Bio 

Milton Johnson Jr. was born on May 15, 1950, in Illinois. Publicly available records and reporting identify him as a Joliet-area man who later became associated with one of the most serious murder investigations in Will County history. Johnson had a documented violent criminal history before the 1983 murders. Court records state that he had previously been convicted of aggravated battery, burglary, and rape. He was incarcerated from 1970 until March 1983.

According to the uploaded source, Johnson had been convicted at age 19 of raping a Joliet woman and torturing her with a cigarette lighter during the assault. The same source states that he received a long prison sentence but was released in March 1983, several years before the projected end of his confinement.

After his release, Johnson lived in the household of his stepfather, Sam Myers. Court records from the Anthony Hackett case state that during the summer of 1983, Johnson lived with his mother, stepfather, and brother, and that investigators later focused on a black 1977 Chevrolet Scottsdale pickup truck owned by Myers.

Murder Story

Between June and August 1983, Will County and nearby areas of Illinois were affected by a series of killings that became known in reporting as the “weekend murders.” The victims were men and women, including two Will County sheriff’s auxiliary deputies. The killings were largely described as random, and many occurred on weekends. Johnson was later convicted in five murders, while authorities and later reports linked or suspected him in additional killings from the same period.

The first suspected murders in the series occurred on June 25, 1983. Sisters Zita Blum, 66, and Honora Lahmann, 67, were found shot to death in their Joliet Township home, and their bodies were burned. Johnson was not convicted in their deaths, but later reporting included the case among the murders authorities suspected him of committing.

On July 2, 1983, Kenneth Chancellor, 34, and Terri Lynn Johnson, 19, were found shot to death near the Will-Cook County line. Their bodies were found in connection with Chancellor’s car, which had been parked in a field. Johnson was not convicted in those two murders, but investigators considered them part of the broader pattern of suspected killings.

On July 16, 1983, five people were killed in Homer Township. The civilian victims were George Kiehl, 24; Cathleen Norwood, 25; and Richard Paulin, 32. Two Will County sheriff’s auxiliary deputies, Denis Foley, 50, and Steven Mayer, 22, were also killed. The killings happened near 147th Street and were described in later reporting as ambush-style murders. Johnson was suspected in those deaths, but prosecution in several of the suspected cases was deferred after his convictions in other murders.

The next morning, July 17, 1983, Anthony Hackett, 18, and Patricia Gail Payne were returning from Great America Amusement Park in Gurnee, Illinois. They stopped to sleep in Hackett’s car along Interstate 55 in Will County. Hackett slept in the front seat, and Payne slept in the back. Around 1:30 a.m., Payne woke to tapping on the passenger-side window followed by gunshots. Hackett was struck and killed.

The assailant ordered Payne to hand over Hackett’s wallet and her purse, then forced her to crawl from the car to a pickup truck. Payne was sexually assaulted while the truck was moving, then raped after the assailant stopped the vehicle. He later stabbed her in the chest and dumped her from the truck. A passing motorist found her around 5:30 a.m., and she survived after emergency medical treatment.

Investigators later connected the case to a pickup truck owned by Johnson’s stepfather. A witness, Ann Shoemaker, had recorded the license plate number of a dark pickup truck after a suspicious encounter in July 1983. Police traced the number to Sam Myers, Johnson’s stepfather. A search of the truck produced evidence that included hairs, bloodstains, a knife, reddish-brown fibers, and a receipt connected to a Tasmanian Devil stuffed doll that Hackett had bought at Great America.

On March 9, 1984, Payne viewed a lineup. After the men repeated commands used by the attacker, Payne identified Johnson by face and voice as the man who attacked her. Johnson was later convicted by a jury of Anthony Hackett’s murder, aggravated kidnapping, deviate sexual assault, rape, and attempted murder of Payne. He was sentenced to death for Hackett’s murder and received concurrent 40-year prison terms for rape, deviate sexual assault, and attempted murder.

Johnson was also tried for the August 20, 1983 Greenware by Merry ceramic shop murders in Joliet. The victims were Marilyn Baers, 46, the shop owner; Barbara Dunbar, 38; Anna Ryan, 75; and Pamela Ryan, 29. Court records state that Pamela Ryan, Barbara Dunbar, and Marilyn Baers died from multiple stab wounds, while Anna Ryan was both stabbed and shot. Johnson was found guilty on eight counts covering murder and felony murder, and the trial court sentenced him to death on the felony-murder convictions.

Johnson’s death sentences were later affected by Illinois’ death penalty changes. In 2003, Governor George Ryan commuted many Illinois death sentences to life imprisonment, and Johnson was among those whose sentence became life in prison.

Johnson remained incarcerated at Menard Correctional Center for decades. On May 16, 2025, he died in custody, one day after his 75th birthday. The Illinois Department of Corrections confirmed his death at Menard Correctional Center, but the reviewed source did not confirm a public cause of death.