Three killings bring man 60 years to life

A former UNLV football player and volunteer Cheyenne High School coach, convicted of killing his son, niece and brother, is likely to be locked away for the rest of his life.

Calling the slayings a "heinous, brutal crime," District Judge Lee Gates sentenced 37-year-old Carleton Johnson to 60 years to life in prison, plus an additional three to 12 years for a robbery Johnson committed after the killings. It was the maximum punishment Gates could levy against Johnson.

His family described in court how the slayings of 38-year-old John Johnson, his 6-year-old daughter, Johnna, and Carleton Johnson's 5-year-old son, Kamryn, have devastated their large family.

"I love my son," Carolyn Jefferson said, referring to Carleton Johnson.

"And I love my son that I don't have any more, that I'll never get to embrace anymore," she added.

Carleton Johnson had been living with his brother and his brother's girlfriend, Kim Kuivinen, at an apartment on South Jones Boulevard, near West Flamingo Road.

Kuivinen came home from work about 9 p.m. on June 18, 2005, and saw Carleton Johnson pacing and mumbling in front of their apartment, according to the police report. Inside, she found her boyfriend barely alive in the kitchen, and her daughter and Kamryn dead in a bedroom.

Carleton Johnson killed his brother first and chased down his son and his niece, prosecutor Robert Daskas said.

Kamryn was running into the bedroom when Carleton Johnson shot him in the back and buttocks with a 12-gauge shotgun, he said.

Johnna "was backing into the closet, hands raised" when Johnson shot her in the stomach, Daskas said.

As Kuivinen called 911, residents of the apartment saw Carleton Johnson drive away in his vehicle, according to the police report.

Carleton Johnson later acknowledged he robbed a woman before police arrested him.

Kuivinen told the court she hated Carleton Johnson for taking her loved ones away.

"I miss my daughter's laugh, combing her long hair, having her color on the walls with crayons," Kuivinen said in court.

She also said she missed John Johnson, who made her laugh, argued with her about the messy kitchen and prevented her from sleeping by playing video games all night.

Carleton Johnson has never admitted to the killings. He told police he was not at the apartment at the time of the shootings.

After his arrest he was sent to a state's mental health facility where he was forced to take and then accepted medications that help with the delusional disorder Carleton Johnson suffers from, his defense attorney Norman Reed said.

The medications have helped him but also account for Johnson's stoic demeanor in court, Reed said.

Johnson could not use insanity as a defense because Carleton Johnson did not admit he committed the murders, Reed said after the sentencing.

"He just has never been willing to talk about it," Reed said.

Johnson apologized in court Monday for the pain his family has suffered as a result of the slayings of his son, niece and brother. Johnson maintained, however, that he was not responsible for their deaths.

Reed said he believed the jury realized Carleton suffered from a mental disorder and that was why they convicted him of three counts of second-degree murder, instead of first-degree murder, because he was incapable of premeditation or deliberation.

"They knew Carleton Johnson was not in his right mind," Reed said.

He had argued for a life sentence with parole eligibility after 26 years in prison because, he said, the medications and mental health care Carleton John has received in jail have made him a different man since the murders occurred.

His family and the relatives of the victims also were changed by the killings. They were shattered, they said.

"I don't know if we can ever put it back together again," said John Henry Rucker, Kam-ryn's maternal grandfather.

Carleton Johnson's mother said she wonders what happened to her son and no one can tell her.

"He used to be a UNLV football star, a star!" she said.