A heartbroken son. The loss is weighed down by incomprehensible harshness. A peaceful town shattered by gruesome, seemingly mindless violence. New information was released this week about the unexplained death of a nonagenarian Kansas woman, who investigators suspect was murdered by two adolescent girls in her own home over Labor Day weekend last year.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation reports that two 13-year-old girls killed Joanne Johnson, 93. The defendants had no prior knowledge of the victim they allegedly murdered. The motive is still unknown.
Johnson’s relatives announced on Tuesday that she was beaten to death with a hatchet rather than chopped. The victim’s distinguishing physical characteristics had almost vanished due to the extent of the trauma. “I still think that it’s a safe neighborhood and a safe town, but when we walked in, she was unrecognizable,” the deceased’s son told Hutchinson CBS station KWCH. “If we hadn’t seen her tennis shoes, I wouldn’t have recognized who she was.”
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Her killer or killers were not looking for money or possessions. Police discovered no proof of a robbery.
Johnson’s son informed the TV station that he called her first on the day of the killing. She didn’t answer; he wasn’t concerned; her advanced age and hearing loss kept her away from the phone at times. Then he and his wife rode their bicycles to Johnson’s home on Robbins Street, where he had lived for nearly 70 years. The inside is absolute terror.
“It’s not something you imagine,” her son told KWCH. “My mom was just a couple of weeks shy of 94 years old.”
Johnson and her husband had two sons together. According to her obituary, the avid Jayhawks basketball fan graduated from high school in 1947, went on to work as a secretary at Boeing, 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.
For nearly a year, investigators pondered over the horrific act. The extreme savagery provoked consternation at the highest levels.
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Sunflower State Governor Laura Kelly went so far as to issue an executive order in April offering $5,000 in exchange for information leading to final justice in the case. Last month, two 14-year-old girls were arrested on allegations of first-degree murder; their identities appear to have been concealed following state regulations that forbid juveniles under the age of 14 from being prosecuted as adults. Both of the suspected perpetrators were 13 years old when the murder occurred last September.
The seemingly applicable statute in Kansas law reads: “No juvenile under the age of 14 shall be prosecuted as an adult.”
Nonetheless, the victim’s son believes there is a legal interpretation that allows the alleged killers 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 an additional interview.
Butler County prosecutors filed a formal murder accusation against the girls in late August. During the arraignment, the judge ordered the accused to remain in various juvenile facilities.
Under the assumption that present law prohibits girls from being prosecuted and tried as adults, the harshest potential punishment would keep each defendant in one of Kansas’ two juvenile correctional facilities until they are 22 and a half years old.
Authorities did not divulge how the adolescent suspects became at the center of the statewide investigation, and they are unlikely to be able to do so because of the protective and stringent juvenile criminal code.
For the time being, the public will have to rely on the victim’s family for the majority of information on the case. A judge recently denied a media request to reveal the probable cause document in the girls’ arrest.