Aunt pleads guilty years after Dayton children found dead, decomposing in trunk of car

A woman has entered her plea nearly three years after her niece and nephew were found dead in the trunk of her car.

Nicole Johnson pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree child abuse resulting in death, according to Baltimore County court records.

As News Center 7 reported in 2021, police in Maryland made a routine traffic stop on the vehicle Johnson was driving on July 28, 2021, and smelled a foul odor from the vehicle.

Officers eventually discovered the bodies of Joshlyn Marie James Johnson, 7, and Larry Darnell O’Neil III, 5, in the trunk of the car.

According to CBS affiliate WJZ-TV, when the autopsy was done the 7-year-old girl weighed 18 pounds and the 5-year-old boy weighed 21 pounds.

The two children lived in Dayton up until around 2019 when their mother headed to Maryland.

>> PREVIOUS COVERAGE: 2 Dayton children found dead, decomposing in trunk of car in Maryland; aunt charged with child abuse

LaQuata O’Neil, the grandmother of Larry spoke to News Center 7 in 2021.

LaQuata said the children’s mother immediately asked Nicole to care for the children when they arrived in Baltimore.

“Sometimes I can’t even speak. It’s so horrific,” said LaQuata.

Her world caved in all because of a social media post.

“Let me tell you how I found out about these kids deaths, through Facebook, she had a GoFundMe page,” LaQuata previously told News Center 7.

Nicole is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 28