THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 22, 1995 TAG: 9506220459
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
The night before he stabbed Joey Garcia to death, Joshua M. Johnson told a friend that he wanted to steal a fast car so he and his girlfriend could run away to Florida, imitate Bonnie and Clyde and ``kill somebody.''
Earlier that day, Johnson told another friend, ``I'm going to kill somebody. I can feel it.''
A few days before that, Johnson demonstrated to three friends how he had learned to stab someone in the back so the victim couldn't scream.
All three stories were told Wednesday by Johnson's friends in Circuit Court, on the opening day of Johnson's murder trial.
All three friends said they thought Johnson had been joking.
Prosecutors say Johnson and his girlfriend, Kelly Anne Dara, lured Garcia to Dara's home on March 6 to kill him and steal his racy red Honda Accord CRX.
Garcia and Dara were 17-year-old classmates at Salem High School. Johnson is an 18-year-old Salem dropout. He is charged with first-degree murder, attempted robbery and conspiracy.
Prosecutor Albert Alberi told jurors that Johnson's boasting before the killing showed his premeditation.
``Joshua Johnson was foretelling an event that was really going to occur,'' Alberi said. But the plan failed, Alberi said, ``because Joey Garcia was tough enough to fight back and tough enough to make an escape.''
Garcia was stabbed twice in the back but managed to get out of the house and into his car. He drove half a block before collapsing. He died soon after.
Johnson admits stabbing Garcia but says the motive was not theft. His attorney, Richard Clark, told the jurors that Johnson was protecting his girlfriend.
Clark said Johnson, trying to stop a fight between Dara and Garcia, grabbed a knife and stabbed Garcia. The key issue, Clark told the jurors, is: What was Johnson's intent at the moment of the fight?
``His intent . . . is to protect Kelly Dara,'' Clark said. ``He's outraged, he's mad at Joey Garcia. There was not an intent to take the car.''
Prosecutors called seven witnesses Wednesday, including the friend who drove with Johnson and Dara to North Carolina after the killing. The couple eluded police for one day before police found them at an Outer Banks motel.
Four friends testified about Johnson's boasts before the killing, but none said they took him seriously.
Two teenage friends testified that they were present when Johnson demonstrated, in a friend's bedroom, a method he had learned to stab someone in the back so the victim could not scream. Alberi said Johnson used this method to kill Garcia.
The witnesses - Mandy Hope, 16, and Brian Farrow, 15 - demonstrated on Alberi how Johnson had showed them where in the left upper back to stab a victim. ``He told us it would pierce his heart and lung at the same time,'' Hope said.
Hope said Johnson boasted that he had learned the technique because a friend had hired him to kill someone for $500. She said she didn't believe him. Neither did Farrow. ``I thought it was a joke,'' Farrow said.
Another friend - Matthew Brown, 17 - testified that Johnson visited him the night before the killing. He said Johnson told him he wanted to steal a car, specifically a Honda Accord CRX, so he could drive to Florida with Dara.
He said Johnson had two knives with him that night: a serrated steak knife and a small folding knife. He said Johnson told him he planned to take the car by shocking someone with a small stun gun.
At one point, Brown said, Johnson ``jokingly made reference to certain things. . . He said they were going to kill somebody,'' and he said Johnson referred to himself and Dara as Bonnie and Clyde.
Brown said he didn't take Johnson seriously.
Testimony also came from Matthew Morris, 20, who drove with Johnson and Dara to North Carolina. Morris said he did not know the couple was fleeing until they admitted the slaying in the car, and then saw a TV news report of the killing while sitting with Johnson and Dara in their Outer Banks motel.
But there had been warnings, Morris testified. The day before, Johnson had asked Morris to retrieve some money from a neighbor's mailbox. Morris said he did not know where the money was to have come from but it was not there.
Later, at a meeting in Lynnhaven Mall, Morris told Johnson he could not find the money, and Johnson got upset, Morris said. ``He said, `I'm going to kill somebody. I can feel it,' '' Morris testified. He said Johnson repeated this three times.
Johnson's trial resumes today. It is expected to last one or two more days.
Dara faces the same charges. She will be tried separately. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
JOSEPH JOHN KOTLOWSKI
Joshua M. Johnson went on trial Wednesday in Virginia Beach Circuit
Court. He is charged with murder in the stabbing of Salem High
student Joey Garcia.
KEYWORDS: MURDER STABBING TRIAL by CNB