Katherine Burgess covers county government and the suburbs.On December 8, 1984, Donnie Johnson was working at Force Camping Sales in Memphis, Tennessee, along with Ronnie McCoy, who was signed out of a Penal Farm, where he was serving a four month sentence for false reporting. The Bible also says, ‘An eye for an eye.’” “His forgiveness is to come from the Lord and his redemption is to come from the Lord, not the government. “If he found redemption, that doesn’t matter, that’s between him and God,” Jason Johnson said. When he learned that she was part of the clemency petition, Jason Johnson called the governor’s office to tell them another side, he said. Jason Johnson said he doesn’t understand his sister’s point of view - after all, she hated their father passionately for years. “I pray that one day he can forgive me for my wrongs, for my responsibility for the loss of his mother, and for my inability to be the father he so deserves,” he wrote. In his own words: 'If my work is done, then I am content,' death row inmate says An estranged familyĭon Johnson wrote that he is estranged from his son. Rather, he said his father tried to control his life, and eventually he cut ties. He called him too, he said, and wanted to give him a chance. Jason Johnson also met his father in person while he was on death row - several times, around 1999. “Something I carry with joy in my heart, each and every day.”

“(My relationship with Cynthia) is one of the richest blessings a father could hope for,” he said. How siblings arrived at opposing conclusionsįor Vaughn, it was a 2012 meeting with her stepfather that took her from hating him to letting the anger go and finding healing, she wrote.ĭon Johnson, who answered written questions from the USA TODAY Network - Tennessee through his attorneys, said meeting with Vaughn was “the most humbling experience” of his life. He was happily married for 16 years until his wife passed away in February. Vaughn remembered more of what happened after they moved in with an aunt, Jason Johnson said - but he said he remembers growing up and being made fun of because his father had killed his mother.ĭespite his childhood, Jason Johnson wants people to know that he turned out alright: He runs equipment for a construction company in Alabama and has two children.

“It will feel like losing my mother all over again.” “Over these past few years, Don has become one of my last connections to my mother, and his execution will not feel like justice to me,” Vaughn wrote in an opinion piece for The Tennessean. The petition for clemency hinges on how Vaughn, who declined through her father’s attorneys to speak to reporters, has forgiven her father. But the petition also said he was transformed.Īnd Vaughn said she believes that transformation. Don Johnson himself acknowledges that he has been a con man: His attorneys said so in his petition for clemency.

A Fortress Defiled by Connie Johnson