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Sarah
Marie JOHNSON |
Sixteen-year-old Sarah Johnson was arrested on Oct. 29, 2003, in
Blaine County, Idaho, and charged
with two counts of first-degree
murder for the shooting deaths of her parents, Diane and Alan
Johnson. One week after her 18th birthday, she went on trial at the
Ada County Courthouse.
Diane and Alan Johnson were found dead in their bedroom on Sept.
2, 2003. Diane Johnson was
still under the covers, dead from a
gunshot to the head. Alan Johnson lay dead on the floor
next to the
bed from a gunshot wound to the chest. He was still wet from the
shower,
which was still running.
The weekend before the shooting, Sarah was staying in the guest
house behind her family home
in the affluent suburb of Bellevue. She
was being punished after her parents discovered she had
spent the
night with her boyfriend, Bruno Santos, an undocumented Mexican
immigrant.
While the tenant who rented the guest house above the family's
garage was away for the weekend,
Sarah hatched a plot to use his gun
to shoot her parents, prosecutors claim.
The shower in the master bedroom was still running when
investigators arrived at the scene,
leading authorities to believe
that Alan Johnson had been shot as he emerged from the
shower before
stumbling into his bedroom and falling to the floor.
Police discovered a bloody scene in Diane and Alan Johnson's
bedroom. They likened
the gunshot to Diane's head to an explosion.
The Johnsons were a well-known family in Bellevue, a town of
2,115. Alan was part owner of
a successful landscaping company, and
Diane had recently started working for a financial
firm after a long
tenure at a medical clinic.
Police believe Alan Johnson was shot in the chest as he was
exiting the shower, but stumbled
into the bedroom and knocked over
furniture before dropping to the ground next to the bed,
where his
wife lay dead from a gunshot to the head.
This cross was hanging in the master bedroom before the shootings
and was later found on the floor.
Police theorize the cross fell
from the wall in the master bedroom when Alan Johnson stumbled
out
of the bathroom toward his wife.
Investigators who discovered the Johnsons' bodies believe Diane
died instantly from the gunshot
to her head. They believe Alan
Johnson was shot in the bathroom and got as far as the bed
before
dropping to the ground, where he bled to death.
Detectives found a knife from the Johnsons' kitchen lying on the
bed in the guest bedroom
of the main house. Two more knives, lying
point-to-point, were found on the floor of the
master bedroom.
Blaine County Sheriff J. Walt Femling testified that the knives
played no
role in their deaths, but were placed there to distract
police into pursuing the possibility
that the murders were
gang-related.
According to one jailhouse informant who bunked with Sarah as she
awaited trial, the defendant
claimed the three knives police found
in the master and guest bedrooms signified the number
of intended
victims. Sarah said the number of knives indicated that she was the
next victim.
In the guesthouse behind the Johnson home where family friend Mel
Speegle stayed, police found
the scope belonging to the murder
weapon, a .264 Winchester Magnum rifle. Speegle testified
that when
he left his home for Labor Day weekend before the shooting occurred,
the scope
was on the rifle, which he stored in his closet.
Police searched the guesthouse where tenant Mel Speegle lived and
where Sarah spent the
weekend before the shooting. Speegle testified
that he did not lock up his guns or
ammunition, but hid them in his
closet under piles of clothes.
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