JUST IN: Johnny Johnson Execution | Crime, Last Meal + Final Words | US Death Row Missouri
My father and my brother were the ones to identify Casey’s body when it happened. And following that, my brother had a complete mental breakdown. And my father drank himself to death. It was more than either one of them could process seeing Casey’s little body in the in the way he left it. On August 1st, 2023, Johnny Johnson was executed by lethal injection at the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, Missouri.
He was 45 years old. In this video, we’re going to find out exactly what his last meal was, what his final words were, and everything that led to that moment. The crime, the arrest, the trial, the mental health battle that gripped the courts for over two decades. And the question that still lingers today.
Stay with me because this one is not a simple story. Let’s go back to the summer of 2002. Valley Park, Missouri. A quiet, working-class suburb just outside of St. Louis. The kind of place where people know each other. Where neighbors show up to each other’s barbecues. Where families let their guard down because they feel safe around people they’ve known for years.
That sense of safety is exactly what made what happened next so devastating. Casey Williamson was 6 years old. She lived in Valley Park with her parents. She was a child just living her life in her little nightgown in the home she felt safe in. The man who would take her life wasn’t a stranger hiding in the shadows.
He was someone her family trusted. Someone her mother had known since childhood. Someone who had eaten at their table the night before. His name was Johnny Allen Johnson, born March 16th, 1978 in Missouri. By the time of the crime, he was 24 years old. He had a prior burglary conviction. He had a documented history of severe mental illness, specifically schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia.
He had spent time in a state psychiatric facility and just 6 months before the murder of Casey Williamson, he was released. He had stopped taking his medication and on the night of July 25th, 2002, he showed up to a barbecue at Casey’s father’s house in Valley Park. Welcomed in because Casey’s mother was his older sister’s best friend growing up.
She had even babysat Johnny when he was young. So, when it got late and Johnny had nowhere to go, they let him sleep on the couch. They didn’t think twice about it. They should not have had to. The morning of July 26th, 2002, Casey woke up. She was still in her nightgown. Johnny Johnson was already awake.
What happened next, he confessed to the same day he was caught. He lured Casey, a 6-year-old child, away from the home. He carried her on his shoulders as they walked. To anyone watching from a distance, it might have looked almost normal. An adult carrying a small child. But, they weren’t going anywhere safe. He took her to an abandoned glass factory, the old St.
Louis Plate Glass Company, less than a mile from her home. He intended to sexually assault her. Casey fought back. A 6-year-old girl in her nightgown screamed and fought with everything she had. And Johnny Johnson picked up a brick and a large rock, and he beat her to death. He then walked to the nearby Meramec River and washed himself off. That same day, he confessed to what he had done. Former St.
Louis County Homicide Investigator Paul Neske, the man who interviewed Johnson on the day of the murder and later witnessed his execution, said it plainly, “It was more violent and brutal than any case I’ve ever seen.” That’s a man who spent his career in homicide. Those words mean something. Casey’s body was eventually found buried in a pit at the abandoned factory site beneath rocks and debris, less than a mile from where she slept the night before.
The timeline of Johnny Johnson’s arrest is almost as chilling as the crime itself. When Casey’s father returned from the restroom that morning, both Casey and Johnny were gone. An alert went out. Search parties formed. First responders, volunteers, community members, all looking for a little girl in her nightgown. While the search was still underway, two police officers spotted a man walking down the street near the home. He was soaking wet.
That man was Johnny Johnson. According to then St. Louis County Police Chief Ron Battelle, police took Johnson into custody almost immediately. He did not run. He did not try to construct a story. He confessed the same day. Casey’s body was found shortly after, buried in that pit under rocks in the shadow of an old abandoned factory.
There was no mystery here, no prolonged investigation, no years of wondering. The man who did it told law enforcement what he had done within hours of committing the crime. And yet, it would take over 20 years before the case reached its final chapter. The trial of Johnny Johnson began in January 2005. A St.
Louis-based jury heard the evidence. They heard from investigators. They heard about the confession. They heard about the factory, the brick, the rock, the little girl who fought back. And they heard from the defense. Johnny Johnson’s attorneys did not dispute that he killed Casey Williamson. He admitted it.
What they argued was why, and whether that why was enough to change the verdict. Their argument rested entirely on mental illness. They said Johnson suffered from schizoaffective disorder, that he had been released from a psychiatric facility just 6 months before the crime, that he had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication, that he was, in their words, not in full control of his mind at the time he committed the act.
They argued he could not form the deliberate, calculated intent required for a first-degree murder conviction. The prosecution pushed back hard. Their expert witnesses testified that despite his mental illness, Johnson did deliberate. But the actions he took, luring a child, walking to a specific location, attempting an assault, and then taking steps to cover what he’d done, all demonstrated a level of intent that went beyond impulse.
The jury agreed with the prosecution. In January 2005, Johnny Johnson was found guilty of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, kidnapping, attempted forcible rape. In March of 2005, a judge sentenced him to death. He was sent to Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point, Missouri to await execution on death row.
That wait would last nearly two decades. This is the part of this case that sparked the most debate and it’s important to understand it clearly without leaning one direction or the other. For 18 years, Johnson’s legal team filed appeal after appeal and the argument never changed. Johnny Johnson is too mentally ill to be executed. Under the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution, the government cannot execute someone who does not understand the reason for their punishment.
That’s the legal standard. The question was, did Johnson meet that threshold? His attorneys said yes, absolutely. They presented evidence that in the years since his conviction, Johnson’s mental state had worsened, not improved. That he was hearing voices telling him to cut off his own arm and that he had in fact cut himself repeatedly with a razor.
That he had developed a specific and persistent delusion that the devil would use his execution to bring about the end of the world. His legal team argued that Johnson genuinely believed his own death would trigger the apocalypse. The Missouri Attorney General’s office disagreed. Their position was that Johnson’s mental illness was manageable with medication.
That the psychiatric evaluations presented by the defense were not credible. That Johnson understood what was happening to him and why. In June 2023, the Missouri Supreme Court sided with the state in a 6-1 ruling and denied his appeal. A three-judge panel on the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit then granted a temporary stay of execution on July 25th, 2023, pumping the brakes at least for a moment.
But 4 days later, on July 29th, the full 8th Circuit Court overturned that stay. The execution was back on. Johnson’s attorneys immediately escalated to the highest court in the country. The US Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, refused to intervene. On July 31st, 2023, Missouri Governor Mike Parson denied a clemency request, saying it was one of the most horrific crimes to ever cross his desk.
August 1st was set. There would be no more delays. Before we get to the execution itself, it’s worth pausing on the family. Because even among Casey’s own loved ones, there was no unified voice. Casey’s mother, Angie Wideman, had known Johnny Johnson her entire life. Her feelings about the execution were not reported as rage or satisfaction.
She simply said, “I’ve been looking forward to putting this part of it to rest.” 21 years of grief, 21 years of court dates, appeals, legal battles, and having to relive the worst moment of her life over and over again. And now, finally, rest. Casey’s father, Ernie Williamson, took a different position entirely.
His name appeared in Johnson’s clemency petition because Ernie opposed the death penalty. He did not want Johnson executed. That’s a remarkable thing. A father who lost his 6-year-old daughter to a brutal murder, and yet stood against the execution of the man who did it. Casey’s great aunt, Della Steel, was the most vocal in support of the execution.
She had written an emotional plea to Governor Parson urging him to let it go forward. She argued that grief from Casey’s death had rippled through the family for over two decades causing destruction far beyond that one morning. She said, “He did something horrible. He took a life away from a completely innocent child and there have to be consequences for that.
” Della Steel attended the execution in Casey’s memory. The family had also spent years organizing community safety fairs giving out child identification kits, safety tips, resources for families. Something good built in the space left by something terrible. August 1st, 2023. Hours before the execution was scheduled to begin, the Missouri Department of Corrections released details of Johnny Johnson’s last meal request.
He kept it simple, a bacon cheeseburger, curly fries, and a strawberry shake. No elaborate request. No symbolic final feast. Just a burger, fries, and a milkshake. August 1st, 2023. Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, Bonne Terre, Missouri. Johnny Johnson lay on his back on the table, a white sheet pulled up to his neck.
People in the witness room watched through the glass. Members of Casey Williamson’s family, the former prosecutor who tried his case, the homicide detective who had interviewed him on the day of the murder back in 2002. Two decades later, same case, different room. Shortly before the lethal injection of pentobarbital was administered, Johnson turned his head slowly to the left.
He appeared to be listening to his spiritual advisor who was present in the room. Then, he turned back, faced forward, closed his eyes, no further movement. He was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. Central Daylight Time. He became the fourth person executed in Missouri in 2023 and the 16th execution carried out anywhere in the United States that year.
Hours before the execution, the Missouri Department of Corrections released a brief handwritten statement from Johnson. It was submitted on July 30th, the day before he died. The full statement read, “God bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt.” That was it. 11 words. No lengthy explanation.
No further claims about his mental state. No declarations of innocence because he had never claimed innocence. He admitted from day one that he killed Casey Williamson. Della Steel, who witnessed the execution, spoke to the media afterward. She said, “It’s been a difficult day and a difficult 21 years. We will continue to honor our sweet Casey’s memory by doing our best to make a difference in the lives of other children.
” She didn’t celebrate. She didn’t break down. She simply said what needed to be said. And she meant every word of it. The execution of Johnny Johnson closed a legal chapter that stretched across 21 years. But, it didn’t close every question. Casey Williamson was 6 years old in July 2002.
She would have been 27 years old today. We don’t know who she would have become. We don’t know what kind of life she would have lived. We know only that she fought back bravely, desperately, as hard as a 6-year-old possibly could, and that it wasn’t enough. And we know that her family spent over two decades carrying something that no family should ever have to carry.
Johnny Johnson was executed on August 1st, 2023. His last meal was a bacon cheeseburger, curly fries, and a strawberry shake. His final words were, “God bless. Sorry to the people and family I hurt.” Whether justice was served, whether executing a man with severe, documented mental illness is justice or something else entirely, that’s a debate that will continue long after this video ends.
But here is the question I want to leave you with, and I genuinely want to know what you think. If a person commits a horrific crime while severely mentally ill, off their medication, possibly psychotic, and then spends 20 years on death row with their mental state continuing to deteriorate, is executing that person justice or does it become something different? Leave your answer in the comments below.
Rest in peace, Casey.
