Husband hired man to kill wife amid divorce in 2015, LA cops say. Now, 2 arrested
A husband hired a hitman to kill his wife during their divorce in 2015, then her body was found after two girls were kidnapped in Louisiana, authorities said.
A decade later, investigators have gathered enough evidence to arrest the husband, 70-year-old Charles Johnson, and the suspected gunman, 43-year-old Shannon Robinson, the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office announced Sept. 16.
Johnson is charged with first-degree murder and solicitation for murder, while Robinson is charged with first-degree murder, solicitation for murder and aggravated kidnapping, deputies said.
Johnson is accused of having Robinson fatally shoot his wife, 56-year-old Pamela Johnson, during a “divorce going bad,” District Attorney Joseph Waitz said during a Sept. 17 news conference broadcast by WDSU.
The murder-for-hire stemmed from a “domestic situation over community property,” Waitz said.
“He felt like he had to do away with her to protect his property, I believe,” the district attorney added. “That’s what we suspect.”
The morning of Dec. 1, 2015, two girls ages 7 and 10 went up to a woman and told her their aunt had been shot inside their home, and they had been kidnapped, deputies said in a news release.
The girls said the shooter put them in Pamela Johnson’s vehicle and fled the scene before abandoning the car with them inside, according to the sheriff’s office.
When deputies went to Pamela Johnson’s home, they reported finding her dead from a single gunshot wound to the head.
Detectives continued working the case for years, and in 2022, arrested Shannon Robinson, as well as another individual, but a grand jury didn’t end up indicting them at the time, Sheriff Tim Soignet said.
But three years later, new evidence came to light that led to the re-arrest of Robinson and the arrest of Johnson, although officials didn’t want to clarify what the evidence was.
The sheriff added further arrests are “probable.”
Terrebonne Parish is about a 60-mile drive southwest from New Orleans.
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 7:30 AM with the headline "Husband hired man to kill wife amid divorce in 2015, LA cops say. Now, 2 arrested."