VA VA - Cynthia, 34, & Heather Johnson, 7, South Richmond, 29 August 1996

[Amy Noel]

Unsolved Homicide Cases

[FONT=helvetica, arial]Cynthia H. & Heather Johnson[/FONT]
Date of Homicide: August 29, 1996

Cynthia H. Johnson Heather Johnson
On Aug. 29, 1996, Heather Johnson, 7, and Cynthia Johnson, 34, were murdered in their own home on Junaluska Drive in South Richmond. The home was set on fire to cover the crime. The victim was last talked to on Aug. 29, 1996, just a short time prior to the fire. This crime was one of Richmond’s most horrific murders.

The victim knew the killer(s) and police need your help in solving this case.

The police have compiled a great deal of information on this case and need you to help us bring it to a successful close. We believe someone knows who the suspects are and can help solve this case.

If you have any information about this case no matter how small or unimportant you believe it is, we want you to call us and pass that information on to us. You may have the missing piece of the puzzle we need.

We also know that pizza was delivered to this address the night of the murders. We need to know who delivered the pizza to the address. If you are the pizza delivery driver that delivered pizza to 6535 Junaluska Drive on the night of Aug. 29, 1996, please call and talk to investigators.

If you have any information about this homicide or about someone who knows information about this homicide please contact: Homicide Detectives (804) 646-6741 Crime Stoppers (804) 780-1000

 

[Amy Noel]

Glenn Haslam Barker in a 10-year-old photo.

August 1, 2007
Serial Killer or Scapegoat?
by Courteney Stuart

Glenn Barker says police have unfairly targeted him for years, trying to connect him to cases with no other suspects.

He claims that in addition to being wrongly convicted in Katie Worsky’s death, and unconnected to the murders of Cynthia and Heather Johnson, he’s been persecuted by law-enforcement agents in a number of cases.

Among them: the high-profile kidnapping and murder of Kristin and Kati Lisk, who disappeared from their home in Spotsylvania in May 1996 and were found murdered five days later -- less than four months before Cynthia and Heather Johnson’s deaths.

In 2002, DNA evidence and an automobile trunk palm print showed definitively that Barker wasn’t the Lisk killer. They implicated Richard Mark Evonitz, who shot himself as officers closed in on him in Florida. That evidence also conclusively linked Evonitz to the murder of 16-year-old Sophia Silva, another Spotsylvania teen killed eight months before the Lisks.

Barker says police have named him publicly as a suspect even when there is no evidence to implicate him, fanning public perception of him as a boogeyman.

Barker says that he used to be a person who would offer assistance to anyone who needed it, but the constant harassment has caused him to withdraw. It’s “changed me into a person who doesn’t care about my fellow man,” he says.

 

[StarrChance]

Suspect Glenn Barker died in 2014

http://www.c-ville.com/law-enforcem...cted-killer-glenn-barkers-death/#.VfO9D0rXerU

 

[wendybtn]

Where was the child's father? Anybody the mom was dating or had dated that had problems? I knew Evonitz killed Kristin, Katie, and Sylvia. How did Mr. Barker know the Johnsons?? Police said the Johnsons knew their killer(s).

 

[bessie]

Where was the child's father? Anybody the mom was dating or had dated that had problems? I knew Evonitz killed Kristin, Katie, and Sylvia. How did Mr. Barker know the Johnsons?? Police said the Johnsons knew their killer(s).

The answer's in the article StarrChance linked.

The woman had recently ended a romantic relationship with Barker and had taken a trip to Florida with a new love interest. Although a witness reportedly claimed seeing Barker’s pick-up truck near the home at the time of the murders, police were unable to build a case against him. In an interview for that article, Barker denied any involvement in the slayings and said the break-up had been amicable, a result of health problems that had caused him to become impotent. He moved to New Jersey soon after their deaths, where national controversy erupted when Virginia police, who suspected him in a slew of other disappearances and killings and had continued to track him, learned he was volunteering as a girls’ basketball coach and alerted local authorities.

http://www.c-ville.com/law-enforcem...cted-killer-glenn-barkers-death/#.VhFSkCuJvY9

If most people reviled him, Barker was able to connect with someone. Cynthia Powers Johnson met Barker soon after his release, and the two began dating. Barker says she was aware of his past, but the single mother was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, even as the protests– and the publicity– mounted.

http://www.readthehook.com/86065/cover-glenn-barker-serial-killer-or-convenient-scapegoat

---

Barker was living in Moore County, NC, when he died in July 2014. He was 55.

In 2002, when Barker was living in South River, Middlesex County, New Jersey, after being contacted by Virginia detectives, South River LE circulated a flier throughout the community.

Killer Posts His Own Fliers After a Police Notification
By MARIA NEWMAN
Published: April 24, 2002

[...]
Last week, representatives of the Middlesex County prosecutor's office went door to door in South River, N.J., to distribute notices saying that a convicted child killer was living in the neighborhood.

[...]
The notices that the prosecutor's office put out were meant to help residents of South River, where Mr. Barker lives, and Milltown, where he works, to protect themselves, said Peter Hamerslag, an assistant county prosecutor. The prosecutor's office also held two town meetings on Friday, in the two communities, to discuss Mr. Barker's presence.

The notice says that in addition to the murder conviction, Mr. Barker was charged in 1981 in North Carolina with kidnapping a 16-year-old girl at knifepoint, tying her to a bed and threatening to burn the house she was in. The girl escaped, and Mr. Barker pleaded guilty to a lesser crime after she refused to testify, according to the notice.

The notice says that Mr. Barker ''cruises mall parking lots, has stopped to assist a stranded female motorist, looks for women to talk to, and has coached youth basketball and baseball teams at a Y.M.C.A.''

 

[Richard]

Bumping this case up.

 

[edrebber]

It's hard to believe Barker ran his mouth endlessly as police questioned him without a lawyer present and did not incriminate himself in some way. Barker is probably innocent.

 

[Richard]

A little known serial killer who targeted women and who lived in or near Richmond, VA in the latter half of 1996 was James Allen Kinney. He did a lot of traveling around the country and was eventually convicted of murdering a girl in Washington State.

I do not know if the was connected in any way with Cynthia Johnson, but the possibility should be checked out.

 

[William Walker]

Where was the child's father? Anybody the mom was dating or had dated that had problems? I knew Evonitz killed Kristin, Katie, and Sylvia. How did Mr. Barker know the Johnsons?? Police said the Johnsons knew their killer(s).

The child's father and paternal Aunt and Grandmother were in Richmond and still live in Richmond, but there is never any mention of them.

 

[henryjohnson]

 

[Ron Johnson]

Relevant photos.

 

[William Walker]

The father and paternal grandmother died in 2023
The paternal grandfather died in 2006
The maternal grandfather died in 2018
The maternal grandmother died in 1995

The only close blood relatives left are the paternal aunt and maternal uncle.