Michael Johnson (serial killer)
Michael A. Johnson Jr. is an American serial killer who, between 2008 and 2010, killed four women in Chicago, Illinois, and discarded their bodies in abandoned buildings throughout the South Side. After a survivor came forward and reported him to police, Johnson was apprehended. He was sentenced to 90 years in prison, later reduced to 85 years, for beating, raping, and trying to kill a woman. In 2015, Johnson was convicted of raping and murdering a woman and sentenced to 100 years in prison.
Early life
Johnson was born in South Side, Chicago, in 1985. He was born missing three fingers from his right hand, which is possibly due to his mother's heavy use of drugs during her pregnancy. When he was five years old, his father left the family, leaving Johnson and his six other siblings in the custody of his mother who often neglected them. His mother also regularly beat Johnson with electrical cords and barred him along with his siblings from leaving the house. Due to this, she would not let any of them attend high school. The family struggled financially, so as a way of work his mother resorted to prostitution, while Johnson would often travel to the corner store to beg for food.Johnson met Tena Anderson at a friend's birthday in 2006. The two dived into a relationship and a year later Anderson delivered Johnson's baby. In April 2008 Johnson was granted work at FedEx, but due to him struggling financially he became homeless and was subsequently laid off from work.
Murders
A few months after being laid off, Johnson met a 43-year-old sex worker at a gas station, and he was able to convince her to agree to have sex for money. The two voyaged to a foreclosed home Johnson once lived in. The two had sex but the woman refused to go on when Johnson requested a certain sex act. The refusal caused Johnson to be thrown into rage and attacked the woman, choking her until she lost consciousness, then sexually assaulted her and threw her off the second story balcony. He then dragged her unconscious body to an alleyway where he left her for dead. The woman survived but suffered a collapsed lung, lacerated liver and permanent scars all over her back.Two months later, in November 2008 Johnson attacked another woman, 38-year-old Eureka Jackson, whom he strangled and who died as a result. He discarded her body in a boarded up building on the border in the West Pullman neighborhood. She was found with her shirt tied to her neck which was also tied to a closet door handle. Johnson then took a year-long hiatus. In January 2010 Johnson struck again, when he strangled Leslie Brown to death, and dumped her dead body at 119th and Wentworth, where it was found frozen and nude by a passerby.
In March, Johnson attacked Candice Franklin in the neighborhood of Roseland. He choked her until she was unconscious, raped her, and left her for dead. She later awoke with a swollen eye and a bloodied face, but survived from her injuries. Later that same month, Johnson strangled 30-year-old Siobhan "Shay" Hampton to death, later discarding her body near Harold's Chicken Shack. In May Johnson killed his final victim, 29-year-old Lutelda Hudson, who was also strangled.