A Dallas man who confessed to police that he put a toddler in a dumpster is standing trial this week, accused of failing to seek medical attention before the child died.
Sedrick Johnson, 33, is charged with injury to a child in connection with the 2019 death of Cedrick “C.J.” Jackson, the 18-month-old nephew of Johnson’s girlfriend. If convicted, Johnson faces up to life in prison.
Johnson also faces a capital murder charge. That case has yet to go to trial and is pending, according to court records.
Cedrick was last seen July 10 at his aunt’s Lake Highlands apartment. A statewide Amber Alert was issued that night. According to testimony Tuesday inside the courthouse near downtown Dallas, authorities were initially told that a man came into the home in the night, took Cedrick and an Xbox.
Johnson went to Dallas police headquarters to assist in the search and was subsequently arrested because of outstanding warrants. During an interview, Johnson told a child abuse detective that he left the home that night to buy cigarettes, left the door open and someone kidnapped Cedrick, who was asleep and swaddled on the floor at the foot of Johnson’s bed.
After the detective questioned Johnson’s retelling, he began to sob and hyperventilate, footage played to the jury showed.
Johnson said Cedrick, wrapped in a tan blanket, became unresponsive and started vomiting. Johnson said he gave the toddler chest compressions and breathed into his mouth before moving him into the shower, hoping cold water would wake him, according to the footage.
“I panicked,” Johnson said. He said Cedrick “wasn’t there no more.”
He told the detective he then wrapped up the toddler, placed him in the passenger seat of the car and drove.
“I thought about taking him to the hospital,” Johnson told the detective, “but I wouldn’t know what to tell them.”
Johnson said he put Cedrick in a blue, trash-filled dumpster in northeast Dallas, according to the footage. The next morning, July 11, police found the boy’s remains in a landfill on the boundary of Garland and Rowlett.
In the courtroom, Johnson — wearing a gray blazer, blue dress shirt and dark-colored tie — leaned back and studied the video. He occasionally exchanged notes and whispers with his attorneys.
Swaddling was used to calm or punish the fussy, “spunky” child, according to testimony. A child who lived in the home told the jury — five men and nine women, including two alternate jurors — that Johnson once wrapped Cedrick in a blanket after the child spilled Whataburger ketchup packets. State District Judge Nancy Mulder barred news media from identifying juvenile witnesses, per an order issued Monday.
Prosecutor Rachel Burris said in opening statements that Johnson, acting as the child’s caretaker, did not ask anyone in the nine-person household for help, nor did he call 9-1-1 or seek medical attention.
Defense attorney Stephanie Martin called prosecutors’ assertions “skewed,” saying that Cedrick was already dead when Johnson made the “terrible decision” to discard the child’s body.
Martin asked jurors to set aside emotions and think “analytically.” She said evidence will show that Johnson’s actions — or inaction — did not cause Cedrick’s death.
The defense has also sowed doubt over whether Johnson’s statements to police were lawful. While detained, Johnson said he “(needed) to talk to a lawyer.”
“I don’t mind talking to nobody as long as I know my kids are all right,” Johnson said, according to court records.
Former detective Rico Harris, who questioned Johnson, said he was unaware he asked for an attorney until years later when the admissibility of Johnson’s statements came before the state’s highest criminal court. Harris gave Johnson a Miranda warning, which advises people accused of crimes of their rights before questioning by authorities.
At a 2022 hearing, Harris said: “If he had said it to me, I would have stopped the interview.”
The trial court and a Dallas appeals court ruled Johnson’s incriminating statements should have been thrown out because Johnson’s constitutional rights against self-incrimination had been violated. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the lower courts’ rulings, restoring his statements as evidence.