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#Post#: 602--------------------------------------------------
~ Johnny Johnson, 01Aug23, (MO) ~
By: BuzzC Date: July 19, 2023, 7:51 pm
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Execution date set for man convicted in Missouri girl’s 2002
murder--
Friday, April 21st, 2023
[IMG]
HTML https://fox4kc.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2023/04/AP23110694916856.jpg?w=876&h=493&crop=1[/img]
This undated photo provided by the Missouri Department of
Corrections shows Johnny Johnson. The Missouri Supreme Court on
Friday, June 9, 2023, has turned aside an appeal by Johnson, who
is scheduled to be executed in August for killing a 7-year-old
girl.
ST. LOUIS — The Missouri Supreme Court has ordered an execution
date for a man convicted in a St. Louis-area girl’s murder from
two decades ago.
A St. Louis-based jury found Johnny Johnson guilty of
first-degree murder and other criminal charges in the July 2002
death of 7-year-old Cassandra “Casey” Williamson.
Last year, the State of Missouri filed a motion to set an
execution date. On Thursday, the state ordered the execution for
6 p.m. on Aug. 1, 2023.
The execution will happen under the supervision and direction of
the director of the Missouri Department of Corrections.
In 2005, a judge sentenced Johnson to the death penalty for the
murder conviction and consecutive life sentences for the other
crimes (armed criminal action, kidnapping, and attempted
forcible ****).
However, Johnson remains on death row at Potosi Correctional
Center in Mineral Point, Missouri, following a 2012 attempt to
overturn that sentence.
According to sister station KTVI’s recent in-depth report on the
case, Casey and her family were staying at a friend’s house on
Thursday, July 25, 2002, located across the street from their
own home. Johnson, described as a family acquaintance, also
spent the night at that home.
The following morning, Casey’s father, Ernie Williamson, woke
before 7 a.m. to see his daughter standing in the living room
with Johnson. When Ernie came back from the restroom, both Casey
and Johnny were gone.
Sometime after Casey had been reported missing, two county
police officers found Johnson walking down the street near the
home where everyone had been staying. According to then-St.
Louis County Police Chief Ron Battelle, Johnson was soaking wet.
Police took Johnson into custody as the search continued.
Later on, volunteers searched the site of the old St. Louis
Plate Glass Company, finding Casey’s body in a pit, less than a
mile away from her home.
Missouri has carried out two executions so far in 2023: Amber
McLaughlin on Jan. 3 and Leonard Taylor on Feb. 7.
8)
#Post#: 605--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Johnny Johnson, 01Aug23, (MO) ~
By: BuzzC Date: August 1, 2023, 7:27 pm
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Missouri man executed for 2002 abduction and killing of
6-year-old girl--
Tuesday, August 1st, 2023
A man who abducted a 6-year-old Missouri girl and beat her to
death at an abandoned factory decades ago was put to death
Tuesday evening, shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a
request to block the lethal injection over arguments he was
mentally incompetent.
Johnny Johnson, 45, received a a lethal dose of pentobarbital at
a state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6:33
p.m. CDT, authorities said. He was convicted of the July 2002
killing of Casey Williamson in the small St. Louis area suburb
of Valley Park.
Johnson had expressed remorse in a brief handwritten statement
released by the Department of Corrections hours before the
execution.
“God Bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt,” Johnson’s
statement said.
The U.S. Supreme Court, with three justices dissenting, said
earlier in an emailed statement that it was rejecting the
request to stay the execution plans. Justice Sonia Sotomayor was
joined by two other justices in the dissent.
In recent appeals, Johnson’s attorneys have said the inmate has
had delusions about the devil using his death to bring about the
end of the world.
“The Court today paves the way to execute a man with documented
mental illness before any court meaningfully investigates his
competency to be executed,” Sotomayor and the other dissenting
justices wrote in a statement when the stay was rejected by the
wider court. "There is no moral victory in executing someone who
believes Satan is killing him to bring about the end of the
world."
The girl's disappearance from her hometown of Valley Park on
July 26, 2002, had set off a frantic search before her body was
ultimately found.
Casey’s mother had been best friends in childhood with Johnson’s
older sister and had even helped babysit him. After Johnson
attended a barbecue the night before the killing, Casey's family
let him sleep on a couch in the home where they also were
sleeping.
In the morning, Johnson lured the girl — still in her nightgown
— to the abandoned factory, even carrying her on his shoulders
on the walk to the dilapidated site, according to court
documents. When he tried to sexually assault her, Casey screamed
and tried to break free, they said. He then killed her with a
brick and a large rock, then washed off in the nearby Meramec
River. Johnson confessed that same day to the crimes, according
to authorities.
After a search involving first responders and volunteers,
Casey's body was found in a pit less than a mile (kilometer)
from her home, buried beneath rocks and debris.
At Johnson's trial, defense lawyers had presented testimony
showing that their client — an ex-convict who had been released
from a state psychiatric facility six months before the crime —
had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication and was acting
strangely in the days before the slaying.
In June, the Missouri Supreme Court denied an appeal seeking to
block the execution on arguments that Johnson had schizophrenia
that prevented him from understanding the link between his crime
and the punishment. The Missouri Attorney General’s Office
successfully challenged the credibility of the psychiatric
evaluation and said medical records indicate that Johnson was
able to manage his mental illness through medication.
A three-judge federal appeals court panel last week temporary
halted the planned execution, but the full 8th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals reinstated it. Johnson's attorneys then filed
appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court centered around his competency
to be executed.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson on Monday denied a clemency request to
reduce Johnson's sentence to life in prison. “Johnny Johnson’s
crime is one of the most horrific murders that has come across
my desk," Parson, a former sheriff, said in a statement.
The clemency petition by Johnson's attorneys said Casey's
father, Ernie Williamson, opposed the death penalty.
But Casey's great aunt, Della Steele, wrote an emotional plea to
the governor urging that the execution go forward to “send the
message that it is not okay to terrorize and murder a child.”
Steele said in the message that the grief from Casey's death led
to destructive effects among other family members.
“He did something horrible. He took a life away from a
completely innocent child, and there have to be consequences for
that,” Steele said, speaking with The Associated Press.
The execution was the 16th in the U.S. this year. In addition to
three previous executions in Missouri, five have been conducted
in Texas, four in Florida, two in Oklahoma and one in Alabama.
There were 18 executions in six U.S. states last year.
8)
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