COVINGTON, La. — Northshore District Attorney Collin Sims announced that a St. Tammany Parish jury found 34-year-old Slidell native Jules "Pop" Johnson guilty of fatally shooting Melvin Webb outside a local bar in a 2019 revenge murder case.
The incident occurred in the parking lot outside Gloria's Bayou Lounge on Salmen Street in Slidell, La., at approximately 1:30 a.m. on May 19 of that year.
Video footage from an exterior surveillance camera captured the moment Johnson fatally shot the 43-year-old victim in the face before fleeing the scene. Webb was taken to Slidell Memorial Hospital but was pronounced dead shortly after his arrival.
Several eyewitnesses recounted the killing during the investigation, including the victim's wife, who identified Johnson as the perpetrator.
She also said she had seen Johnson loitering across the street from their home a couple of weeks before the shooting.
Upon investigation, detectives discovered that the killing was a revenge murder after Webb's cousin, Dwight Ambo, shot and killed Johnson's father, Sherman Deas, after he was accused of harassing two women at the bar.
The district attorney's office said Webb assisted Ambo in eluding authorities after killing Deas. Consequently, Webb was charged with being an accessory to the homicide and served a prison term after being convicted of the charge in 2014.
Johnson's Lincoln Towncar, which was registered to his grandfather, was also identified using automated license plate readers (ALPR) heading west on Interstate 12 near Covington just 30 minutes after the shooting. Another reader identified Johnson's car heading into Georgia, which is where detectives arrested him in a Marietta sports bar the following month on June 11.
The jury also convicted Johnson of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
“Due to the tireless efforts of our prosecution team and the sheriff’s detectives, this career criminal and killer will no longer be a menace to our community.”
Sentencing is scheduled for June 10.
The five-time convicted felon faces mandatory life in prison on the murder charge.
A second suspect, Tony Maurice Smith, who was arrested in November 2019, received a maximum of five years after he pled guilty to "Accessory after the Fact" on March 31, 2021.
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