Five days after warning her father about her safety, Eukelia Tershell Davis was found dead with three gunshot wounds on her boyfriend’s bedroom floor.
“If something ever happens to me. Pablo J Johnson September 3 1965 did it! I love u,” Davis wrote in a text message to her father June 24, according to a Gainesville Police arrest report.
GPD found Davis’ body June 29 in her boyfriend’s apartment, at 2841 SW 37th Place, with a gunshot wound in her left bicep, right forearm and the center of her back, according to the report. Officers said the two shots in her arms were likely the result of her raising them in a defensive position.
Police arrested Davis’ boyfriend, 51-year-old Pablo Jermaris Johnson, at the Malcom Randall Veterans Affairs Center last week after an employee called to tell police about Johnson’s strange behavior, according to the report.
According to the report, the employee told police Johnson told her “he messed up real bad and thinks he might go to prison,” describing how he got into a “fight” with a woman on the night of June 28 — and that she wasn’t breathing.
GPD’s records showed that May 3, 2016, Davis told police that Johnson had threatened to “shoot her” and “punch her in the nose.”
Nearby residents told police they heard “taps” at about 5:30 a.m. June 29 that they believed to be gunshots, according the report.
Johnson told police that he and Davis had been dating for four years and that the relationship had become increasingly violent over time. He told police the couple fought the night of June 28 and that Davis struck him on his left eyebrow. According to the report, Johnson told police he asked Davis to leave his apartment when she then grabbed his “bag.”
According to the report, during his interview with police, Johnson shook his head and said, “It happened so fast … it just happened so fast.”
Police said at no time did Johnson say or tell others that he acted in self-defense against Davis, according to the report.
As of Wednesday evening, Johnson is being held in the Alachua County Jail without bond.
He faces a charge of premeditated murder of the first degree.
