An ex-con who has been held up as a model of rehabilitation after his release from prison has been arrested on charges of murdering and dismembering a prison rival.

Sheldon Johnson, who works as a counselor for at-risk youth in the Queens, NY, public defender's office, was charged with murder, manslaughter, and criminal possession of a weapon on Thursday in the killing of Collin Small, 44, inside the victim’s Bronx apartment. According to reports, Smalls and Johnson were in Sing Sing prison at the same time, and it is believed that there was animosity between them.

Johnson was released from prison in May after serving 25 years of a 50-year sentence for attempted murder and assorted other offenses. You can read his public plea to New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg for clemency. Here he is on Joe Rogan's show, explaining how he went to jail.

Early Tuesday, police received a 911 call reporting gunshots in an apartment and asking the police to make a welfare check on the tenant. By the way, this whole account reminded me of why I don't like living in apartments.

At least one neighbor told the police she heard two shots from inside a sixth-floor apartment, according to an internal police report. Moments later, she heard a person shout, “Please don’t, I have a family!”

Then, she told the police, two more gunshots rang out, followed by silence.

Shortly after hearing the shots, the neighbor saw a man carrying bags and cleaning supplies walk in and out of the apartment, according to the police reports. The neighbor did not recognize the man, and told the building superintendent, Orlando Medina, what she had heard and seen.

Minutes before calling the police, Mr. Medina thought to check the security camera footage.

“I thought, Let me see what I see,” Mr. Medina said in a phone interview.

When he looked at the footage, Mr. Medina saw a man walking in and out of the apartment. He noticed that the man had changed clothes several times: At one point, he was wearing a dark jacket, khaki pants and a plaid golf cap, and carting a plastic blue storage bin on wheels. At another point, he was wearing a light jacket and a fisherman’s hat, holding two bags. On a third occasion, he wore a dark puffy coat, sunglasses and a blonde wig.

“I thought, I don’t know who this man is, but he is coming in and out with a key, like he owns the place,” he said.

Mr. Medina said he also saw the victim, Mr. Small, walk into the apartment around 10 p.m., but he never saw him leave. Mr. Medina called 911 for a wellness check.

Police visited the apartment and talked to Johnson, who was still at the scene. After looking at security camera video and, I presume, talking to the ever-helpful Mr. Medina, police obtained a search warrant for Small's apartment.

Once the detectives obtained a warrant to search the apartment, they discovered the victim’s torso and feet inside the bin, the reports said. They also found his legs, arms and head in the freezer. Mr. Small had been shot at least once in the head.

Here, you can see a couple of images of Johnson in various disguises outside the murder scene.

Sheldon Johnson, a 48-year-old former gang member and advocate for criminal justice reform, (And whom appeared on Joe Rogan show) was arrested on March 7, 2024, after a dismembered body was found in a Bronx apartment.

The discovery was made during a wellness check at the… pic.twitter.com/JyF0uYDVwL

— 4ortunefame💰👑💰 (@4ortunefame) March 8, 2024

There is no doubt that our criminal justice system is far from perfect. As someone whose name escapes me once put it, "It's not a system, and it has nothing to do with justice, but it is criminal." That said, sometimes the reason people draw long prison sentences for a very good reason that has nothing to do with systemic racism or bad lawyers. 

We want to believe in rehabilitation and redemption, but we also have to realize that the patterns of behavior and personality traits that send a man to prison for several decades are rarely made better by incarceration. We should be surprised that a man who drew a 50-year sentence for violent crimes killed someone in the same way that we would be shocked that a poisonous snake bit someone. Johnson's father was a career criminal. Johnson's son served an 18-month sentence in a juvenile facility for beating a Columbia grad student to death. Johnson was involved in gang activity in prison. I'm not making a case for inherited criminality, but this indicates that Johnson's criminal tendencies were pretty well baked in and very unlikely to change.

How much risk are we willing to inflict upon society so we can feel good about ourselves?