JOLIET – Thirty years after he was convicted of six murders, Milton Johnson was back at the Will County Courthouse this week for another hearing.
In March 1983, Johnson was paroled after serving half of a 25-year sentence for raping a woman in Pilcher Park in 1970. On July 17, 1983, he killed Anthony Hackett, 18, who’d been sleeping in his car on Interstate 55 near Wilmington and raped and left Hackett’s fiancee for dead.
On Aug. 20, 1983, Johnson fatally stabbed Marilyn Baers, 45, Barbara Dunbar, 38, Pamela Ryan, 29 and Agnes Ryan, 75, inside a ceramics shop on Cass Street in Joliet.
Prosecutors have said there also is “overwhelming evidence” Johnson killed five people – George Kiehl, 24, Cathleen Norwood, 25, Richard Paulin, 32, and two Will County Sheriff’s Auxiliary Deputies Denis Foley, 50, and Steven Mayer, 22 – off 147th Street in Homer Township the night before Hackett was murdered.
Because Johnson was sentenced to death for the other murders, then-Will County State’s Attorney Ed Petka decided not to prosecute unless his convictions were overturned on appeal.
In 2002, the Illinois Supreme Court ordered DNA testing in the Hackett case which did not exonerate Johnson, whose sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with all the other capital cases in Illinois the next year.
Because court rulings have been “reversed and remanded” Johnson has not exhausted his post-conviction motions, according to appellate defender John Greenlees.
Johnson, now 65, claims his trial attorney in the Hackett slaying, William Swano, was incompetent and should have filed to suppress his arrest. Swano was later convicted in federal cases of drug possession and bribing judges.
Wednesday’s hearing featured testimony from three long-retired state police officers who took part in Johnson’s arrest on March 9, 1984. All of the witnesses recalled they were among the police waiting to question Johnson when he arrived for an appointment at the parole office in Romeoville, but none could remember how long the interview lasted, whether Johnson was escorted to the bathroom or who put the cuffs on him.
Additional testimony may be presented when the hearing continues next month.