Blaine County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Justin Whatcott left jurors with a potent ring in their ears Monday afternoon as he wrapped up hours of closing arguments from both sides of the Sarah M. Johnson murder trial in Boise.
The Bellevue youth, who was 16 at the time, is accused of murdering her parents in September 2003 following a fight with them about her 19-year-old boyfriend.
"A fact beyond dispute is that these two people (Alan and Diane Johnson) were brutally murdered in their own home," Whatcott declared. "And they were brutally murdered by their own daughter because they loved her and wanted to protect her.
"She chose Bruno Santos over them.
"She took that rifle; she went into that room; and she took the lives of the two people who gave life to her."
Whatcott spoke for about an hour Monday afternoon. Because prosecuting attorneys have the burden of proof in a case, they are afforded the opportunity to give closing arguments twice, once before and once after defense attorneys. Blaine County Prosecuting Attorney Jim Thomas issued a closing argument before Public Defender Bob Pangburn gave remarks on behalf of his client, who allegedly shot and killed her parents in their Bellevue bedroom on Sept. 2, 2003.
"There were three people in the Johnson house that morning when Alan and Diane Johnson were murdered. One person came out alive. That person sits right there," Thomas said with a point to the defense table where Sarah Johnson sat and watched. "Although there is not an eyewitness in this case, the evidence left behind shows us the face of the real killer."
Pangburn spoke for more than an hour, and his arguments took the form of chapters he named to help tell the story from his perspective: Lynch Mob Mentality, Sarah Didn't Do It, and Someone Else Did It.
In his so-called Lynch Mob Mentality argument, he alleged that police investigators interested in maintaining a safe resort atmosphere in Sun Valley "railroaded" Sarah Johnson from the beginning.
"They don't want to have a killer loose. They don't want to scare the tourists. They don't want to scare locals," Pangburn said. "They charge her and then go about trying to prove it."
In declaring Sarah Didn't Do It, he continued to speak a mantra he used in his opening and closing arguments: "No blood, no guilt."
"There was simply no blood on Sarah Johnson anywhere," he said.
He said there is no definitive evidence linking Sarah Johnson to the gloves found wrapped inside a bathrobe outside the Johnson home the morning of the slayings. Pangburn accused some of the prosecution witnesses of testifying to convict Sarah Johnson.
Finally, in his Someone Else Did It argument, Pangburn said defense attorneys went beyond their duty by showing jurors "how someone else not only could have done this, but likely did do it."
"The same person who touched that (rifle) scope (on the bed in the guesthouse) left a fingerprint on the inside of that box (of bullets)," Pangburn said. "That's huge. Is that right there alone enough for reasonable doubt? Sure it is."
Pangburn left the door open for the possibility that two people had been in the Johnson home that morning, each with a gun. He said that would explain a .22 caliber rifle that was found on top of a chest freezer in the family's garage.
But in conclusion, Pangburn said that in order for jurors to convict Sarah Johnson, they must believe that the innocent-looking woman before them had brutally killed her parents.
"You've got to believe that this little girl over here, at 16 years old, stole a rifle, shot her mom at point blank range...boom, like that...puts this thing up against her mom's head, blows her mom's head across the room and the hallway and all over the place...and then she shoots her beloved dad near his heart.
"When you acquit her, your job will not yet be finished. Make them go find the real killers—please."
Interestingly, Pangburn and Whatcott both spoke about bruises that were discovered on Sarah Johnson's left shoulder. In courtroom testimony, the bruises were unexplained.
In a photograph of 16-year-old Sarah Johnson, the bruises are clearly visible near the top of the teen's shoulder.
"That is not a bruise that would result from the recoil of a gun," Pangburn said.
An hour later in his closing argument, Whatcott agreed.
Witnesses who testified in the trial could not confirm that the marks were from a gun, Whatcott said. But there was evidence of some sort of struggle near the doorway to the bathroom where Alan Johnson was shot.
"Is it possible," he asked, "that as Alan Johnson fell, he grabbed that gun from the shooter's hands" and pulled the shooter into the door jam, which would have been in line with the shooter's left shoulder?
Further, Whatcott pointed out that at the time of the shooting Sarah Johnson's shoulder was 51.5 inches from the ground. A prosecution expert testified early in the trial that, based on Alan Johnson's gunshot wound in his upper left chest, the exit wound on his upper left back and the bullet impact point in the back of the shower, the rifle would have been fired from 51.5 inches above the ground.
"If an unknown shooter committed this crime, quite clearly they intended to frame Sarah Johnson, and they did a good job at it," Whatcott said.
Blaine County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Justin Whatcott, left, and Prosecuting Attorney Jim Thomas gave final arguments Monday in the double murder trial of Bellevue teenager Sarah Johnson, who is accused of slaying her parents, Diane and Alan Johnson, in 2003. Photo by Willy Cook
