The Johnston Brothers
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Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Hey, everybody, Zevin here, Thank you as always so much for being here. It means a lot to me. I had every intention of delivering a brand spanking new episode today, but life got super busy, and my daughter, who I'm so proud of, is singing in the San Diego Unified Jazz Honor Choir tonight, and so I'm just not gonna get that fresh episode out in time. But I do have a great old classic episode for you that I hope you're going to enjoy, and it is called a Bloody band of Bandit Brothers about the murdering Johnson's I think you're gonna love it, So go ahead and give that a listen, and I will be back next week, that is April twenty ninth, and I'm going to be covering the Betsy Feria murder, So uh, get geared up for that one in a week, and in the meantime, do enjoy a Bloody band of Bandit Brothers.
So grateful that you checked in with me. I'm so happy you're here, and I'm not I'm on the ball. I just got to serve up a classic kind of murdery today. And with that, here we go. Warning kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening now.
Hello everyone, and welcome to Kind of Murdery, a true crime podcast that's mostly about murder and always about the strange and compelling stories that arise when the path less traveled twists to darkness and those who walk in shadows surrender to violence and corruption. I'm your host, Zevan Odleberg, and we have a perilous journey ahead, so thank you for lending me your courage and good company. Hello all, and thank you for joining me on this Sunday. I'm recording on Friday, and I'm gonna hop right into it because I've got a Scout camping trip to pack for and so today I'm going to be telling you a story I found in a addition of True Detective Magazine from April nineteen eighty three, and it is the story of the Johnston Brothers, who are a band of brothers after a fashion.
If by band of brothers, I mean band of murdering Bandits all right, If you're ready, I suggest that you put your personal items underneath the seat in front of you. Still your carry on in the overhead compartment. Let go of the worries of the day, but be sure your seat belt is fastened. There's turbulence expected ahead. Kind of murderies, A bloody band of bandit brothers. The murdering Johnston's starts now. The Johnston Brothers of southeastern Pennsylvania were known as burglars and thieves. There was David, Norman and Bruce.
Bruce was the eldest of the three and also the reputed lee in nineteen eighty, the year they were brought into justice, They were respectively thirty two, thirty one, and forty one years of age, though hardly too young to know better. The gang involved family and friends. Back in nineteen seventy seven, young Steve Johnston began stealing cars, trucks, tractors, and plywood with his father, Bruce. The boy had been raised by his mother and grandmother and had seen Bruce only a few times before nineteen seventy five.
His stepbrother, James Jimmy John Johnston, also raised by a relative, was involved in the burglary ring. Two. Side note. I finally found a real person named Jimmy john I'm thrilled about this, but in the summer of nineteen seventy eight, Steve then twenty decided to blow the whistle on the operations. His tongue was loosened when, while in the Chester County jail on theft charges, his girlfriend, Robin Miller fifteen, related a story that angered him. She said that Bruce and cohort James Sampson twenty four, took her to a motel and gave her a bottle of beer and some pills.
When she woke up, she told him she had found her tamp missing and she had been raped. Steve was upset, understandably geez. He sent word out to his lawyer, make me the best deal you can. The lawyer, after some thought, went to see Charles Zagorsky, Chief of Chester County Detectives. Charlie, He asked, are you interested in talking to Steve Johnson about his father? I'm always interested in talking about the Johnston brothers, the chief replied, but he didn't sound enthusiastic. He'd already talked to and about them a million times and got nowhere.
A meeting was set up for one pm on August first. Zagorsky called an FBI agent Dave Richter and Lieutenant Richard Weimer of the State Police, both of whom had been conducting their own investigations over the years. Steve told them about the gang's network of stealing, specifically about a big safe job at Longwood Gardens, a local tourist attraction, as well as the thefts of tractors and farming equipment, and a big job at a vending machine company. There were thefts that reached across the state and even into New York and as far south as Florida.
On August ninth, the FBI had a grand jury sitting in the Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia listening to Steve Johnston telling these things about his father and uncles. He also named the others, Wayne and Jimmy Sampson, Dwayne Lincoln, and Jimmy Johnston. The FBI issued a warrant calling on Jimmy Johnston to testify on August fifteenth, but he never showed up. In fact, no one heard from him again or from Lincoln and the Sampson brothers. Although Steve was to be transferred to another county for protective custody, his one hundred thousand dollars bond was reduced to a nominal sum, and he was released on August seventeenth.
He went to stay with Robin Miller's family in rural East Nottingham Township. On Tuesday, August twenty ninth, he and Robin went to Hershey Park. It was after midnight when they came home, and as Steve pulled into the driveway and stepped out of the car, he was hit from behind by a hail of bullets. He staggered and fell back into the car, his head between the front seats. He told Robin to run. Then she screamed, and Steve saw a red mark on her chin before she ran into the house. He lay in the car a few more seconds, then followed the shooting stopped.
A neighbor, hearing the commotion, jumped out of bed and ran down downstairs and turned on the outside lights. He thought he heard a car pull away, but he saw only the yellow volkwagon that Steve Johnston had been driving. Meanwhile, inside the Miller home, Steve found Robin on her mother's bed. No one else was home. He tried in vain to help her breathe, but her life was rapidly slipping away. He called the police, who found him wandering around inside the house, his own body and head riddled with nine bullets.
When the ambulance crew arrived, he was sitting on the bed bleeding by the still form of his pretty, brown haired girlfriend. She was pronounced dead on arrival At the hospital in nearby Jennersville, Steve was admitted in critical condition with wounds in the arm, larnux, abdomen, and back of the head. After surgery was performed, he was put under heavy police guard in the intensive care unit. That afternoon, the Pennsylvania State Police FBI agents an Chester County detective swarmed over Bruce Johnston's rural home in Elkton, Maryland.
They arrested him on charges of obstructing justice by allegedly preventing Jimmy Johnston from testifying before the grand jury. He was placed in federal custody. Lieutenant Weimer declined to comment to the press about whether or not Bruce might have been involved in the obvious ambush, but there were rumors that he'd placed a fifteen thousand dollars price tag on his own son's head. From his hospital bed, Steve told police that there had been at least two assailants and that he and Robin were shot at close range with handguns.
Leslie Dale, thirty seven, was another man the lawmen were interested in talking to. His name had been mentioned by Steve during the questioning. Officers spotted him at a bar on Thursday and waited for him to leave. When he did so, they took him in for questioning. When asked where he'd been the day before between ten pm and two am, Dale admitted that he'd been pulling a burglary, but wouldn't tell Zagorski where. He also told Zegorski that he wanted immunity if they wanted him to talk. So Dale, a known burglar, was arrested on burglary charges but not connected with the shooting and lodged in jail.
Another gang member, Ricky Mitchell thirty seven, heard that the police were looking for him concerning some burglaries. He hid out until September fifth, when he turned himself in. Meanwhile, when words spread through the prison grapevine that Leslie Dale was in co and inmate of the Lackawannee County, jail started to do some serious thinking as a result. In mid September, FBI agent Richter received word that Karl Park wanted to talk to Zagorski, so Richter and the detective chief took a ride north and met Park, whom Zagorski knew from ten years before.
That was when Park, Leslie Dale, and another man had allegedly used identification and forged checks from cohort John Jackie Bain, whose body had been found in a creek. Hunters had seen Park and Dale near the creek, so police had picked up the two suspects, but they were never able to pain anything on them because there was no official ruling of foul play. So now Park was sitting in jail confessing that he'd murdered Baine. He said that he and Dale had feared having Bain squeal on their thievery, so they'd hit him alongside the head and held him underwater until he was drowned.
Park admitted that he was now having some second thoughts about his lifestyle. He wanted to clear things up and make a deal now that Dale was in custody on other charges. For whatever reason, Zagorski later commented, he wanted to tell and he wanted a deal, and at that time it was not bad to have that information on Leslie Dale. The law man discussed the deal with ditrict attorney William Lamb, who planned to dig up Bain, and the dealing with Park went on through September and the early part of October.
Meanwhile, Bruce Johnston was able to raise bond. On September twenty ninth, he was released from jail. In addition to the federal charges, the state police had also arrested him for various burglaries and thefts, but our efforts were once again thwarted. A state police official later observed he got out again. In the Bain investigation. The lawman transported his preserved organs to doctor Demeyo, a renowned New York City forensic pathologist. He examined the body for several hours, then announced that the cause of death was drowning, just as Park had said.
Detective Chief Zagorski returned to see Leslie Dale, who said, I ain't talking to you, Charlie. Your railroaded me. But he didn't have to talk. The police arrested him and Park for Bain's murder. After a preliminary hearing, they were remanded for trial. The lawmen weren't any closer to saulving Robin Miller's murder, although they were willing to bet who was behind it all. Then on November thirtieth, Zagorski and Assistant District Attorney Delores Troyani were visiting Park when the chief detective suggested, let's go and visit Leslie Dale.
The suspect, of course, didn't want to talk to Zagorski and began cursing him. Talk to anyone you want, Zagorsky snapped. He left the Assistant DA and Dale alone. Then about five minutes later they called him back in. He can tell us about seven bodies, Dolores Treyoni announced. The Goorski began advising him of his rights, but Dale said he knew what he was doing. He wanted to deal, and he assured Zegorski that he wasn't merely talking because he'd been arrested for the Bain murder. I've had enough of this life, he said, explaining that he wanted to make a clean break of things because of his teenage son, whom his ex wife was raising.
I can show you seven bodies, he said, then counting them out on his fingers. Robin Miller, Jimmy Sampson, Jimmy Johnston, Dwayne Lincoln, Wayne Sampson, Gary Crouch, that's only six, the Gorski put it out. Is Bain number seven? Troyoni asked. Dale laughed and said they would talk about it later. You got to show us a little good faith here, Leslie, the chief detective, suggested, show us a body tonight. Dale said that he would. What do you know about the kids, the Gorski asked, in reference to the missing boys, Charley, I know they're dead.
Dale replied, but I had nothing to do with that. He explained that after Jimmy Johnston, Dwayne Lincoln, and Wayne Sampson were murdered, he heard it from the Johnston brothers that they were buried in the Brandywine Game Preserve near Pennsbury Township. They'd allegedly told Dale that they'd walk the boys right up to the graves among thick briars. What else do you knowz Gorsky persisted, that's it, Dale said, but I'll bet you that in ten minutes they'll know I'm talking to you. He suggested that the state police put some heavy patrols in the chad's Ford area and also in another area south of Oxford near the Maryland state line, because he felt that the brothers would try to dig up the bodies, including crouches.
Dale also told them that the key to the murders was Ricky Mitchell. Zagorsky made arrangements to take Dale out of prison. He handcuffed the suspect and with Troyonnie, drove him to the courthouse, where they placed him in the custody of Detective Larry Dampman. Zagorsky and Treyonni next conferred with District Attorney Lamb. Half an hour later, at five thirty pm, Dampman brought in the suspect, Leslie. Dale appeared relaxed as he drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. The DA told him that any deal would be contingent on two conditions, that he hadn't done any of the killings himself, and that he would show them a body that night.
He agreed he would take them to where Gary Crouch was buried. He admitted that Bruce Johnston had paid him to dig the grave and to assist in killing Crouch because Crouch was snitching to the police in Delaware. Crouch had been listed as missing since July nineteen seventy seven. The detectives, Troyoni and Lamb drove Dale to Pottsville where they met a party from the state Police under the direction of Lieutenant Wimer. They all drove to a road in Highland Township, then turned onto a dirt road for about a half a mile before they stopped.
Still handcuffed, Dale played a torch beam over the open field and woods, then into a tree lined road. Right there, he said, right in there is the body. The Gorsky nodded, and then he said, let's go, Leslie. He removed the handcuffs. The whole group were led by Dale into the trees for about fifty yards. They stopped while Dale walked around and pushed some leaves with his foot and moved two dead branches. Dig right here, the lawman started digging. Those not engaged on the task sent out for coffee to keep them warm, and made a bonfire.
Dale stood at the edge of the circle, his face intense in the artificial light, his eyes staring down into the widening hole two feet down. An unpleasant odor started rising from the ground. A full hour and a half after the digging started, one of the lawmen called out, I have something here. They took Leslie Dale away and drove him back to the courthouse, where he conferred with his attorney, and while patrols kept a vigil in the area, the lawman painstakingly dug around the body, careful not to disturb anything while they looked for evidence.
They went through the dirt with spoons, trying not to damage the body, which was already in bad condition from a year's informal burial. The face was skeletonized, but the hands were intact enough for investigators to later roll fingerprints that pus A high school ring positively identified the body as that of thirty year old Gary Crouch. Doctor Halbert filling an assistant medical examiner in Philadelphia, performed the autopsy. His findings revealed a bizarre aspect of the brutal murder, that Crouch had been buried alive.
There was a gunshot wound in the head, but there was also gravel in Crouch's throat, indicating that he had not been dead when covered with dirt. According to Fillinger, it could have been as little as a few minutes or as long as three hours until Crouch finally expired. The cause of death, he noted in his report, was the gunshot wound to the back of the head with suffocation by gravel as a contributing factor. On December fourth, when they paid Ricky Mitchell a visit in Broadmeadow's prison. He wasn't the least bit happy to see Za Gorski and Troyani Leslie Dale is cooperating with us, the detective chief announced, then added, and we hear there's a contract out on your life.
You want to cooperate with us too, Get the hell out, Mitchell spat. I don't want to talk. I don't have anything to say. During the next three weeks, though, Mitchell did a little research of his own and found out that there was indeed a contract out on his life. So on December twenty sixth, his lawyer contacted the DA's office, and at six pm that days at Gorsky and Troyonni meant the lawyer in his office. The latter related that his client wanted a deal. Mitchell was also claiming not to have killed anyone, although he did know about the murders, and he wanted probation or something minimal like Carl Park had been promised.
Late that night, DA Lamb advised the Gorski that there wouldn't be any deal until they learned what Mitchell knew, and the extent of his actual involvement. By December twenty eighth, Mitchell was ready to talk. At around two thirty pms, A Gorsky, Troyani, and the suspect's lawyer sat down in the prison ward at Sacred Heart Hospital in Chester, where Mitchell had been confined after an epileptic seizure. Mitchell told them that although he did not have anything to do with the murder of Robin Miller in the shooting of Steve Johnston, he did know about the incident.
The triggerman, he said, had been David and Norman Johnston. His own part in the crime, he explained, had been to arrange dates for himself and Bruce Johnston with some girls. At first, Mitchell said Bruce had only wanted his son out of the air so that he wouldn't testify, but then ten days after the shooting he put out a fifteen thousand dollars contract on Steve's life. Norman, David, and Mitchell checked into a motel near Oxford, then began staking out Robin Miller's home. Leslie Dale knew about the contract.
Mitchell said, in fact, that Bruce even read a car for him so that Dale could find the intended victim, but as it turned out, Dale was using the car to drive from bar to bar drinking. The weather had been wet while they were waiting for Steve to show up as a target. Mitchell stated one night after they had been waiting in a muddy field in the rain, he told the others once they got back to the motel that he wasn't going to go back out anymore. I'm not catching a cold over this damned thing, he said.
He told the others. They all took off their wet, muddy shoes and positioned them over a bathroom door under an infrared light. The motile cleaning lady would later corroborate that she'd seen the shoes there at that time. When Mitchell explained that they had borrowed a car from Newark, New Jersey, Zigorsky asked, do you mean they stole a vehicle? Mitchell told him they borrowed it. You know what I mean. It had been a four door Pontiac, dark in color, at about a nineteen seventy one in make. Mitchell claimed he didn't know what had happened to it, that perhaps it had been destroyed, cut up or something.
He didn't know what had happened to the murder weapons either the girl being killed was a mistake, Mitchell added. He claimed that he didn't know any of the boys in the grave, though he could probably recognize their pictures. They showed him one of Jimmy Johnston, which he identified. According to Mitchell's information, Bruce wanted the boys dead because they were going to testify against him. Bruce, David Ann Norman drove to a hardware store where Mitchell bought two shovels in a bag of lime.
Then David dropped off Norman and Mitchell to dig the hole. I'm not a gambler, Mitchell told his interrogators, but I'll bet I can find them for you. The next day, according to Mitchell, Bruce and Dale signed Jimmy Johnston into a motel and gap paying for the room with a one hundred dollars bill. The motel clerk later recalled this and identified Bruce as the man who'd been with Dale. Mitchell said he couldn't recall the date, but it was later pinpointed at August sixteenth. That was the day they first brought in Jimmy Johnson, whom they'd asked to help move a stolen tractor in the woods.
So we went with Mitchell, David, Norman, and Bruce to the area where the hole had been dug. They walked into the woods, where Bruce shot him several times in the head, and they took off his shoes and also took from his pockets the money they'd given him. They left the grave open, then returned to the road where Norman was waiting in the car. Mitchell said he remained at the motel. An hour later, the others came back with Wayne Samson and Dwayne Lincoln, who were high on drugs and covered with blankets.
Bruce told the story about the tractor stuck in the woods, whereupon Samson and Lincoln agreed to help. The four conspirators got in the car with the youths, and when they got to the edge of the woods, Bruce, David, and Mitchell walked one of the boys up to the grave. David then shot him in the head once and when he spun around, shot him twice more. Then, according to Mitchell's statement, David gave Mitchell the gun and told him the last one is yours. Everyone's going to kill one. You got to take care of this one, or that hole is really going to be full.
Mitchell said he interpreted that to mean that if he didn't kill somebody, he'd be buried too. If he didn't commit one of the murders, they'd kill him. So he walked back to the car and returned with the other boy, who had to be talked into coming into the dark woods. At the open grave, Mitchell shot the boy twice in the head. They covered all the bodies, then went back to the house after throwing the shovels into the Brandywine Creek. For Mitchell's part in the killings, the Johnstons paid about seven hundred and fifty dollars towards some car repairs.
The mechanic later testified that he did repair Mitchell's car and that David and Bruce had paid for it in one hundred dollars bills. Jimmy Samson, Mitchell said after identifying a photo was the one that they'd buried in a landfill, they'd lured him to his death by telling him that they were going to commit a burglary. The investigators felt that Mitchell wasn't telling them everything, and court testimony would later prove this true. But it was, as one law man put it a damn good place to start.
The next day, December twenty ninth, Treywni, z Gorski, Wimer, and the other county and state investigators met with Da Lamb. He told them that providing Ricky Mitchell's information was accurate and he'd killed only one of the victims and would lead them to the grave site and would testify against the others. They could offer him ten to forty years of imprisonment as the deal. Dolores Crayoni drew up the agreement, and the next day she and Zagorsky met Mitchell and his lawyer at the hospital prison ward.
Mitchell, who didn't like the terms, insisted on something easier like probation or a few years, but finally he agreed. The attending physician then released the suspect to their custody. Mitchell soon directed them to the Brandywine Game Preserve bordering Pensbury Township. This looks like the place, he said, pointing to a wooden gate. Detective Dampman and a state trooper took Mitchell out of the car and began walking him up the road along the cornfield. At five pm, Dampman radioed back that they'd found the place.
It was just growing dark. Are you sure this is the spot, Sagorsky asked Mitchell. When they arrived, The area was covered with logs like Crouch's grave had been. I'm not only sure, Mitchell said, I'm positive. While Mitchell was taken back to the prison hospital, the lawmen began the painstaking work of digging up the bodies. It was eight thirty pm before they hit the first body, stacked on the other two. Later, Doctor Fillingers post mortem examinerations would determine that Jimmy Johnston eighteen, Dwayne Lincoln seventeen, and Wayne Sampson twenty were killed by gunshot wounds to the head.
The investigators would have liked to dig up Jimmy Samson two, but it was out of the question. Mitchell said that he had been buried at the landfill near Honeybrook, As Zagorski later explained, by then it would have been under about seventy five feet of compacted dirt and trash. It, of course, being Jimmy Sampson's body, it was impossible to dig up because it was a health hazard. He added, Various gases accumulating a landfill and you'd have to move about three hundred tons of dirt a day, put it back at night and start all over again.
It was something that just couldn't be done. Now armed with solid evidence, however, the investigators could corroborate the statements made by Dale and Mitchell. The officers put the information together and had warrens issued, charging the three Johnston brothers with multiple murders. Two of the Johnston's were already in jail. David had surrendered to the police on December twelfth, but on burglary charges. The next day. Bruce had been nabbed on a shoplifting charge, but Norman was more elusive.
The lawman eventually got word that he was at a motel in Maryland. They kept watch on the place until January thirteenth, nineteen seventy nine, when the FBI arrested him in connection with the interstate burglary operation. The federal charges circumvented the need for extradition to Pennsylvania. Norman and David Johnston were the first to go on trial. They were charged with the murders of Jimmy Johnston, Dwayne Lincoln, Wayne Sampson, Jimmy Sampson, and Robin Miller Wayne Lamb. Though no longer District Attorney was made special prosecutor for the case.
He contended that the deaths were the result of contract killings to buy silence. The defense argued that the police had persecuted petty thieves then based their murder cases on the testimony of two admitted killers, Dale and Mitchell. Over one hundred and fifty persons were called to the witness stand. There would have been more, but the individuals were afraid to testify. One of them, a woman was allegedly beaten, drug threatened with death, and later had her house burned down. The investigators didn't blame anyone for being afraid to testify.
If you talked, you were buried. Zegorresculator called the Johnston's had a track record of it. Testimony ended during the second week in March nineteen eighty, just seven weeks after the trial started. It took the jurors twenty eight hours of deliberation spread over four days, to sift through the evidence and reach a unanimous verdict. At last, on Tuesday, March eighteenth, the foreman announced the verdict. The two brothers remained visibly calm. Norman and David Johnston were found guilty of murdering James Johnston, Dwayne Lincoln, Wayne Sampson, and Robin Miller, and not guilty in the murder of James Sampson, whose body had never been recovered.
When Bruce Johnston went on trial later that year, Prosecutor troywe told the jury he intended to show that the murder plans had the signature of the mind of Bruce A. Johnston, and Judge Leonard Sugarman told the jury, as he had at a previous trial, that the witnesses were corrupt and polluted sources, and that they should take that into consideration while listening to the testimony. The first day, witnesses took the stand regarding the murder of Gary Crouch, the first to die. One of them was Detective John Quigley of the Delaware State Police, who testified the Crouch had been cooperating with him, implicating the brothers and numerous others in the theft operations.
According to Quigley, immediately before he disappeared, Crouch had planned to meet Bruce Johnston and Leslie Dale. Also called to the stand was Crouch's girlfriend, who testified that she'd last seen him at eleven PM on July nineteenth nineteen seven, shortly before an alleged rendezvous with Bruce. When Crouch never returned, she went to see Bruce to inquire as to his whereabouts, and he told her not to worry about Gary. The police will find him wherever he is. On the second day of the trial, Leslie Dale described how Bruce had panicked at the sight of Crouch's blood all over the car when he Dale had shot him from the back seat.
I put the gun behind Gary's head and shot him, said Dale, Who'd been paid three thousand dollars to do so. Bruce's eyes got real big, and he said, look at the hole in the windscreen. Bruce got out of the car and ran around the front of it. I said, get back in the car. Bruce said, look at the blood coming out of it. They drove to the already dug grave, where Bruce went through the victim's pockets, giving Dale just over eighty dollars as a bonus. Then, as they were putting Crouch in his grave, if Dale noticed one of his eyes open and commented, he's peaking.
They took the stolen car to a field and set it on fire. Then they returned to cover the body hoping the Crouch didn't crawl out. A month later, they returned again to make sure the dirt hadn't shifted. Under cross examination by the defense, leslie Dale admitted that he had first lied to the police, telling them that Bruce had pulled the trigger. I didn't think it was a big lie, he testified, I just switched seats in the car. The man up front is charged with the murder, just the same as the man in the back.
The lie resulted in the original more lenient plea bargaining to be thrown out the window instead. Leslie Dale received ten to twenty years in prison, to be followed by twenty years probation. The next day, another witness testified that Bruce had told him about Crouch's murder in the following manner. I gave him a new job pushing up daisies. Later called to the stand, Ricky Mitchell related how he had duped the three boys into coming into the woods. Jimmy Johnson had been the first to fall for the ruse, then David Johnston shot Dwayne Lincoln in the back of the head.
Mitchell testified the boy grabbed his head and turned around and tried to speak David. He fired two more slugs at the boy and he fell Mitchell himself had to shoot the third wayde Sampson, but missed the first shot because Bruce had chosen that moment to shine a torch in his eyes. The boy turned around and asked me if it was a real gun. Mitchell told the court, I didn't say a word. I fired two more shots at his eyes. He fell down. Mitchell's original plea bargaining deal had been voided because of the inconsistent statements he gave to the police as an explanation.
He testified that his stories had varied because he didn't trust either the police or the prosecution. Eventually, Ricky Mitchell received a life sentence. Mitchell also stated that Bruce had told him that he tried to get Leslie Dale to bring one of the boys to the hole because he wanted to put Dale in the hole too. On October fifteenth, they witnessed called by the prosecution, testified that Bruce had commented to him about Steve Johnston, if he comes to see his daddy, I'll take him up the hill to visit his buddies.
He also stated that Bruce and Mitchell had tried to enlist his help in digging the graves, but he told them I'm a burglar, not a murderer. Called to the witness stand, Leslie Dale related that he agreed to kill Jimmy Sampson for eight thousand dollars, that he'd only been trying to swindle Bruce out of the money so that he could leave the area. When asked if he had received that amount, he replied, if I had, I sure wouldn't be here now. Recalled as a witness, Mitchell testified that he lured Samson to the landfill on the pretext of making burglary plans, then he faked an epileptic seizure to catch him off guard.
I was told by Norman Johnson to remain close to a bulldozer, Mitchell said, but I wasn't going to stay there and be eliminated. I hid behind some boulders. I saw Bruce on my right. I came out, holding my stomach and said I'd had a seizure and lost my glasses. Norman started looking around for them, so Jimmy Sampson relaxed and he started to look too. I saw Norman's hand come up and the gun went bang. Mitchell said. He immediately pulled his own gun and pointed at Norman, who asked him if he was scared.
When Mitchell didn't reply, Norman gave Mitchell his gun to hold. One witness called by the prosecution testified that when he'd asked Bruce what it was like to kill someone, the defendant had replied, I have no problem. I can put my head on the pillow and go to sleep. But when Bruce took the stand, he portrayed himself as a gentleman, a ladies man, and a good father. In his testimony, which began on November tenth, he suggested that several of the witnesses had grudges against him because he'd been messing around with their wives.
I used to have a lot of lady friends, the defendant said, I love women. It was over women. He said that he and Dale had a hatred between them. He alleged that Dale had raped some woman he knew, and that he was scared of Dale. No way would I go out after dark in the woods with Leslie Dale, he said. Then he claimed that Dale had threatened to kill Steve, and that if Bruce had known about an ambush being planned, it never would have happened. He testified that he loved his son, even though his son was a junkie and did not live with him.
He denied offering Steve money not to testify, claiming that he had actually offered to foot the bill for a drug keeper for his son. As for Steve's allegation that he Bruce had raped Robin Miller, he told the court that he would not have done it because he considered her a little girl, because that's what she was. Later in his testimony, Bruce admitted that he'd been looking for Steve, but denied that he wanted to kill him. When asked if he was upset over Steve's testimony before a grand jury, he replied, kids are kids.
How do you get mad at your own son? Even a relative of the Samsons testified that Bruce had been like a father to the brothers Jimmy and Wayne that he was accused of killing. In his closing arguments, Bruce Johnson's attorney claimed that the defendant was the victim of a frame up by Dale and Mitchell, who used the opportunity for their own benefit. It was Dale and Mitchell he allatitude committed the murders not Bruce. The defense also pointed out that the criminal witnesses involved made deals so that they were benefiting.
Prosecutor Treywne justified the plea bargaining and the deal. She said, this is the type of case that proves deals must be made with people less culpable to get it people more culpable. There were no other witnesses, she pointed out, because midnight assassins leave no witnesses. The jury began deliberations on November fourteenth, nineteen eighty, and after several hours, they returned with a verdict finding Bruce Johnson guilty on all six counts of first degree murder. Norman and David Johnston, as well as Ricky Mitchell and Leslie Dale, were also convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Norman Johnston escaped for three weeks in nineteen ninety nine and then ultimately gave up after he got quote tired of running from the troopers. Before I sign off, I'd like to quickly remind you of the three digit lifeline number nine eight eight that you can call to receive immediate counseling for substance use, mental health or suicidal thoughts. So if you're facing an acute crisis, please do dial nine eight eight program it into your phone now. Don't hesitate to get the help that you need.
And also please do remember that the world is a better place with you in it. Now. If you're not facing acute crisis and you'd just like to make a connection, please don't hesitate to reach out to me Kindomurdery at gmail dot com or at kind of Murdery on all social media, or you can call the kind of Murdery hotline eighty eight Murdery that's eighty eight murder the letter why or eighty eight six eight seven three three seven nine, So you can call to connect with me there if you want, or and I hope you'll do this, I really do, you can call to tell me your very own kind of murdery story, which of course doesn't have to be necessarily about murder, just something bizarre, strange, dark, maybe just weird, funny, whatever, just a good just tell me a good story, and I would love to share it with the community.
Also, if you're a person with a disability, physical or otherwise, I would love it if you shared your story as well, which you can do of course on the kind of Murdery hotline eight to eight murdery, or via email or social media kind of murdery a Gmail or at kind of murdery on all social media. Again, as has always been the case, it's my hope that if we all share our stories as a community, that ultimately people who live a very different life and have very different experiences than we do ourselves will become more real to us, and that we can foster and build empathy and community that way.
I look forward to seeing you on Thursday. Thank you so much for being here. Please do dial nine eight eight murdery and tell me a story. And with that, I'm Zevan Odeleberg and this has been kind of murdery
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