Court filing details murder suspect's disorders, addictions
BY TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA and L.L. BRASIER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITERS
By her own account, Laura Johnson has had a tortured life.
In court papers filed after her 2005 divorce, Johnson said she had "schizo-affective disorder, chronic depression ... pain medication addictions, skin lesions and obsessive compulsion disorder." Records said she had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals and had attempted suicide.
The records provide the first portrait of Johnson, who now sits in jail, charged with murdering her current husband, attorney Lloyd G. Johnson, and of practicing medicine without a license. Lloyd Johnson, 47, died Wednesday of yet-to-be-determined causes. Police took items, including possible human tissue and needles, from their Farmington Hills home.
Farmington Hills 47th District Judge Marla Parker entered a plea of not guilty for Johnson on Friday.
JoAnn Robinson, a legal assistant who had worked with Lloyd Johnson at his home-based law practice for the last year, said that items were in the home because Laura Johnson assisted with in-home wound care for her husband. She said his diabetes explains the medical equipment. And his wife did help him care for related sores. But it doesn't explain why he died, she said.
"I think she went a little too far on her wound care," Robinson said sarcastically Friday.
Laura Johnson faces up to life in prison if convicted of killing her husband. His funeral is 10 a.m. Monday at A.H. Peters Funeral Home in Grosse Pointe Woods.
Trouble brewed in lawyer's marriage
Discord speckled the Johnsons’ marriage long before Laura Johnson was charged Friday with second-degree murder in his death.
Police in Livonia had charged Lloyd Johnson — an appellate specialist who had worked with nationally recognized lawyer Geoffrey Fieger — with domestic violence after an April 2009 call from the Livonia Marriott by his wife, according to records in Livonia’s 16th District Court.
She said her husband, after throwing papers in her face, pushed her into a hotel dresser during an argument about legal work and financial problems.
"Laura also stated that this was the third time that Lloyd had assaulted her and she was 'sick of it,' " the Livonia police officer wrote in his report.
A few days later, she asked Judge Kathleen McCann to dismiss the charge in an affidavit filed in 16th District Court on April 13, 2009.
"While my husband has a history of being loud and throwing papers and objects, he has no prior history of picking me up or otherwise throwing me or others," she wrote.
McCann dismissed the case on May 21, 2009.
A lawyer for Lloyd Johnson's five adult children said that Johnson told his wife, 46, he wanted a divorce last weekend. She called EMS to the home Monday, claiming he had a heart attack.
Police found bloody bedding in the home and the dog dead outside. Lloyd Johnson died at Botsford Hospital in Farmington Hills early Wednesday.
Scott Hills, 50, of Livonia said he has been trying to use the 2009 case to get custody of his 8- and 10-year-old sons with Laura Johnson, his wife from 1984 to 2006.
"They were both just nuts," he said Friday. He has custody of his boys after picking them up this week from his ex-wife's Elm Grove home. "I didn't want my boys in that. But it's hard to get them away from the biological mother."
According to medical records in Oakland County Circuit Court, Laura Johnson suffered from self-inflicted skin wounds, the result of her obsessive compulsive disorder. The wounds were made worse with fungal and bacterial infections that sometimes required hospitalizations. She has also been in and out of psychiatric hospitals and has attempted suicide.
In 2008, Laura Johnson applied for Social Security disability benefits, saying she had "schizo-affective disorder, chronic depression, bilateral cervical radiculopathy, bilateral carpal tunnel, lumber stenosis, pain medication addictions, skin lesions and obsessive compulsion disorder," according to court records.
The Social Security Administration turned her down for benefits, saying that her conditions "are not severe enough to keep you from working."
Farmington Hills police investigators still were not releasing Friday exactly what led to Laura Johnson being charged with second-degree murder and unauthorized practice of medicine.
The lack of information left neighbors wondering what went on in the brown colonial. One said police visits and yelling were regular occurrences during the year the Johnsons lived there with Laura Johnson's sons.
"It still doesn't answer a lot of questions," neighbor Marie Paul, 44, said Friday. "It's still strange."
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Funeral arrangements
The funeral for Lloyd G. Johnson will be at 10 a.m. Monday at A.H. Peters Funeral Home, 20705 Mack Ave., Grosse Pointe Woods. Visitation is scheduled 3-9 p.m. Sunday. For information, call 313-884-5500 or go to http://obit.ahpeters.com.
Laura Johnson is a psycho and a liar. The best thing in the world for those boys is that they are away from Laura and her psycho family.
ReplyDeleteLloyd was a good friend of mine and I did not understand his relationship with Laura. But he would be alive today if he had left her before this happened.