Man guilty in slayings of son, two others in ’05
The mothers of two slain children worried Friday that the killer might someday return to society.
Their fears were prompted by a jury’s decision to convict Carleton Johnson of second-degree murder with a deadly weapon for fatally shooting his brother, 5-year-old son and 6-year-old niece. The verdict guarantees Johnson a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
“That ain’t no time,” La’Twon Rucker said outside the courtroom. “What if he gets parole?”
Rucker was the mother of Johnson’s son, Kamryn. She said she had custody of the boy but allowed him to visit Johnson on Father’s Day weekend in 2005.
Johnson, then 35, gunned down his three victims on the night of June 18, 2005. Prosecutors said they could offer no motive for the crimes but urged the jury to convict the defendant of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon for each killing.
Kimberly Kuivinem discovered the bodies minutes after the shootings and testified during the trial. The victims included her boyfriend, John, and the couple’s daughter, Johnna.
Kuivinem, who declined to be interviewed for this story, arrived in District Judge Lee Gates’ courtroom shortly after the verdicts were announced. She later commiserated with Rucker and could be heard saying, “La’Twon, if that man ever gets out of jail — ever.”
Gates is scheduled to sentence the defendant on July 16. The maximum penalty would keep Johnson in prison for at least 60 years.
Johnson, who was a substitute teacher for the Clark County School District and a volunteer football coach at Cheyenne High School, showed no emotion after the jury’s decision was announced.
“It’s hard to get a good read on Carleton,” Deputy Public Defender Norman Reed said. “I mean, he’s not a man of many words, but I’m sure he’s happy with what happened today.”
Johnson did not testify during the trial. Jurors deliberated about nine hours over two days before reaching their decision.
“They were obviously struggling with the fact that there was a lot of evidence, but then there was also a lot of evidence that was not there,” Reed said.
Gates asked his court clerk to poll each of the jury’s seven women and five men after the verdicts were announced — a routine procedure.
When the clerk asked one female juror, “Are these your verdicts as read?” the woman paused and said, “As to what the law would allow, yes.”
Gates then asked her what she meant by the comment, and the woman said she believed Johnson was guilty of first-degree murder. Jurors had been instructed that first-degree murder requires premeditation.
Members of the jury declined to discuss their decision with the Review-Journal outside the courtroom, but one member of the panel could be heard saying, “Everybody thought he snapped.”
A first-degree murder conviction would have allowed Gates to deny Johnson the possibility of parole.
Rucker said she has no idea why Johnson killed their son and the other two victims. “He had a quick temper,” she said.
Johnson had no prior criminal record or history of mental illness. He played football for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, from 1989 to 1991.
Reed told the jury that Johnson admits robbing a woman of her purse shortly after the killings, which occurred in an apartment at 4250 S. Jones Blvd., but the defense lawyer argued that prosecutors had no evidence placing Johnson in the apartment at the time of the shootings. Kuivinem and a neighbor both said they saw Johnson outside the residence a short time later.
Prosecutors said they had no evidence indicating a stranger had killed the victims, who were shot with Johnson’s shotgun.
Rucker said she initially hoped prosecutors would seek the death penalty but later decided Johnson should spend his life in prison.
“I want this to haunt him until the day he’s gone,” she said.
The woman, who has three surviving daughters, said she misses being around her only son, who liked to “eat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, cereal and macaroni, and play outside, and go everywhere with Granny.”
“He was lovable, fun,” she told a reporter. “He would have made you just fall in love with him.”
