http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2646 ... 3217c.htmlExcerpts:
By CINDY GEORGE, Staff Writer
TARBORO -- Prosecutors will paint a picture starting today of a young man who unjustifiably gunned down two innocent bystanders outside a football game.
But for people who watched Timothy Wayne Johnson and his younger brother grow up, that image doesn't square with the two fair-haired, look-alike siblings they remember.
Johnson is accused of killing two men at a tailgate party outside Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh on Sept. 4, when N.C. State University was
playing its opening game of the season. The victims were a Camp Lejeune Marine headed to Iraq and his friend, who was visiting from Chicago.
Jurors will assemble this morning in the Raleigh courtroom where Johnson will be tried on two counts of first-degree murder. Opening statements are scheduled for 9:30.
His attorneys concede that he was the shooter, although Johnson has pleaded not guilty on both counts. He faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole if convicted.
On Sept. 4, Johnson was months away from finishing his NCSU degree. He planned to become a psychologist. His younger brother, Tony, had come to Raleigh for the day.
Their mother, Ann Johnson, blames the "party lifestyle" for distracting all three of her sons from an upbringing that taught right and wrong.
"You always think what you could have done or said that would have changed how quickly they got off the track with drugs and alcohol," she said. "They wouldn't be in the position to have gotten in a fight that night that got out of hand."
After seven years of marriage and no children, the Johnsons adopted a 2-month-old boy and named him Thomas Mitchell Johnson Jr. They called him
Mitch.
Then, after nearly 20 years of marriage, Ann became pregnant with Timothy. Two years later, she was carrying Tony.
During Mitch's young adult years, his preteen brothers watched him fall into drugs.
"He was about 21 when he got into a bad crowd," Ann Johnson said of her eldest son. "Like with Tim and Tony, too, it's very tempting -- shiny, like tinsel."
Still, during an interview at their Tarboro home, Tommy Johnson, 61, and Ann, 58, said they kept a close watch over their younger two.
"They were not allowed to hang out. What we did, we did together as a family," Ann said. "You see where our computer is. We monitored their TV; we
monitored this computer and their friends."
Timothy and Tony did well in grade school but became restless in middle school, their mother said. Both had trouble sitting still and completing schoolwork.
"That age is a hard age, and then they hit those hormones and they're ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder]. You put those three together ...," Ann Johnson said.
Aiming to achieve
Timothy, the middle child, wanted to do well in school and asked for the drug Ritalin after seeing a commercial, his father said. Timothy's
improvement earned him student-of-the-year honors in the eighth grade.
Shortly afterward, he served as a General Assembly page. Among his mother's keepsakes is a photo of her son at the legislature.
"Tim was my easiest to manage. Tony and Mitchell were more likely to push," she said. "If you said no, Tim would go on back to his room and leave you
alone. If you had a rule, he didn't push the limits as much."
After Tarboro High, Timothy enrolled at NCSU. Two years later, Tony moved to Raleigh to live with his brother and attend Wake Technical Community
College. But after Tony didn't do well in school, he returned to Tarboro and worked in construction.
Felonies on record
Earlier this year, the brothers were sentenced for crimes related to an August 2004 home invasion and robbery in Raleigh, in which armed assailants broke in, restrained people with duct tape, then left with drugs, cash and guns.
Timothy, 23, pleaded guilty to robbery and burglary charges in that case and was sentenced to at least 10 years in prison. A jury found Tony, 21, guilty on robbery, kidnapping and burglary charges, for which he was sentenced to
at least 16 years.
Those violent felonies on their records make both eligible for the death penalty if they are convicted of first-degree murder.
Testimony and evidence in the home invasion revealed that Timothy Johnson sold drugs during his high school and college years. His murder trial defense lawyers admit he smoked marijuana before the shootings and had a gun stashed in his car.
On visits to Raleigh, Ann Johnson said she never saw drugs or weapons in the apartment her sons shared and can't wrap her mind around revelations that Timothy was a drug dealer or that her sons were involved in a revenge scheme to reclaim cocaine stolen from Timothy's apartment.
In the tailgate shootings, Timothy's lawyers say he acted in defense of his younger brother. Prosecutors paint Tony Johnson, whose murder trial is set for October, as the "instigator and catalyst" in the shootings of Kevin McCann and 2nd Lt. Brett Harman.
Rob Harman, Brett's older brother, sees wasted potential for all four young men.
"[Timothy Johnson] made horrible decisions, and Brett and Kevin were killed as a result," he said. "If Brett had died in Iraq, that would have been the path that he chose, and as painful as that would have been, it would have meant something."
Hard to comprehend
Friends and relatives of the Johnsons in Tarboro say it's hard to understand how two boys they watched grow up playing sports and going to church could, as young men, face responsibility for ending two lives -- and possibly death
themselves.
A week later, with Timothy and Tony Johnson in jail, their parents were surrounded by church members who prayed for them.
Ann Johnson knows that even if her sons are acquitted, they still have lengthy prison sentences for the home invasion.
Staff writer Cindy George can be reached at 829-4656 or
[email protected].
