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A Durham woman’s murder charge was dismissed last week, over six months after the prosecutor admitted he wasn’t sure she’d killed the victim — but the victim’s mother had to learn of the dismissal from The News & Observer.
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Patricia Ayers, 33, was initially charged with felony assault by strangulation in the December 2024 incident, then charged with murder after 41-year-old Mikel Johnson was taken off life support, The N&O previously reported. The case took a turn in February, when Superior Court Judge Shamieka Rhinehart reduced Ayers’ bail to $2,000 after Assistant District Attorney Mike Wallace said he didn’t have enough evidence of Ayers’ guilt.
“We believe that Ms. Ayers should be released,” Wallace said at the Feb. 4 bond hearing. “I have a duty to look at this fully.”
After Ayers’ first defense attorney left her law firm, the case was reassigned to the Durham County Public Defender’s Office, whose lawyers discovered holes in the narrative presented by Durham police.
A 911 call from Ayers’ minor relative proved pivotal. Chief Public Defender Dawn Baxton noted Johnson and the caller could be heard addressing someone else as though they were the person strangling Johnson, not Ayers. The caller provided another person’s identifying details as the offender, not Ayers’, but the child’s mother later refused to let him speak to police, Baxton said in February.
Another person present at the scene, Ayers’ aunt-in-law, had a history of strangulation, having been dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army for assaulting several officers in 2023, public records indicate. The N&O is not naming the aunt-in-law because she has not been charged with a crime.
Wallace admitted at the February hearing he’d had doubts, but signed Ayers’ indictment anyway, The N&O previously reported. It’s not clear why, and Wallace declined to comment Tuesday.
Ayers has been out on house arrest since February. Assistant District Attorney Maryam Al-Zoubi filed the notice of dismissal Friday morning, but the portion of the form where prosecutors can explain the dismissal was left blank, court records show.
Baxton and District Attorney Satana Deberry had not responded to requests for comment from The N&O as of Tuesday afternoon.
Johnson’s mother, Mary Patterson-Johnson, was shocked to learn of the charge’s dismissal Tuesday.
She told The N&O no one had notified her of the dismissal. A Durham Police Department investigator had told her prosecutors were preparing the case for a grand jury indictment, she said.
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“For them to let her out is a slap in our face with no justice,” Patterson-Johnson said. “He didn’t do his job effectively. There’s no justice for us by letting a murderer walk around.”
Patterson-Johnson still believes Ayers is responsible, she said.
“They’re talking about what they could provide,” she said. “My son is dead. That’s proof enough. He was murdered.”
Mikel Johnson was a “loving, giving” father of 11 — six biological children and five adopted, his mother said. Her son never knew a stranger, always eager to feed and clothe anyone in need, she told The N&O.
“He loved everybody he came in contact with,” Patterson-Johnson said. “He just embraces everybody. He is like his grandma; they just don’t see any wrong in anyone.”
Johnson was a tattoo artist and certified horticulturist who once owned a landscaping company in Chapel Hill with his grandfather, his mother said. The eldest of three, he welcomed more than just blood relatives into the family, introducing Patterson-Johnson to at least 10 adoptive siblings she now considers godchildren.
“He was like the big brother of all of them,” she said. “They still check in on me, making sure everything’s OK.”
Though charging documents described Ayers as Johnson’s girlfriend, Patterson-Johnson disputed that; her son had turned Ayers down, she said.
“We all could tell that he really wasn’t trying to be bothered with this girl,” Patterson-Johnson said. “He was trying to help her.”
She’d warned him against further interactions with Ayers, and Johnson’s friends had, too, according to Patterson-Johnson. But he went over to Ayers’ home Dec. 7, 2024, for a birthday celebration; Ayers’ birthday is listed in court documents in Dec. 31, but Patterson-Johnson said Ayers told Johnson it was her birthday.
Regardless of whose birthday it was, Johnson would’ve wanted that person to feel celebrated, because birthdays were a big deal in the Johnson family, his mother said.
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“He died for no reason,” she said.
This story was originally published September 8, 2026 at 3:05 PM.