Charges Dismissed In Charlotte Murder Case

CONCORD, N.C.,None — A Concord man was released from the Mecklenburg County Jail five years after being arrested on a murder charge.

Tim Crumitie spent the morning working on his lawn. One he last saw in 2005 when he was arrested and charged with the murder.

"All I know is I feel good to be out. I thank God for his blessings. That's all I can say about it," Crumitie said.

Just yesterday, prosecutors dismissed the murder charge against him that stemmed from the death of this friend and business partner Danny Johnson.

In June of 2005 Johnson was found shot to death on a boardwalk that runs near Mallard Creek Road.

Standing outside her home Friday afternoon, Johnson's wife, Tracey Johnson, told us she isn't happy about the dismissal.

"I don't like it at all because how can you keep a man locked up for five years and then let him go?" she said.

Prosecutors said they didn't want to let Crumitie go and spent five years with police running down every lead they could find. Police believe Johnson had just loaned Crumitie $5,000. Bank surveillance video at the time also appeared to show the cars of both men together just before the murder. New leads even developed in the last year.

But court documents filed this week explain why prosecutors felt they had to dismiss the charges. They wrote, "the investigations liead to ‘no physical evidence linking the defendant to the murder, unknown DNA on the victim and no murder weapon.'"

With Crumitie still in jail, prosecutors decided there was ‘insufficient evidence to go to trial'.

And so, a week shy of the five year anniversary of Danny Johnsons death, his once accused killer is back home. When Eyewitness News asked him if he'd ever killed anyone, Crumitie responded "I didn't. And that's all I can say."

The dismissal of the charges by prosecutors does not preclude them from charging Crumitie again if new evidence is found.

WSOC