Vincent Johnson was born on January 6, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Very little is publicly known about his early childhood, family background, or education. However, he spent his adult life living on the streets of Brooklyn, surviving as a homeless man in neighborhoods such as Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant.

By the late 1990s, Johnson was known among local sex workers and drug users as a small, wiry man standing just 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighing 130 pounds. He frequently used crack cocaine, often sharing drugs with others who lived rough in the same areas. According to acquaintances, he had a disturbing obsession with sadomasochistic sex, and often expressed violent or degrading views toward women, particularly toward those involved in prostitution.

Between the summers of 1999 and 2000, a series of murders of prostitutes occurred in the Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods of Brooklyn. Police began their investigation by detaining a homeless man, among others, but he was cleared as a suspect after DNA testing. The man later helped detectives identify Vincent Johnson, another homeless man known to frequent the area.

Johnson initially refused to give a DNA sample and denied knowing the victims. However, police collected his saliva from the street, which matched the DNA found on four of the victims. He later confessed to killing five women: Patricia Sullivan, Rhonda Tucker, Joanne Feliciano, Vivian Caraballo, and Laura Nusser. All the women had histories of prostitution and addiction. He was also considered a suspect in the murder of a sixth woman, Katrina Niles, but maintained his innocence regarding her death.

Johnson claimed that he acted out of hatred for his mother. He had a pattern in the killings, as three of the victims were killed on Thursdays. Johnson had a specific reason for this choice, connecting it to his feelings toward his mother’s day off from work.

During his confessions, Johnson showed little remorse for his actions. He stated that he did not see anything wrong in strangling the women and even expressed some regret only after killing his first victim. All his victims were strangled, using items like shoelaces, electrical wires, or other ligatures that were available at the time. He left the bodies in the locations where they died, failing to hide them.

After his arrest, Johnson received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He is currently imprisoned at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York.