Kentucky lawmaker Dan Johnson fatally shot himself Wednesday, two days after allegations surfaced that he had molested a member of his church when she was 17 years old, officials said.
Bullitt County Coroner Dave Billings said Johnson — a Republican state representative and self-proclaimed “Pope” of his Louisville church — died of “a penetrating gunshot wound to the head.”
The authorities found Johnson’s body Wednesday night after responding to a report about a concerning statement on his Facebook page. Officials had tracked the lawmaker’s phone to his location, near a bridge in Mount Washington, Ky., in a spot called the River Bottoms.
Johnson had suffered a single gunshot wound to his head, said Billings, the coroner. The Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office said a gun was recovered at the scene.
Billings officially ruled the 57-year-old’s death a suicide. Johnson’s body will now be released to his family for a funeral, the coroner told The Washington Post on Thursday morning. “I’m going to talk to his wife right now,” Billings said.
At his church Tuesday, Johnson had denied the molestation allegations and rejected calls to resign from Kentucky’s House of Representatives.
The following afternoon, he posted a message on Facebook again denying the accusations, saying they were “false . . . and only GOD knows the truth, nothing is the way they make it out to be.”
In the chilling, since-deleted post, Johnson added: “I cannot handle it any longer . . . BUT HEAVEN IS MY HOME.”
State leaders from both parties had been calling for Johnson’s immediate resignation after the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting published a report Monday detailing allegations that Johnson woke his daughter’s friend during a sleepover in 2013 and forced himself on her, slipping his hands up her shirt and bra and putting his fingers in her vagina.
“What you did was beyond mean; it was evil,” the victim said she wrote in a Facebook message to Johnson shortly after the alleged assault, according to KyCIR.
Johnson said that the incident never happened. “This allegation concerning this lady, this young girl, absolutely has no merit, these are unfounded accusations, totally,” he said on Tuesday, according to the Courier-Journal.
[‘I would have won Alabama’: Trump spreads blame for Moore’s loss]
The young woman, now 21, told KyCIR that for years she had considered Johnson to be a “second dad.” She became close with his daughter, Sarah, and familiar with the boozy weekend parties Johnson would throw at the “Pope’s House” — the fellowship hall next to the Heart of Fire Church. Those parties, KyCIR reported, featured scantily clad women, body shots and costumes.
In the first hours of 2013, as a New Year’s Eve party came to an end, the woman said, she was spending the night with Johnson’s daughter in the apartment under the fellowship hall, according to the report. The Washington Post does not identify victims of sexual assault without their consent.
Johnson entered the apartment, drunk and stumbling, so the then-teenager helped him navigate the stairs, she said. She thought he was putting his arm around her for balance, until his hand allegedly slipped up the girl’s shirt, KyCIR reported.
The victim then woke up later that night on the sofa, she told KyCIR, and found Johnson kneeling above her. She told KyCIR that Johnson kissed her forehead and then slipped his hands up her shirt and bra. The report said he groped her, stuck his tongue in her mouth and put his fingers in her vagina. She begged him to stop and tried to force the man, who weighed twice as much as she did, off her without waking Johnson’s daughter, KyCIR reported.
“He told her she’d like it. She said no, she didn’t. She pleaded with him: go away, go away,” KyCIR reported. He eventually did.
The KyCIR report highlights how Johnson — known in his church community as “Danny Ray Johnson” — painted a picture of himself over the years as a pro-gun, antiabortion “patriot,” which helped propel him into the Kentucky legislature in 2016, when he won the House’s 49th District seat. But the seven-month investigation, comprised of more than 100 interviews and thousands of pages of public records, alleges the Republican’s persona is orchestrated to mask troubling incidents — including sexual abuse, arson and false testimony.
Michael Skoler, the president of Louisville Public Media — which operates KyCIR — said in a statement Wednesday to The Post that the organization was “deeply sad” to hear about Johnson’s death and was grieving “for his family, friends, church community and constituents.”
“Our aim, as always, is to provide the public with fact-based, unbiased reporting and hold public officials accountable for their actions,” Skoler said. “As part of our process, we reached out to Representative Johnson numerous times over the course of a seven-month investigation. He declined requests to talk about our findings.”
Following the news of Johnson’s death, Republican state Rep. C. Wesley Morgan lashed out at his party — and the media.
I am sick to my stomach to learn that my friend Rep. Dan Johnson has taken his own life. Dan and I became friends from the beginning because we were both underdogs and black sheep within @KYGOP. The establishment didn’t want either of us, and we bonded over it.
— Wesley Morgan (@WesleyMorganKY) December 14, 2017
Dan and I both were aware of the slanderous lies that were told about us by our very own party. And the character assassination attempts that were orchestrated by much of the news media. We will be lucky if Judge Roy Moore does not do the same. These character hit jobs must stop.
— Wesley Morgan (@WesleyMorganKY) December 14, 2017
Media, @KyDems and especially @KYGOP should be ashamed of itself. Republicans, you turned your back on an ally and forced a good man who was trying to do right by the people of Kentucky to suicide. All because he wasn’t ever your pick. You wanted him gone. Think about that.
— Wesley Morgan (@WesleyMorganKY) December 14, 2017
Hours later, Morgan shared the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline‘s 1-800 number, and said: “People will say and do terrible things to you in this world. But nothing is worth taking your life.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) tweeted about Johnson’s death, saying: “I cannot imagine his pain or the heartbreak his family is dealing with.”
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) said he was saddened by the news of Johnson’s death, writing on Twitter: “My heart breaks for his family … May God indeed shed His grace on us all.”
Bevin also called for an end to “all the nasty, vulgar comments other despicable responses to the news.”
The accusations against Johnson came as dozens of high-profile men have been fired or have resigned from their jobs in politics, media, entertainment and business after facing allegations of sexually harassing or assaulting women and men.
They include Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and broadcaster Charlie Rose.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) both said last week that they would leave Congress over sexual misconduct allegations. On Thursday, several Republicans said that Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) will not seek reelection next year. Farenthold is under scrutiny for allegations that he sexually harassed female staff members and created a hostile work environment.
In Kentucky, other House Republicans facing scandal in recent months remain in the state legislature. Former Kentucky House speaker Jeff Hoover, after admitting he paid to settle a sexual harassment claim made by a woman in his office, resigned from his leadership position last month but is still a state representative. Three other lawmakers involved in the secretive settlement lost their committee chairmanships but also still serve as representatives.
It wasn’t the first time leaders called for Johnson to step down. In 2016, while running for office, he posted racist photos on his Facebook page that compared President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama to monkeys. He disregarded the calls for him to drop out of the race — and won.
At a news conference at the church Tuesday, alongside family, campaign members and other church members, Johnson said the woman accusing him was motivated by his political opponents, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. The woman supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, Johnson said, and disagreed with his conservative stance on abortion rights.
“This is an assault on all real people. There’s no perfect people, and you get into office and all of sudden political hacks come against you and start accusing you after you’re in office,” Johnson said.
He added that there is a “season” of sexual abuse allegations in politics, referring to the accusations against President Trump and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama. He said he didn’t think all the women who’ve spoken out about abuse across the nation were lying, however.
[Alabama results remake 2018 election playbook for both parties]
The woman accusing Johnson told KyCIR that she never returned to the apartment below the fellowship hall. When she didn’t show up to the church for service the following Sunday, Johnson sent her a Facebook message, the report said. In the message, he said his daughter told him he had been “mean” to the victim, and to his son, Boaz, the night of the party, the KyCIR report said.
“Sarah said I was mean to Bo You and Her by telling you all to go to bed so sorry don’t remember I was told we all got drugged at TK’s anyway so sorry if I sounded mean, you know you are one of my favorites, love you sorry! Boaz did Great Sunday! Your future Husband!” the message read, according to KyCIR. TK’s refers to T.K.’s Pub, a local bar.
The victim told KyCIR that she responded the next day, saying: “Drugged or not, I think you know what happened that night and that’s why you’re sending this message. I never thought something like that would happen to me, especially by someone like you. I looked at you as a Dad, but now I sincerely hope I don’t see you again, but I might try to maintain a relationship with your kids. And there is no point in responding to this message either because I don’t want to talk about it ever again.”
Louisville metro police said they closed the case after investigating the allegations, according to KyCIR.
On Tuesday, Johnson acknowledged that he sent the victim a Facebook message shortly after the night she stayed over, but again said he did not remember what happened on the night of the alleged abuse because he was “drugged” at the bar, according to the Courier-Journal. He said he didn’t file a police report about the alleged drugging because he did not want to bring accusations against a bar.
He later said at the news conference that he did recall what happened on that night and that he never approached the victim while she was sleeping, according to the Courier-Journal.
The KyCIR report also detailed other incidents from Johnson’s past. A grand jury indicted him for complicity to commit arson and making a false police report in 1987, according to the report, which suggests Johnson may have been linked in another arson incident 13 years later in which his own church was burned down.
With friends and family standing behind him, Kentucky Rep. Dan Johnson spoke at his church on Tuesday. (Timothy D. Easley/AP)
This post has been updated.
Read more:
How conservative media reacted to Roy Moore’s stunning loss
Trump seeks to dismiss sexual harassment allegations as ‘fake news’
Why Mike Tirico’s history of alleged sexual harassment hasn’t led him to Matt Lauer’s fate