The sons of a
former police officer, Terry & Duane Johnson were vilified by the press
as cop killers. Duane was tried as an accomplice; he was 18 at the time
& barely involved in the crime-his older brother had dragged him along.
But being inside the prison walls is no protection from the condemnation
he received on the outside. Now the corrections officers taunt him for
killing one of their own.
"You try to
keep as low profile as you can to keep from getting flak. You know
you'll be walking down the hall..."You're getting the electric chair,
Joe." They'll make buzzing noises or "You're going to fry"
Terry has not
lived enough of a life to have anything much to say, or even the tools
to say it with. At twenty years of age, he was just a punk kid who
recognized no authority.
"...I was
doing things to impress friends & help friends. Do things to try to
impress family members. Doing everything for people for all the wrong
reasons...
When I grew
up I used to do a lot of things: take cars, break into businesses, steal
cars, motorcycles, the whole nine yards.... I was like the center of
attention. And when I'd steal something, like, a car stereo, or
something, it wasn't for the money. It wasn't for the object. I'd get it
& I'd end up giving it to my friends, because I thought that's what I
needed to do to please them..."
Terry's father
had sixteen children by two wives. Terry had two children by different
women.
"Two of my
older brothers are in the military. One's in the Marine Corps, one's in
the Navy. He's a sergeant down in Key West, Florida. One of my other
family members, my sister's a bus driver. My other brother works in a
factory, electronic factory. My other brother is going to college, right
now, for criminal law."
Maybe with so
many siblings, Terry found it hard to get much attention or approval.
Maybe he simply got lost in the crowd. But seeking forbidden thrills &
exhibiting asocial behavior to get noticed usually backfires.
"...being
afraid how my father would feel that I got my brother involved. My
younger brother was my father's-hate to say it-apple of his eye. My
father's life revolved around my little brother. To have one son taken
away was devastating but to have two at once is a total big loss. And at
my father's age & everything. My brother Duane was all he had left
living in the house with him."
Or maybe, being
the son of a cop, Terry thought he was above the law & could avoid the
consequences of his sprees. Until the murder, Terry had been charged
only with misdemeanors.
We also learned
Terry had done a short in the National Guard. That might explain his
erect posture, his machine-gun responses, & his clipped sentence
structure. His long hair was a concession to his rebel tendencies.
Terry shared his
philosophy about prison.
"It shows
that everybody can make mistakes. Everybody gets in trouble. Jail isn't
prejudiced. It lets in white, Black, Indian, Hispanic, Mexican, thin,
fat, strong, short, men, women, & children. Jail is not prejudiced.
There's no certain quota...
When somebody
hears of a crime & they hear of somebody being on death row, the first
thing they think of is like, Charles Manson. Somebody deranged lunatic.
They pick up the paper & they say, "Man, if I ever saw that dude on the
street, I'd know for sure that he was a monster." It's not that way, at
all."
And with that
revelation, at such a young age, he has been shoved into adulthood. He
had been headed for trouble, had embarked long ago down the wrong path.
Now one event defined his entire life.
Throughout the
interview, Terry said all the right things. He stood before us in the
little prison courtroom, with shackles on his legs, & expressed sorrow
for his actions. He was maybe a little too sincere. Had he learned how
to push the right buttons since he was arrested?
