They made a drug deal through an app. Paying with fake cash proved fatal, police say

Fake money used during a marijuana buy last month sparked the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old outside a west Fort Worth motel, according to court documents.

Kourtney Johnson, 26, admitted to police that he’d negotiated to sell an ounce of marijuana for $200 to who he believed was a woman, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

The deal was made over a social media app known as “High Five,” he told homicide investigators.

But during the drug buy at the Drummers Inn motel at 7312 Camp Bowie West on July 27, the woman handed him two suspicious $100 bills.

“Johnson said that the money did not feel right,” homicide Detective Matt Barron wrote in the affidavit. “He turned the bills over and they had some sort of Chinese symbol on the back.”

Johnson said he chased the woman, who had walked away from the car, but she got away.

But police say Johnson fatally shot the buyer, actually an 18-year-old man named Jaimone Joubert who had been dressed as a woman.

Johnson was charged Wednesday with murder in Joubert’s death, court records show.

Video of encounter

Surveillance video from the complex captured some of the encounter, according to the affidavit.

The video showed Joubert getting into the passenger seat of a car that had pulled into the parking lot, the car’s interior light coming on, followed by some type of transaction inside the car.

Joubert then got out and walked quickly away, the affidavit states.

“The male in the driver’s seat appears to be frantically shuffling around inside of the car,” Barron wrote in describing the video. “He exits the vehicle with what appears to be a pistol in hand and begins chasing the victim around the motel parking lot.”

Witnesses told police they saw the chase and subsequent shooting.

Joubert was pronounced dead at the scene from a gunshot wound to the chest.

A bag of what appeared to be marijuana was found in the parking lot north of his body, the affidavit states.

Suspect emerges

Johnson was identified after Barron and Detective Tom O’Brien tracked the telephone number that Joubert had been last in contact with to Johnson.

Through the Dallas Police Department, the detectives also learned that Johnson drove a Ford Crown Victoria. They tracked the Crown Victoria to a Dallas apartment, where they found a car similar to the one in the surveillance video.

In an interview with detectives on July 29, Johnson initially said he was in Dallas on the night of the murder.

When he heard about the surveillance video, he changed his story. He admitted to the drug transaction but denied having a gun or shooting Joubert, the affidavit states.

He remained in the Tarrant County Jail Monday with bail set at $100,000.

Deanna Boyd: 817-390-7655, @deannaboyd

This story was originally published August 6, 2018 at 11:15 AM.