ST. LOUIS – Johnny Johnson, a Missouri inmate who was recently granted a stay of execution in the 2002 murder of a St. Louis County girl, will be executed as originally planned next week.
FOX 2 has learned, as of Saturday, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals entered an order to vacate the stay of execution of Johnny Johnson.
Johnson’s stay was put in place earlier this week when his attorneys questioned his mental incompetence. The Missouri State Supreme Court determined that Johnson had failed to make a “substantial threshold of insanity,” according to documents obtained by FOX 2.
The new order will reverse course from a stay of execution previously issued for Johnson, and he will be executed as the state initially planned on Aug. 1.
Many years ago, a St. Louis-based jury found Johnson guilty of first-degree murder and other criminal charges in the July 2002 death of seven-year-old Cassandra “Casey” Williamson.
According to FOX 2’s recent in-depth report on the case, Casey and her family were staying at a friend’s house on Thursday, July 25, 2002, located across the street from their own home. Johnson, described as a family acquaintance, also spent the night at that home.
The following morning, Casey’s father, Ernie Williamson, woke before 7 a.m. to see his daughter standing in the living room with Johnson. When Ernie came back from the restroom, both Casey and Johnny were gone.
Sometime after Casey had been reported missing, two county police officers found Johnson walking down the street near the home where everyone had been staying. According to then-St. Louis County Police Chief Ron Battelle, Johnson was soaking wet. Police took Johnson into custody as the search continued.
Later on, volunteers searched the site of the old St. Louis Plate Glass Company, finding Casey’s body in a pit, less than a mile away from her home.
In 2005, a judge sentenced Johnson to the death penalty for the murder conviction and consecutive life sentences for the other crimes (armed criminal action, kidnapping, and attempted forcible rape). However, Johnson has been on death row at Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point, Missouri, following a 2012 attempt to overturn that sentence.
When the stay was initially issued last Wednesday, Williamson’s mother spoke with FOX 2 about her frustration in that decision and how her daughter’s death has affected her entire family for two-plus decades.
The execution will happen Aug. 1 under the supervision and direction of the director of the Missouri Department of Corrections. Prior to Johnson’s expected execution, Missouri has carried out three others so far in 2023: Amber McLaughlin on January 3, Leonard Taylor on Feb. 7, and Michael Tisius on June 6.