The verdict came after prosecutors argued Jennifer Johnson’s phone activity and physical evidence contradicted her account of the overnight hours before Hannah Kent was found unresponsive.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — A Missouri jury found a local woman guilty of murder and child endangerment in the 2021 death of an 8-month-old girl, accepting the state’s argument that the child suffered fatal injuries while in the woman’s care during an overnight babysitting arrangement.
Jurors convicted Jennifer Johnson, 49, on Jan. 8 of second-degree felony murder and two counts of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child in the death of Hannah Kent. The verdict was a key turning point in a case that had stretched for years and centered on whether prosecutors could prove the child’s injuries were inflicted during the hours Johnson said she was asleep. It also set up the sentencing hearing that followed weeks later, when the victim’s family asked the court to treat the killing as both a violent crime and a betrayal of trust.
The prosecution’s case focused on a narrow stretch of time in April 2021. According to court records and testimony, Hannah’s parents left her and other children in Johnson’s care around 5 p.m. on April 17 at a home in the 1000 block of Elleta Boulevard in Columbia. Hill, the child’s mother, later testified that she and Johnson had been friends for more than a decade. She said it was the first time Johnson had watched Hannah, even though Johnson had been trusted around the family before. The next morning, Hill returned about 8:30 a.m. and found the baby unresponsive and cool to the touch. Court records said she saw bruising immediately. Hannah was taken to Women’s and Children’s Hospital and pronounced dead. Those basic facts were not in serious dispute at trial. The dispute was over how the child suffered the injuries that witnesses said were obvious by the time she reached the hospital.
Jurors heard from police and medical witnesses who described bruising and brain injuries consistent with recent trauma. Trial testimony, as summarized by local reporters, said Jynasha Hill told the jury she had seen Johnson burping Hannah “aggressively” on the night the infant died. Prosecutors paired that testimony with physical evidence from the house and Johnson’s clothing. Investigators said baby formula was found on Johnson’s clothes, and testing showed Hannah’s blood on Johnson’s shirt. Police also reported finding a pink-and-white onesie hidden on a pantry shelf and soaking wet. Investigators said Hannah had been wearing that outfit when she was dropped off, but she was in only a diaper when she was taken to the hospital. The state argued those details suggested the scene had been altered after the child was injured. Defense arguments were not described in full in the available reports, but Johnson denied causing the fatal injuries and denied knowing what had happened.
Another major theme in the trial was Johnson’s changing account of the overnight timeline. She told police that she fed Hannah a bottle around 2:15 a.m., put her down to sleep, and then went to sleep herself. Prosecutors told jurors that phone records showed otherwise. Messages from Johnson’s phone placed her awake during the hours she said she was asleep, and some of those messages involved efforts to get drugs, according to court reporting and the probable cause affidavit. Prosecutors also pointed to recorded statements and witness accounts showing Johnson appeared aware of Hannah’s death before she claimed to have learned it. One friend told police Johnson called around 9:11 a.m. and said “the baby died.” The affidavit also said Johnson made remarks about the child’s head. That evidence mattered because the state was trying to show more than inconsistency. Prosecutors wanted jurors to infer consciousness of guilt: that Johnson was not simply mistaken about the timeline, but was lying about her movements, her drug activity, and her knowledge of the child’s condition.
The case also carried procedural weight because of the long path to trial. Johnson was arrested in 2021, but public reporting shows the prosecution remained active through 2025, when a custody error briefly complicated the case. ABC17 News reported that Johnson was released from Missouri custody in June 2025, even though Boone County records showed a no-bond hold. She was later located in Arkansas and returned to Boone County. That episode was separate from the evidence presented to jurors about Hannah’s death, but it underscored how the prosecution stretched across several years and multiple court steps before a jury could finally weigh the facts. By January 2026, the state’s case had narrowed to testimony from family members, medical evidence, phone records, and Johnson’s own statements to investigators. Local reports said the jury deliberated for about an hour before returning guilty verdicts.
The verdict immediately changed the posture of the case. Johnson remained in the Boone County Jail pending sentencing, which local reports expected within about six weeks. Hill’s courtroom testimony during trial and later at sentencing made clear that the family viewed the case as more than a homicide prosecution. For them, it was also about trust. The mother told the court she had believed Hannah would be protected in Johnson’s care. That line became one of the emotional anchors of the case because it framed the crime as an intimate breach inside a home, not a random act. Johnson’s age, 49 at the time of conviction, and the victim’s age, 8 months, were repeatedly emphasized in coverage because they highlighted the power imbalance at the center of the evidence.
When the jury’s decision was announced, the criminal case moved from fact-finding to punishment and appeal. The next milestone came on Feb. 23, when Judge Brouck Jacobs sentenced Johnson to life in prison on the murder conviction and 15 years on each child-endangerment count. The verdict itself, though, remains the point where jurors concluded the evidence proved Hannah Kent’s fatal injuries were inflicted while she was under Johnson’s watch in Columbia.
Author note: Last updated March 23, 2026.