Columbus man gets life sentence for fatally shooting his father in 2021
Bryan Johnson maintains he has no memory of fatally shooting his 76-year-old father in the head in 2021, according to Johnson's attorney Mark Hunt.
Hunt and Franklin County Assistant Prosecutor Jason Moore agree this is a "strange" case.
Johnson, 33, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of murder. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Dan Hawkins sentenced Johnson to life in prison with the opportunity for parole after serving 15 years.
Johnson shot Lewis Johnson around 10:50 p.m. on July 27, 2021, inside the elder Johnson's home on the 5200 block of Jameson Drive on the city's Southeast Side.
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Gary Johnson, the victim's brother and the killer's uncle, was in the house at the time.
Hunt said there is overwhelming evidence of what happened but no explanation.
According to both attorneys, Bryan Johnson had been in the home's basement and fired a gun. Lewis Johnson told his son to bring the gun upstairs. Bryan Johnson came upstairs and shot his father in the head, according to Hunt and Moore.
"We still to this day don’t have any idea why this happened," Hunt said. "We want to make sense of these things and there’s nothing here we can make sense of ... It’s something he lives with every day."
Both attorneys said there was no indication of any ongoing dispute between the father and son prior to the shooting. Bryan Johnson had no prior criminal record.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus man pleads guilty to murdering father in 2021
