Neighbor says teen charged in BallenIsles stabbings was stoic, polite,

JUPITER — A neighbor in The Bluffs neighborhood who occasionally took Corey Johnson to high school with other students said Wednesday that the 17-year-old accused of first-degree murder was a “world-class dude.”

“Pleasant. Polite. He was a quiet kid for his age. He was stoic. He was a very typical kid. He never did anything to make you think he would do something like this,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be named, citing his relationship with the family.

Johnson, 17, is being held in juvenile detention while a grand jury decides whether to charge him as an adult on one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder.

The early Monday morning stabbings inside the gated BallenIsles Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens left 13-year-old Jovanni Sierra dead and a woman and child seriously injured.

Elaine Simon — who sustained 10 to 12 stab wounds, including to her face, neck and wrists — was released Wednesday from St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach. Dane Bancroft, Simon’s 13-year-old son, was stabbed 32 times and lost a kidney, according to his father. He remained hospitalized at St. Mary’s on Thursday.

Kyle Bancroft, Dane’s older brother, was not injured in the attacks, which took place just before 6 a.m. at the rented home Simon and her sons were living in on Sunset Bay Lane. Kyle Bancroft told The Palm Beach Post on Tuesday that Johnson

had been his best friend for a few years prior to the attacks and that he often stayed at their house.

In his interview with police, Johnson said perceived affronts to his Muslim faith led him to attack Jovanni and Dane. Jovanni, he said, had compared pop-culture figures to gods, and Dane had mocked the way he prayed and kissed the ground in his practice of Islam.

American Muslim leaders have said have repeatedly condemned expressions of Islam — the world’s second-largest faith, after Christianity — that involve violence and terrorism, especially since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Other residents in The Bluffs, a tidy neighborhood of single-family houses west of U.S. 1 and just north of Marcinski Road in Jupiter, said Johnson was a tall, slender young man with wavy brown hair who was often seen walking by himself.

“But that’s not a reflection that ( Johnson) was a loner. There are not many kids in the neighborhood his age,” said Mike Hendren, who lives three houses away from where Johnson lived with his grandparents on Cape Pointe Circle.

Hendren said he had never spoken to Johnson, who police agencies disclosed they had monitored since middle school for anti-Semitic and anti-gay statements he had been making. The Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office also questioned Johnson about neoNazi and white-supremacist statements he had made online while he was a student at Dwyer High School.

Another neighbor, who asked not to be named, said Johnson got a job with a Winn-Dixie supermarket about a month ago, right after he stopped attending William T. Dwyer High School in Palm Beach Gardens. Johnson rode his bicycle to and from the job.

Managers at the store, at Frederick Small Road and Military Trail in Jupiter, declined comment Thursday.

“I would see him walking down the street. He had a backpack. He was a tall kid. There was nothing about his clothing or actions that set him apart from other kids. It seemed like he was always by himself. I never talked to him,” that neighbor said.

The neighbor who occasionally took Johnson to school said the conversation was light during the 20-minute ride from The Bluffs neighborhood to the school, on the southwest corner of Donald Ross Road and Military Trail.

“We talked about the weather. He said he spent a lot of time on the computer, like all teenagers,” recalled the neighbor.

A GoFundMe account has been set up online to help Jovanni’s family pay for his funeral, scheduled for noon today at Christ Fellowship in Palm Beach Gardens.

Lucas Bancroft, Kyle and Dane’s father, said a separate GoFundMe has been created to help pay for his son’s and his ex-wife’s medical bills as well.