Bonne Terre Prison Executes First Prisoner in Years

Cop Killer Executed for 2005 Murder

(ConservativeSense.com) – Kevin Johnson, 37, exacted revenge on July 5, 2005, against St. Louis police officer William McEntee, shooting him ambush-style in a cold-blooded murder despite his mother’s protests. On Tuesday, November 29, the state of Missouri carried out Johnson’s death sentence in the Bonne Terre state prison using a pentobarbital injection.

McEntee and other officers went to Johnson’s home in July 2005 to serve an arrest warrant for an alleged probation violation. A court had previously convicted the young man of assaulting his girlfriend.

In his trial, Johnson, then 19, testified that he woke his 12-year-old brother, Joseph Long, when he saw the police arrive and sent him to his grandmother’s house next door. However, Long, who had a congenital heart defect, suffered a seizure and collapsed. Johnson claimed McEntee prevented his mother from aiding his brother, who subsequently died at a hospital shortly thereafter.

Missouri executes Kevin Johnson for 2005 police officer killing https://t.co/pqSCOsf45q

— UPI.com (@UPI) November 30, 2022

Later that evening, dispatch sent McEntee, a 20-year police veteran, back to the neighborhood to investigate reports of illegal fireworks. While the officer questioned three children from his cruiser, Johnson shot him through the open passenger-side window, hitting him three times.

According to witnesses, Johnson went to tell his mother what he’d done, saying the man needed to “see what it feels like to die” after letting his brother die earlier that day. His mother told him that wasn’t true, but she couldn’t dissuade him. Johnson walked back to the police car, found McEntee still alive, and shot him twice more, killing him.

The convicted murderer filed a number of failed appeals to his sentence based on his age at the time, mental capacity, and charges of racism. Reverend Darryl Gray attended to Johnson as his spiritual adviser and stayed with him during the injection. His daughter, Khorry Ramey, 19, had petitioned for permission to witness her father’s death, but Missouri prohibits anyone under 21 from attending.

Johnson died without making a formal statement, but Gray relayed the convict’s apologies to the McEntee family and his own.