Man charged with shooting woman in neck

A Charlottesville man has been charged with shooting a woman in the neck at a Waynesboro apartment complex Sunday night.
Police arrested James Carson Johnson, 34, of Prospect Ave., Charlottesville, on three felony charges in the shooting late Sunday in the 1000 block of 10th Street in the Winchester Garden apartments in Waynesboro.
Police on Monday declined to identify the 42-year-old victim, who was transported to Augusta Medical Center and then flown to the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville. Investigators have spoken with the woman there, police said. She was in critical but stable condition Monday, Waynesboro police Sgt. Kelly Walker said.
“She was alert enough to answer questions,” Walker said.
Three to four minutes after witnesses identified Johnson as the shooter, police spotted his car east of Waynesboro on Route 250 on Afton Mountain, Walker said. Officers stopped him near Interstate 64 at the top of the mountain and arrested him without incident.
Officers found a semi-automatic handgun, which Johnson had thrown from his vehicle along the shoulder of Route 250 about a half-mile from where he was arrested, police said.
Police arrived at the apartment at 10:45 p.m. Initial reports stated that the woman – Johnson’s girlfriend, according to police – was shot in the head, and that she may have been shot twice. Police on Monday said that wasn’t the case.
Walker said the lone bullet entered her neck and likely traveled a downward path, though police have yet to ascertain the path the bullet took.
Walker declined to say whether witnesses heard or saw the shooting.
Johnson was jailed for 30 days — 26 suspended — placed on six months’ unsupervised probation and fined $100 in June on a misdemeanor charge of obstructing justice in Waynesboro General District Court in a Dec. 4, 2007, incident, according to court records.
He also has been found guilty of numerous misdemeanor traffic offenses, such as driving under suspension, in Waynesboro and Albemarle County, according to court records.
Johnson is scheduled to appear in Waynesboro General District Court later this week for an advisement hearing on charges of aggravated malicious wounding, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a felon.
He is currently being held without bond at the Middle River Regional Jail.