John Jefferson
Inset: Joanne Johnson (Obituary). Background: The Augusta home where she was killed (Kansas Bureau of Investigation).
A heartbroken son. Wholly baffling cruelty weighing down the loss. A placid community riven by gruesome, seemingly senseless violence. New details were revealed this week in the mysterious death of a nonagenarian Kansas woman who authorities believe was murdered by two teenage girls in her own home on Labor Day weekend last year.
Joanne Johnson, 93, was slain by two 13-year-old girls, according to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation. The accused did not know the woman they allegedly killed. To this day, the motive remains elusive.
On Tuesday, Johnson’s family revealed that she was beaten — not chopped — to death with a hatchet. The violence was so excessive the victim’s distinguishing physical features had all but disappeared.
“I still think that it’s a safe neighborhood and a safe town, but when we walked in, she was literally unrecognizable,” the deceased’s son said in comments to Hutchinson-based CBS affiliate KWCH. “If we hadn’t seen her tennis shoes, I wouldn’t have recognized who she was.”
And her killer or killers had not been in search of cash or valuables. Law enforcement found no evidence of a robbery.
On the day of the killing, Johnson’s son first called her on the phone, he told the TV station. She didn’t answer; he didn’t worry; her old age and hearing issues kept her away from the phone at times. Then, he and his wife rode their bicycles over to the house on Robbins Street where Johnson had lived for nearly 70 years. Inside, pure horror.
“It’s not something that you imagine,” her son continued in comments to KWCH. “My mom was just a couple of weeks shy of 94 years old.”
Johnson had two sons with her husband. Her obituary says the avid fan of Jayhawks basketball graduated high school in 1947, went on to work as a secretary at Boeing, got married years later, had children, “dedicated her life to her family, and had an unmatched amount of love and pride in her” five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Investigators puzzled over the grim crime for nearly a year. And the sheer savageness caused consternation at the highest levels.
In April, Sunflower State Gov. Laura Kelly went so far as to issue an executive order offering $5,000 for information leading to final justice in the case. Last month, two 14-year-old girls were arrested on charges of murder in the first degree; their identities seemingly obscured in accord with state laws that prohibit juveniles under the age of 14 from being prosecuted as adults. Both of the alleged killers were 13 years old at the time of the murder last September.
The apparently relevant statute in Kansas law reads: “No juvenile less than 14 years of age shall be prosecuted as an adult.”
Still, the victim’s son believes there is an interpretation of the law that would allow the alleged murderers to be charged as adults.
“We’re reconciling two facts that we do know: This was an unbelievably, heinous, brutal murder and the fact it’s two juveniles, that statutes allow them to be charged as adults and that’s what we want to see happen,” her son told KWCH in a separate interview.
In late August, the girls were formally charged with murder by Butler County prosecutors. During an arraignment, a judge ordered the defendants to remain detained in different juvenile facilities.
Under the presumption current law precludes the girls from being charged and tried as adults, the longest possible sentence would result in each defendant remaining behind bars in one of Kansas’ two juvenile correctional facilities until they are 22-and-a-half years old.
Authorities did not reveal how the teenage suspects came to the forefront of the statewide investigation — and likely cannot do so; another consequence of the protective and stringent juvenile criminal code.
For now, the public will have to continue relying on the victim’s family for much of any news on the case. A judge recently denied a media request to release the probable cause affidavit for the girls’ arrest.
Law&Crime’s Matt Naham contributed to this report.
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