Woman, 19, charged in neighbor’s 2013 stabbing death
Four years ago, a crashed car led police to Robert J. “Bob” Johnson’s house in the 5700 block of W. Hadley St., where they found him dead in his bed, stabbed dozens of times.
Last month, his former neighbor, 19-year-old Jasmine McDonald, was charged with killing him after his previous generosity led her into his home, where she says he grabbed her in his bedroom.
McDonald told investigators she had never told anyone about her claimed relationship with the 84year-old Johnson, his death or her theft and crash of his car.
But DNA gathered from that scene, which McDonald unsuccessfully tried to set on fire, eventually led to McDonald, who is serving a three-year prison sentence for an unrelated armed robbery in 2016.
According to the criminal complaint:
Officers found a silver Mitsubishi Galant with a handicapped license plate crashed and abandoned near N. 53rd and W. Hadley streets. A witness told them he had seen a young woman run from the car, then return a short time later, dump a bottle inside, then light a napkin on fire and drop it on the seat.
Officers were able to remove the burning napkin before the car’s interior ignited.
Investigators recovered a palm print from a baby bottle that still had some flammable liquid and DNA from the car’s steering wheel, as well as a blue hooded sweatshirt.
Meanwhile, they traced the license plate to Johnson. Outside his house, a neighbor said he never let anyone inside or let anyone drive his car but had told her that he left his bathroom window unlocked if she ever needed to enter if he was having an emergency.
Police went through the window and found Johnson.
In March 2014, the DNA sample from the Mitsubishi steering wheel was entered into a databank of DNA and in June 2017, the system showed a match to McDonald.
Last month, she told a detective she had known Johnson, though not by name, because she walked past his house to the store and to school nearly every day since 2010. They never spoke until about three months before his death.
One day, Johnson asked her where she was going. When she said to Hannah’s foods, he asked if she would get him some Diet Dr Pepper and Nutter Butter bars. He gave her $50 and let her keep the change.
Johnson made the same request about 10 more times over the next months, McDonald said, and always told her to keep the change, and never asked for anything beyond the soda and candy she returned to him.
Then on Oct. 10, 2013, she said, Johnson was outside and made his usual request. But when she approached him to get the money, he said he needed to get it and invited her inside. She said she thought nothing of it and followed him inside, where he then grabbed her arm and tried to lift her shirt.
She said she yelled and struggled and eventually wrestled a knife from his hand and stabbed him over and over using both hands.
“It felt like forever,” she recalled. She said she could hear Johnson breathing as she washed her hands in a bathroom and then took his car keys from a table.
McDonald denied ever talking about the incident with anyone but said she did write about it in her personal journal, before tearing out the page in fear that her mother might see it.
A court commissioner on Tuesday found probable cause she killed Johnson and bound her over for trial.