US soldier gets 23 years for killing his pregnant wife with a machete and dumping her in the trash
Pfc. Dewayne Johnson II pleaded guilty earlier in the week to voluntary manslaughter, obstruction of justice and providing false official statements, the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel said in a statement.
His wife, Mischa Johnson, was 19 years old and six months pregnant at the time of her death July 12, 2024. Her body has not been found.
3 U.S. Army Pfc. Dewayne Johnson, a cavalry scout assigned to 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, sits with his teammates during an exercise at Helemano Military Reservation, Hawaii, Nov. 2, 2023.
Joshua Linfoot/U.S. Army
Johnson, of the 25th Infantry Division, told the judge during testimony in a military courtroom that he hit his wife with a machete in their home at the Schofield Barracks military base on Oahu after an argument, KITV reported.
He said he snapped after his wife yelled that his child won't know that he existed. He hit her on the head, and she stopped breathing and didn't have a pulse. He said he didn't intend to kill her.
'I couldn't picture my life without my child,' he said. 'I regret, I shouldn't have done it.'
He used a chain saw to cut up his wife's body to hide the killing and placed her body parts in garbage bags that he put in a dumpster in his unit. He said had heard the garbage was taken from there straight to an incinerator.
3 Mischa Johnson was 19 years old and six months pregnant.
Marianna Tapiz
Johnson reported his wife missing July 31, more than two weeks after her death. He joined search parties looking for her around Oahu. He was charged with her murder Aug. 27 after Army investigators found blood, DNA and other evidence in his home.
Prosecutors said Johnson, from Frederick, Maryland, received the maximum sentence allowed under law. They dropped child sexual abuse image charges under the terms of his plea agreement.
Johnson's rank will be reduced to private and he will forfeit pay and allowances and be dishonorably discharged. He will serve his sentence in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
3 Prosecutors said that Johnson received the maximum sentence allowed under law.
Handout
Marianna Tapiz told KITV it was shocking and painful to hear what happened to her sister.
'As a family together, we're just trying not to focus on the horrific details of her last moment with him,' Tapiz said. 'And instead, right now, we're trying to just remember the happy memories that we have and remember her in that life.'
Army prosecutor Lt. Col. Nicholas Hurd, said he hoped the justice proceedings will help the family heal.
'While no amount of confinement will ever be able to truly ease the pain of the loss of Ms. Johnson and her unborn child for her family and friends, it is my hope that Pfc. Johnson's admissions of guilt and the information he provided as part of the plea agreement can provide some element of closure and finality for the family and all stakeholders,' Hurd said in a statement.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
American Press
an hour ago
- American Press
Speaker Johnson refuses to allow Epstein vote as House set to recess early
Jeffrey Epstein, center, appears in court in West Palm Beach, Fla., on July 30, 2008. (Associated Press Archives) House Speaker Mike Johnson is rebuffing pressure to act on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, instead sending members home early for a month-long break from Washington after the week's legislative agenda was upended by Republican members who are clamoring for a vote. Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said Tuesday morning that he wants to give the White House 'space' to release the Epstein information on its own, despite the bipartisan push for legislation that would require more records to be released. 'There's no purpose for the Congress to push an administration to do something they're already doing,' Johnson said at his weekly press conference, his last before lawmakers depart Washington on Wednesday for their traditional August recess. Echoing President Donald Trump's position, Johnson insisted he, too, wants the files released, but only those that are 'credible.' The speaker's stance seemed unlikely to satisfy many GOP members who are threatening to support a bipartisan bill meant to pry information from the Justice Department. Even before Johnson spoke, a Republican-controlled subcommittee of the powerful House Committee on Oversight was advancing a resolution to subpoena Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, for a deposition. The intra-party turmoil on Capitol Hill unfolded as many of Trump's supporters have been outraged at how his administration has reneged on promises to publicly release a full accounting of the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein, who killed himself in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. Under pressure from right-wing online influencers, as well as voters back home, rank-and-file Republicans are demanding that the House intervene in the matter. 'The public's not going to let this die, and rightfully so,' said Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican. Johnson decided to end the House's legislative business early this week after he essentially lost control of the powerful House Rules Committee, which sends bills to the floor for debates and votes. Late Monday evening business on that panel ground to a halt when the Republicans on the House Rules Committee abruptly recessed proceedings rather than risk more proposals from Democrats pushing them to release Epstein files. Republican leaders last week had signaled possible support for a vote on the Epstein files, putting forward a resolution that has no legal weight but urged the Justice Department to produce more documentation. Trump too has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of testimony from secret grand jury proceedings in the case, though that effort is unlikely to produce new revelations. Johnson, who has relied heavily on Trump to hold onto leadership in the House, cast the president's reticence to release information as out of concern for the victims of Epstein. 'We have a moral responsibility to expose the evil of Epstein and everybody who was involved in that — absolutely — and we're resolved to do it,' Johnson said. 'But we also have an equal moral responsibility to protect the innocent, and that is a fine needle to thread.' Epstein, sexually abused children hundreds of times over more than a decade, exploiting vulnerable girls as young as 14, authorities say. He couldn't have done so without the help of Maxwell, his longtime companion, prosecutors say.
an hour ago
Defendants argue to state's high court that a Pennsylvania DA has been misusing the death penalty
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Two men accused of homicide and facing a potential death sentence if convicted asked Pennsylvania's highest court Tuesday to restrict a county prosecutor's pursuit of the death penalty, accusing him of misusing it to pressure defendants into guilty pleas or get them to turn state's evidence. The two defendants filed a petition before the state Supreme Court that suggests a range of actions to limit Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh's discretion in asking for capital punishment. 'The arbitrary seeking of the death penalty has become a crisis in Washington County, where a wildly disproportionate number" of the state's prosecutorial death penalty notices of aggravating factors are filed, wrote lawyers for Jordan Clarke and Joshua George. They say Walsh, a Republican appointed in 2021 and elected to keep the job nearly two years ago, has sought the death penalty in 11 of the county's 18 homicide cases during his term in office. Walsh on Tuesday disputed the numbers, saying the county has had more than 18 homicide cases over that period. He said several of the cases during his tenure have involved the deaths of children, where one of the aggravating factors required for the death penalty, the young age of the victim, is simple to demonstrate in court. 'If it fits under the law, prosecutors can seek the death penalty,' Walsh said in a phone interview. 'That's just the law.' The petition asks the justices to adopt 'some or all' of the changes they want. They are asking for Walsh to be required to have an out-of-county judge, the attorney general's office or a court-appointed special master review decisions to seek the death penalty; to stop the death penalty from being pursued in the cases of the two petitioners; and to get an outside judge to review all death penalty cases filed since the year Walsh took office. Washington County is a suburban and rural area of more than 200,000 people with a history of coal mining and gas drilling in the state's southwesternmost corner, about 28 miles (45 kilometers) southwest of Pittsburgh. 'No county has a bottomless well of money to fund defense teams representing indigents facing capital punishment,' lawyers with the Philadelphia-based Atlantic Center for Capital Representation argued in asking the justices to take the unusual step of accepting a case without an underlying appeal. 'The excessive, abusive, and coercive use of the death penalty by District Attorney Walsh has surely strained Washington County's ability to fund constitutionally adequate defenses.' As an example, the filing describes how the prosecutor's office upgraded a woman's charge of conspiracy to commit homicide to add criminal homicide after being told by defense lawyers that conspiracy was not sufficient to face a death penalty. She spent nearly four years in jail before the case was dismissed. Walsh said there is evidence supporting the case and he plans to appeal the dismissal. In Clarke's case, involving a 2-month-old boy's death, the petition alleges Walsh 'intervened to improperly influence the manner of death determination, filed homicide charges and a notice of aggravators before the manner of death was determined, and is pursuing a death sentence based on facially inappropriate aggravating circumstances.' Walsh said state and federal courts have long upheld the legality of the death penalty. In Pennsylvania, only three people have been executed since the 1970s, and all had given up on their appeals. Appeals and natural deaths have shrunk Pennsylvania's death row from well over 200 two decades ago to 94 inmates currently. 'This is nothing but a liberal Hail Mary from a liberal think tank,' Walsh said of the newly filed court petition. 'Those allegations are nonsensical and without merit.'
CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
House increases security funding ahead of members' return to their home districts after attack on Minnesota lawmakers
The House is increasing security funding and resources for lawmakers after a June attack on Minnesota state lawmakers reignited the long-standing question of how to best keep members and their families safe when they're away from Washington. Members will have $20,000 to increase the security of their homes, up from the current $10,000 allotment, according to a release from the Committee on House Administration obtained by CNN, as well as $5,000 a month to pay for personal security through the end of the fiscal year. The security personnel would be allowed to accompany members in their districts and protect their homes. Currently, members only had $150 a month for security monitoring purposes. The increase in funding comes as House lawmakers will soon return home for a five-week work period in their districts, where coordination between US Capitol Police and local law enforcement has consistently presented challenges. Lawmakers have called for more security measures in the face of ongoing threats against politicians. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Tuesday that this is a 'pilot program' that will be evaluated after September 30. 'The allowance is so that people can have private security if they deem that necessary and then at the end of September we are going to look at that, evaluate all of the data points, how effective it was, how it was utilized and then make decisions going forward. We live in an enhanced threat environment,' Johnson said. House Administration Chair Bryan Steil, who led the effort, told CNN he worked with his Democratic counterparts to reallocate available funds to increase options for lawmakers. 'We announced it as soon as we were able to reach agreement, outline the funds and delineate the program,' Steil said. There have been heightened concerns over public officials' security in the wake of the deadly attack in Minnesota. At the time, congressional lawmakers pressed law enforcement officials on how to keep their families safe amid an increasingly volatile political environment. In 2024 alone, US Capitol Police investigated more than 9,000 threats against lawmakers, marking an 83% increase from the year prior and part of a trend of growing threats against public officials. While the Minnesota attack has placed a renewed focus on how law enforcement addresses high-profile threats of violence against public officials, lawmakers have long called for an overhaul of security practices, with focus on resources dedicated to information sharing. A spate of recent attacks has seen House Majority Leader Steve Scalise seriously wounded by a gunman targeting a congressional baseball team practice in 2017, lawmakers across the Capitol at risk during the January 6, 2021, riot at US Capitol and Paul Pelosi attacked in his California home in 2022. And mere months before the 2024 presidential election, Trump was targeted in two apparent assassination attempts.
