Stephen K. Johns

:NOTE: This text is taken in part from the following court decisions, which are in the Public Domain: "Johns v. Bowersox (8th Cir. 2000) No. 971637; Johns v. Luebbers (2001) 534 U.S. 988; Johns v. Missouri (2001) 534 U.S. 988; State v. Johns (1984) 679 S.W.2d 253)."
Stephen K. Johns (September 26, 1946 - October 24, 2001) was a convicted murderer executed by lethal injection by the State of Missouri for the murder of a 17-year-old Missouri high school student Donald Voepel Jr. in 1982.
In January 1982, 35-year-old Johns told David Smith he wanted to rob the Onyx gas station in St. Louis, Missouri, adding that he “never left any witnesses.” In early February, Johns told Linda Klund, an acquaintance of some four and one-half years, he planned to rob the station and asked her to drive the getaway car. Klund agreed to do so.
On the morning of February 18 Johns called Klund and told her, “He was going to do it that evening.” Johns first purchased fifteen .32-caliber bullets at a sporting goods store. In the evening Klund picked up Johns and his friend Robert S. Wishon, a 19-year-old white male. Klund noticed that Johns was carrying a small handgun. After reviewing the getaway route with Johns, Klund parked the car up the street from the Onyx station and Johns and Wishon went inside. They stole $248 in cash and shot Donald Voepel, the attendant, in the back of the head three times at point-blank range.
When they returned to the vehicle, Johns told Klund that they “didn’t get as much money as they thought they were going to get,” and as they drove away, Johns and Wishon threw the moneybag onto the highway. When Klund dropped Johns off, he gave her the gun and told her to keep it for him in case he was caught.
Police searched Johns’s residence that night and discovered handwritten surveillance information about the gas station. Johns was not home, having called Klund and learned that police were searching for him. He told Klund to dispose of the gun and went to the home of a friend, Albert Keener. Johns told Keener that he and Wishon robbed the station and that “he himself shot the kid in the head three times.”
On February 19 Keener told police where Johns was and that he had confessed to the robbery and murder. Johns was arrested that evening after which Klund confessed her role in the robbery and turned over the gun that forensics experts determined was the .32-caliber revolver used to commit the murder. Klund also showed police the escape route and led them to the discarded moneybag.
On March 4 Johns was indicted in St. Louis County for capital murder. The case against Johns was submitted to the jury on the theory that the actual shooting was done by Wishon and that Johns was guilty as an accomplice. The jury finding that even if Johns did not pull the trigger, he “acted together with or aided or encouraged” Wishon “with the purpose of promoting or furthering the commission of capital murder” convicted him. On October 22 the jury recommended a death sentence, and 77 days later the Circuit Court of St. Louis City sentenced Johns to death. On October 9, 1984, the Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed the conviction and sentence. The day before execution the Supreme Court of the United States denied two stay requests.
After testifying for the State, Klund pleaded guilty to robbery. Wishon pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was paroled in August 2001.
Last statement
While strapped to the gurney, Johns stated,
"Missouri and its agents have killed innocent men in the past. I guess they think it's just part of doing business. I have, over the past many years, heard many 'last words' of those killed by the State and it's citizens. They range from "I'm sorry" to "kiss my fat ass." If the State and its citizens kill me, I would say that I do not forgive those whose lies led to my conviction. I do not forgive the jurists who exercised their considerable intellect to deny me justified legal redress. I do not forgive those State functionaries, who act as 'good Germans' to kill me. I am innocent, but was not given the tools at trial, or on appeal, to make my innocence into a legal reality.

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