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Roger Leroy JOHNSON
Classification: Mass murderer
Characteristics:
Revenge
Number of victims: 4
Date of murders:
May 15,
2001
Date of birth: 1953
Victims profile: Pearl Burks, 48, and her grandchildren Ashley Burks, 6,
Bobby Burks, 4, and Mikhala Burks, 5
Method of murder:
Shooting
Location: Lodi, California, USA
Status: Committed suicide on May 19, 2001 atop his late wife's
grave . He had cut the main artery in at least one arm
Roger
Leroy Johnson,
a man suspected of killing a grandmother and three children took his own
life atop his late wife's grave on May 19, 2001.
Police found Roger Leroy Johnson, 48, lying face-down at the Vherokee
Memorial Park & Funeral Home. He had cut the main artery in at least one
arm, police said.
Johnson was accused of killing Pearl Burks, 48, and her grandchildren
Ashley Burks, 6, Bobby Burks, 4, and Mikhala Burks, 5, at a home just
southeast of Stockton.
Authorities said Johnson, armed with a handgun and knife, attacked the
family because he was upset over a breakup with Rhonda Burks, Pearl
Burks' daughter.
California murder suspect takes own life at wife's
grave
May 19, 2001
A California man suspected of killing a woman and her
three grandchildren committed suicide Saturday atop his late wife's
grave. Police found Roger Leroy Johnson, 48, lying face down at the
Cherokee Memorial Park & Funeral Home on Saturday morning. He raised an
arm and threw a grenade at officers and then collapsed again.
Murder Suspect Kills Himself on Wife's Grave
Los Angeles Times
May 20, 2001
The man suspected of killing a grandmother and three
children took his own life Saturday atop his late wife's grave. Police
found Roger Leroy Johnson, 48, lying face-down at the Vherokee Memorial
Park & Funeral Home. He had cut the main artery in at least one arm,
police said.
Johnson on Tuesday was accused of killing Pearl Burks,
48, and her grandchildren Ashley Burks, 6, Bobby Burks, 4, and Mikhala
Burks, 5, at a home just southeast of Stockton. Authorities said Johnson,
armed with a handgun and knife, attacked the family because he was upset
over a breakup with Rhonda Burks, Pearl Burks' daughter.
3 kids, grandmother slain in Stockton
Former boyfriend of children's mom hunted
By Mark Martin - SFgate.com
Wednesday, May 16, 2001
Three young children and their grandmother were shot
to death yesterday at a rural Stockton home and a terrified 10-year-old
boy escaped the killer to call 911, San Joaquin County Sheriff's
officials said.
Law enforcement officers were conducting a
statewide search last night for the man they believe pulled the
trigger: an ex-boyfriend of the mother of three of the four
children. Police said the killings took place as the woman was at
a courthouse attempting to file a restraining order against the
suspect, identified as 48-year-old Roger Leroy Johnson of
Stockton.
Dispatchers received a call from a boy about 4:15
p.m. who said he had just fled a house on East Carpenter Road, a
residential street adjacent to farmland.
The boy was calling from a neighbor's home.
"He said there were people dead and the killer chased
him out of the house, " said sheriff's Deputy Joe Herrera. "He is very
distraught."
Deputies arrived to find an elderly woman, a 7-year
girl, a 5-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy all dead of gunshot wounds,
Herrera said. Two of the bodies were in the backyard, while the other
two were in the house.
The two girls were sisters and the boy was a cousin,
Herrera said. The woman was the grandmother of all the children. The boy
who escaped is the brother of the two girls.
Names of the children and woman, along with the
woman's age, were not released last night.
Investigators said Johnson dated the childrens'
mother. Herrera said Johnson was not the father of any of the children.
Johnson was believed to be driving a maroon Chevrolet
pickup with California license plate number 6H56849. A neighbor of the
crime scene said she had seen the pickup at the home at least once
before.
He is described as 5-foot-6, 180 pounds, with blue
eyes and slicked-back brown hair. He is missing four fingers and has
only a thumb on his right hand.
The childrens' mother had left the children at home
with their grandmother yesterday afternoon while she went to the San
Joaquin County Courthouse in downtown Stockton to get the restraining
order. She had been notified of the shootings and was taken to a safe
place and reunited with her surviving son, police said.
Herrera said investigators were still determining the
extent of the relationship between the two, and he did not know if the
couple had a history of domestic violence.
As investigators searched the bloody crime scene at
the one-story stucco home, neighbors who live along the road were
shocked at the violence.
"This is terrible. No one does anything on this
street," said Nancy Abdullah, who has lived on East Carpenter Road for
20 years. The road is a half-mile southeast of Stockton city limits and
close to Highway 99. "This is the kind of street where people can leave
their doors unlocked."
Roger Leroy Johnson
San Joaquin County Sheriff's deputy Chris Jimenez
attempts to comfort an unidentified woman who had children at the scene
of a quadruple murder
in which
a grandmother and three small children were murdered.
(AP Photo by Joan Barnett Lee, Modesto Bee)
A San Joaquin Sheriff's deputy stands guard behind
crime scene tape in front of a rural Stockton home where four people
were murdered.
(AP Photo by Michael McCollum, The Record)
