The only survivor was identified as Cynthia Johnson, Carl’s wife.
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According to an arrest affidavit obtained by News 8, neighbor William Hudson approached them Saturday, riding an orange tractor.
Mrs. Johnson, the affidavit said, was hiding at the campsite from Hudson when he returned to the trailer, remaining out of sight when she heard the final shots.
A few of the family members went into the woods with Hudson, the document said, and there were “multiple gunshots”.
They say the only survivor, Cynthia Johnson was able to escape, hide in the woods, and call 911.
Surviving family members were left numb by the carnage, which Taylor likened to “a war movie”. The Johnson moved to Texas a decade ago when they retired from working at the University of ME in Farmington. They’d gone there to camp on Kamp’s land this past weekend as they often did.
William Mitchell Hudson, 33, drove a tractor to the campers’ rural property next to his family’s Tennessee Colony land sometime on Saturday. “While speaking to Hudson through the door, he discontinued communication and barricaded himself inside”.
The motive for the attack remains unclear. Johnson heard two shots and saw her husband Carl, 77, fall on the trailer steps, the warrant reveals. Carina explained she was told Hudson was angry about his father’s transaction of the land and that Thomas put a gate up making the land private.
The police also reported that a man and woman were found dead in a travel trailer as well as bodies of four males where one is a minor was discovered in a pond just at the back of Hudson’s residence.
Kamp bought the property in August and would camp there several weekends each month, Woodruff said. His bail is set at $2.5 million. His court-appointed attorney, Stephen Evans, said he couldn’t comment on the details of the investigation because he had just been assigned the case and not yet met with Hudson.
“This is very obviously going to be a long, hard journey and we have a lot of work to do”, Evans said.
Previous information provided by Taylor, along with details from the warrant, paint a portrait of Hudson as a seemingly friendly man before he turned on the blended family that had gathered for the weekend to camp on land about 100 miles southeast of Dallas. It said he later returned to socialize and drink alcoholic beverages with them.
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On Tuesday, Thomas Kamp’s ex-wife, Carina Kamp, told the Palestine Herald-Press that Hudson’s family sold Kamp a small piece of their more than 50 acres of land. Kamp was Hannah Johnson’s fiance, Woodruff said.
