Reprint From: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 04/07/05

 

Why tattoo artists died still a mystery

Pair linked in death appear to have been strangers in life

 

Adrian Pless grew up in south DeKalb County as a kid with a taste for flamboyant things — he customized his first automobile with red velvet — and a sense that the world could barely wait for his next business venture, whether it was producing a TV show or opening a tattoo studio. "He was always saying to me, 'Mom, there's so much out there,' " said his mother, Delores Tolbert.

 

Brarkus Johnson grew up on the other side of the country, in Cheyenne, Wyo. He went to religious boarding school in Mississippi and moved to metro Atlanta in 1998 to attend art school.

 

A quiet, devout kid, Johnson played basketball. His size — about 6 feet tall, and skinny — and creaky knees convinced him his future was not in sports. So he, like Pless, made a living as a tattoo artist.

 

On the night of March 12, the lives of Pless, 30, and Johnson, 25, crossed. Twenty minutes later, both were dead.

 

Johnson allegedly murdered Pless while Pless was working at Notorious Tattoos, the studio Pless owned on Memorial Drive in Stone Mountain.

 

Adrian “Dez” Pless

Brarkus Johnson

 

 

DeKalb County police shot and killed Johnson a few minutes later after arresting him because he matched the description of the man who shot Pless.

 

Johnson was handcuffed and in the back seat of a squad car when, according to police, he pulled out a hidden pistol and began firing. Police returned fire, killing him.

 

Almost three weeks later, exactly what happened that night remains a mystery.

 

Police are investigating the slaying of Pless, awaiting ballistics tests to see if the bullet that killed him was fired by the gun in Johnson's possession, and trying to determine how it was that Johnson had a gun after being arrested, handcuffed and put in a squad car.

 

The families of the slain men, meanwhile, say they are at a loss to explain why Johnson would have shot Pless. There is no indication that the men were acquainted, although both were tattoo artists working in close proximity, and Johnson apparently was familiar with Pless' business.

 

Brarkus Johnson's cousin, Dwayne Johnson, said he doesn't know if Brarkus knew Adrian Pless. He does know that, for two years, Brarkus Johnson had run a tattoo business out of his apartment, which is about two miles from Pless' tattoo studio.

 

"He was doing tattoos for a lower price than Notorious," said Johnson, showing a reporter a photo album of his cousin's work.

 

The police incident report suggests that Johnson and Pless knew each other. According to the report, Minita Tanner, who was Pless' fiancée, was working at Notorious Tattoos the night of the shooting and witnessed the murder.

 

She told police the shooter walked into the studio in the 5800 block of Memorial Drive about 9 p.m., approached Pless from behind and shot him in the back of the head.

 

She told police the shooter said, 'Where is the other guy? I won't shoot.' "

 

Police won't comment on the investigation or the alleged shooter's cryptic comment. Tanner and Pless' mother and father also declined to comment on what they know about the police investigation. They said they have no evidence Pless and Johnson knew each other.

 

Parents baffled

 

Johnson's mother, Elaine Johnson, who lives in Alaska, and his father, Robert Johnson, who lives in Germany, did not know their son had been killed until his name was reported in the press.

 

Robert Johnson, a retired captain in the Air Force, has knocked on doors and talked to police, neighbors and friends of his son to fathom why Brarkus might have killed a man and then been killed by police.

 

He said Brarkus had never been arrested before, never used drugs as far as he knew, and never owned a gun.

 

"I could take the death of my child if it were something like an automobile accident," Johnson said. "Those things happen. But this — getting killed by police? That just leaves me numb."

 

The last Robert Johnson heard from Brarkus was in a letter dated Jan. 19. He wrote that he was trying to finish school to start his own business, but times were tough.

 

"The tattoo business has been slow for months," he wrote. "I have really been struggling to make ends meet."

 

He asked his father to send money to help buy books.

 

But, in February, with only 17 credits needed to graduate from Georgia State University, Johnson dropped out of school, sold his car and decided to make his tattoo business full time.

 

Elaine Johnson said she planned to move to Atlanta from Anchorage to help her son open a tattoo salon in Lithonia. She said she talked to Brarkus a couple of days before he died and he sounded optimistic about their plans.

 

But one of Johnson's best friends, Sherwood Pull, remembers it differently. A week before he was killed, Johnson gave Pull a tattoo on his arm, his nickname "Wood," surrounded by flames.

 

That day, the last day he saw Johnson, Pull said Johnson seemed distant, depressed.

 

"He talked different than usual," Pull said. "I don't know how to describe it, but he talked like a person who didn't have long to live."

 

Pull said Johnson often talked about Notorious Tattoos, but he can't remember him mentioning Adrian Pless, and "whenever he talked about Notorious it wasn't anything negative."

 

One of Pless' friends, Tony Cade, who runs the Dragon's Horde comic book and game store in the shopping center where Johnson was arrested and shot by police, said he never heard Pless mention Johnson, either.

 

As far as Cade knows, nobody had a grudge against Pless. "He was a gentle, generous and loving man," Cade said. "It angers me that people are making a big deal about the police shooting. Well, he [Pless' killer] just walked up and murdered a man. And even if you don't believe that, what was he doing with a gun shooting at police?"

 

A happy time of life

 

The night of the shootings, Cade said, he saw Johnson on the sidewalk outside his door just before he was arrested by police.

 

"He came by here and tried the door, but it was locked, so he kept going," Cade said.

 

The family of Pless said he was as happy as at any time in life at the time of his death. He was engaged to marry Tanner and had just finished producing a pilot for a TV show, "Tatted Reality," about the tattoo industry. "He had already begun to talk to Home Box Office about the show, and they were interested in seeing it once it was finished," Tanner said.

 

Pless' mother, Delores Tolbert, said simply: "I do not understand why anybody would shoot my son."

 

Robert Johnson is equally at a loss. He said he named his son Brarkus from the Swahili name "Brakari," which means "of noble promise." He said he thinks a man "lives up to the grandeur" of his name. Until Brarkus' death, he said, he believes his son did.