Johnny Johnson

Johnny Ray Johnson, 51, was executed by lethal injection on 12 February 2009 in Huntsville, Texas for the rape and murder of a woman after she declined to have sex with him.

On 27 March 1995, Johnson, then 37, offered to give Leah Smith, a crack addict, some of his crack cocaine in exchange for sex. According to Johnson, after Smith smoked the crack, she refused to have sex with him. He then became angry, grabbed her, ripped her clothes off, and threw her to the ground. When she fought back with a wooden board, Johnson struck her head against a concrete curb until she stopped fighting, then he raped her. Johnson then stomped on Smith's face five or six times. He then left, but after realizing he had left his wallet at the scene, he returned and raped Smith again. He then picked up his wallet and her boots and left Smith on the ground to die.

The victim sustained severe injuries to her mouth, face, head, and neck. Her teeth were knocked out, her tongue was displaced, both sides of her jawbone were fractured, and she sustained head injuries. The medical examiner testified that the victim died from swallowing her own blood as it accumulated in the back of her throat while she was lying face up.

After his arrest, Johnson confessed to raping and murdering Smith. He said that he killed her because she made him angry while he was raping her by threatening to file rape charges against him.

Johnson also confessed to numerous other rapes and murders. He confessed to raping a total of 13 other women, including his 8-year-old niece. Many of these rapes included brutal beatings or chokings, and at least two of them resulted in the victim's death. Johnson gave detailed confessions about these murders and directed police to the scenes where they occurred. Johnson also confessed to a third murder, but authorities concluded that Johnson must have been mistaken in that case, wrongly believing that an injured victim died. Some of Johnson's surviving victims testified against him at his punishment hearing.

Johnson had been to prison three times before on convictions for burglary, aggravated assault, and sexual assault beginning in 1978. He also had numerous convictions for lesser offenses. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Johnson had been arrested twenty times.

A jury convicted Johnson of capital murder in May 1996 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in February 1998. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

"I wasn't there," Johnson said in an interview from death row the week before his execution. He denied any involvement in Smith's murder. "I was at work that night. I don't know what happened to her." He said that the confession he gave to police was coerced. When asked about his niece's testimony that he raped her when she was eight, Johnson answered that the girl's mother had a grudge against him. "It was her chance to get even with me."

In his last statement, Johnson criticized life on death row in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Polunsky Unit. Johnson repeatedly called death row "the Polunsky dungeon" and spoke out against the "hopelessness" of life there. "Why does my heart ache?" Johnson asked. "We want pleasure, love, and satisfaction ... Does anyone care who I am? Can you feel me, people?" Johnson also called for an end to the death penalty, then said goodbye to his relatives. The lethal injection was then started. He was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m.