her mind and was about to shoot him.
Whippings Had Nothing to Do With 20-Month-Old’s Skull Fracture and Critical Condition, Defense Argues at Trial
In the first full day of Deviaun Toler’s trial on first degree felony charges of aggravated child abuse, his defense attorney said Toler disciplined his 20-month-old son the way he’d been disciplined when he was a child, and argued that the child had suffered from a stroke, not a skull fracture inflicted by Toler.
Keith Johansen Springs New Defense in Gunning Down of Wife Brandi Celenza: ‘Self-Defense’
Keith Johansen, 39, is accused of murdering his wife Brandi Celenza at their F-Section home in Palm Coast in 2018. In opening arguments at his trial this morning, his attorney, discarding previous defenses of suicide or an accidental shooting, said it was self-defense, because Celenza had pointed a gun at Johansen.
‘This Is Not a Jury of My Peers,’ Man on Trial Over Child Abuse Charges Objects Moments Before Jurors Are Seated
Deviaun Toler, 29, is on trial on four charges of child abuse, two of them first-degree felony aggravated child abuse charges, and faces up to 80 years in prison if convicted. He objected to the make-up of a jury of four men and four women, all white but one.
Jury Seated in Keith Johansen Trial, With Key Ruling on Admissibility of Incendiary Video Evidence Still Pending
One of the more high-profile trials of the last few years in Flagler–Court TV will be covering it–the case hinges on indirect evidence. The admissibility of some of that evidence has yet to be decided. The prosecution has surveillance video clips from inside the house graphically revealing sexual situations underscoring infidelities cleaving the couple’s relationship on one hand and Johansen’s violent temper, threats and racism on the other.
2 High-Profile Trials, in Killing of Brandi Celenza and Alleged Disfigurement of a Child, Are Set for Monday
They are two of the most lurid, high-profile, long-lasting cases on the felony docket of Flagler County’s court: Keith Johansen, 39, faces a first-degree murder charge in the shooting death of his wife Brandi Celenza. Deviaun Antriel Toler, 29, faces two counts of first-degree aggravated child abuse. Life in prison is at stake for the relatively young defendants in both cases. And today, both cases were set for trial the week of October 25.
There Is a Vengeful America and a Just America. Guess Which Florida Promotes.
Florida’s sentencing guidelines statute details the primary purpose of sentencing is to punish, not to rehabilitate. Honor demands vengeance. Respect commands justice. Two significantly different approaches.
Marion Gavins Jr., Who Murdered FPC’s Curtis Gray, 18, Is Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison in Plea
Marion Leo Gavins Jr., 20, pleaded guilty today and was sentenced to 45 years in prison for the murder of Curtis Gray, 18, in April 2019 outside a smoke shop in Palm Coast, a killing that shook the Flagler Palm Coast High and Matanzas High communities and that led his mother to create an enduring non-profit in Gray’s name.
6 School Boards’ Challenge to State Ban on Mask Mandates Goes Forward
The decision by Judge Brian Newman came a day before a hearing is scheduled to start in the challenge filed by the school boards in Miami-Dade, Broward, Orange, Duval, Alachua and Leon counties.