After a search of the Johnson Family Mortuary in July past year, authorities recovered the decaying bodies of the relatives of the family members who testified, weeks after they had received boxes of ashes that Johnson identified as the remains. No one stood up to her, the witness said.
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A mortuary owner left bodies to rot after taking money from clients for funerals and not properly attending to the corpses.
“You promised us our mother’s ashes and to this day we still don’t have them”, Felicia testified.
– The man convicted of theft after several decomposing bodies were found in an abandoned funeral home will spend the next two years in jail.
“We have not found my mother’s remains just yet”, she said, urging anyone who used the Johnson Family Mortuary to check their loved ones’ ashes for #4065. The number associated with her mother’s remains is 4065, Braxton said.
Johnson awaits trial on abuse of corpse charges. “No, It’s Dondre Johnson”. First was Donnessa Johnson, Dondre’s 18-year-old daughter. Her testimony was brief and the state objected to the relevance of the defense asking about the whereabouts of Rachel Hardy.
Rachel Hardy-Johnson, began serving a 21-month federal prison sentence for food stamp benefit fraud in August.
The other defense witness was Rodney Knotts, of the Tarrant County supervision corrections department.
He now faces up to two years in jail for each count.
“Dondre was looking forward to his day in court and a fair trial and he didn’t get that”, his attorney, Alex Kim, said. And he didn’t appear to show much emotion as victims’ families poured their hearts out.
“Mr. Johnson was playing a Ponzi scheme with human flesh”, Mody said during closing arguments.
“We continue to pray for the families and for my family”, said Johnson’s identical twin brother, Derrick Johnson. “If you sentence him to state jail, that’s it. But if you sentence him to probation you have given him the opportunity to make things right”. Testimony during the punishment phase revealed that Johnson is now running a service that picks up deceased bodies at hospitals and funeral homes.
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A witness for the defense, a former employee of the mortuary, told the jury that Hardy-Johnson never shared ownership duties with anyone.
