The second guilty verdict in the case came more than two and a half years after the Burlington High School student was shot to death.

WASHINGTON, Iowa — Jaron "Wikked West" Purham was convicted Friday in Washington County District Court of first-degree murder in the death of Kedarie Johnson.

The six-woman, six-man jury came back with the guilty verdict at 12:45 p.m. Friday.

Johnson's mother, Katrina Johnson, wiped away tears as the verdict was read. Purham is the second man convicted in her son's death, more than two years after she last spoke to him. It was during a phone call Kedarie Johnson made before leaving Hy-Vee.

Purham did not raise his eyes as Des Moines County Sheriff's placed handcuffs on his wrists. He looked back toward a woman who had been sitting behind him in the courtroom throughout the majority of the nine-day trial before sheriff deputies took him led him out of the courtroom.

Des Moines County Attorney Amy Beavers and U.S. civil rights attorney Christopher Perras took turns hugging Katrina Johnson after Eighth Judicial District Judge Mary Ann Brown, who has been presiding over the trial, read the verdict and the jury left the courtroom. Iowa Assistant Attorney General Laura Roan, who assisted Beavers and Perras in the prosecution, was unable to be present for the verdict.

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Katrina Johnson said she is happy with the guilty verdict but declined further comment at this time.

"It's justice for Kedarie today, and his family," said Beavers, who has worked closely with Katrina Johnson throughout the past two years. "It's been a long road for her and her family. ... I’m very proud that our juries have come back with guilty verdicts in both cases and that we were able to get justice for her son and for her today."

Beavers will continue to work with Katrina Johnson and other family members as they work out the details of a victim impact statement that, if made, will be read at Purham's sentencing hearing at 3 p.m. Nov. 19 at the Des Moines County Courthouse.

Des Moines County Sheriff Mike Johnstone said Purham will be placed in a maximum-security setting appropriate for his conviction until his sentencing, likely in Lee County jail as the Des Moines County jail is full. Purham has been held at the Washington County jail throughout the duration of his trial. He has been in custody in lieu of a $2 million bond since he was charged with Johnson's murder in December 2016.

"I think it was exactly where they needed to be and it does give the family some resolution to this situation," Johnstone said. "I know it’ll never replace her son, but that’s what the jury came up with, and that’s exactly what they should have come up with."

Beavers said the verdict is not good only for Kedarie Johnson's family, but for Burlington and Des Moines County.

"Kedarie was very well-loved in our community," she said. "He’s one of us. He’s an Iowan. He’s from Des Moines County. Our community cared very deeply about him in this case."

Beavers, who is not running for another term as county attorney, said she thinks the case is representative of her time as county attorney.

"I’ve worked very hard fighting for victims in Des Moines County and this is, I think, one more example, but a very important example, of the good work that we do in the Des Moines County Attorney’s Office, and I will miss it and I will miss the people that I’ve worked with," she said.

Burlington Police Sgt. Eric Short, who was a lead investigator in Johnson's case, was happy to see law enforcement's work pay off.

"A lot of man hours and hard work from a lot of different agencies went into this," Short said."Throughout this entire thing, we’ve created contacts with and relationships with Katrina, Kedarie’s mom, and we’ll see her in town. And so this will be one thing that we’ll have in connection until the end of time. ... I was just happy for Katrina and her family. That’s her main goal and that was our main goal to get justice for Kedarie, and we achieved that."

Jurors entered deliberations Thursday afternoon after prosecuting and defense attorneys made their closing arguments. The state's arguments in Purham's case followed a similar line of testimony that was used to convict Jorge "Lumni" Sanders-Galvez in the same crime during his trial in November, but the jury that served in the Sanders-Galvez trial spent only about an hour in deliberations before delivering a guilty verdict. The six men and six women serving on Purham's jury, all off whom are Caucasian, took considerably longer in deciding Purham's guilt.

Beavers said she was not concerned when the jury did not return with a verdict Thursday, explaining the timing of when jurors were released into deliberations were different than in Sanders-Galvez's trial. She also said she thought them being able to go home and return in the morning with a fresh start to the day helped them decide on the verdict deliberately and correctly.

Perras, who also assisted with the prosecution of Sanders-Galvez, could not comment on the case, nor could he say whether Purham or Sanders-Galvez will be charged with a federal hate crime.

Kedarie Johnson, a 16-year-old junior at Burlington High School who was well-liked by his peers, frequently shifted his persona and dress between that of male and female. When he wanted to be female, he went by the name of Kandicee. He was found shot to death in an alleyway near Fourth and Walnut streets shortly after 11:30 p.m. March 2, 2016. He had been tortured and sexually assaulted before being killed by the two bullets that struck his chest after being shot from between two and three feet away. Either of them could have been fatal.

When police found his body lying in decorative grass alongside a garage, a plastic bag had been shoved in his mouth, a T-shirt had been tied around his mouth and chin in a mask-like fashion, and a bag had been placed over his head. Bleach had been poured over his body. Beneath the leggings Kedarie Johnson wore, his underwear had been pulled to the left, exposing his genitals.

His death did not meet the state of Iowa's criteria for a hate crime as Iowa law does not have protections against hate crimes based on gender identity. Sexual identity is a protected characteristic under federal law.

Prosecuting attorneys argued in both trials the co-defendants picked up Kedarie Johnson thinking he was a "pretty, petite female" with the intent of committing sexual acts with him and became enraged when they realized he was a male.

Though there was no direct evidence indicating the two picked him up with the intent of having a threesome, nor was there evidence suggesting more than one person sexually assaulted him, but there was enough circumstantial evidence to convince the jury the two were together during Kedarie Johnson's death and that Purham's involvement in Kedarie Johnson's death was done intentionally and with malice aforethought.

Prior to releasing jurors into deliberation, Brown instructed them to consider circumstantial evidence as having the same significance as hard evidence.

No DNA evidence directly connecting either Purham or Sanders-Galvez to the murder was recovered from Johnson's body. Purham's DNA was found on the .357-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver that was used to kill Kedarie Johnson. DNA from at least two other people also was present on the gun, but there was not enough material for it to be analyzed. The bullets recovered from Kedarie Johnson's body were not the same brand as the partially empty box of bullets recovered from the Chevy Impala Purham was driving when Purham was apprehended March 15 outside St. Louis.

Kedarie Johnson's backpack, which contained four bras, a T-shirt, his student ID and school-issued Chromebook, along with his shoes were recovered from the upstairs bedroom of the home at 2610 Madison Ave., where Purham and Sanders-Galvez, who split their time between Burlington and St. Louis, frequently stayed when they were in town.

The two's whereabouts between the last time Kedarie Johnson was seen alive shortly after 10 p.m. and the time his body was discovered in an alleyway near Fourth and Walnut streets shortly after 11:30 p.m., however, remain unclear.

Witness testimony and cellphone data presented throughout the trial provided a timeline of where Purham and Sanders-Galvez, who was convicted of first-degree murder in Johnson's death in November, were before and after Kedarie Johnson's death. Purham was unable to provide a solid alibi for that time period.

Throughout the trial, and especially in closing statements, Wapello County public defender Allen Cook III of Ottumwa argued the state had not provided sufficient evidence to convict Purham of being involved in Kedarie Johnson's death. Cook also accused Ryan Kedley, a special agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, of lying under oath during testimony he gave Thursday.

Beavers said she and her fellow prosecutors believe Kedley testified truthfully and consistently with the recorded interviews and that they likely will ask for a court's determination on witness credibility during Purham's sentencing hearing.

"Working with the defense team, we worked with them very closely, made sure that they had all of the discovery, all the information in the case, gave them exhibits ahead of time for the state’s exhibits, so I believe that we were very cordial and professional," she said. "I don’t know about any repercussions for Mr. Cook but we will certainly be challenging his allegations against Agent Kedley."

Short said he did not believe Kedley lied either.

Cook appeared to have left the courthouse after the trial.