Convicted killer could get new trial

HAILEY, Idaho – An attorney for Sarah Johnson, who was convicted of shooting her parents to death when she was 16, has filed a motion in 5th District Court seeking a review of newly discovered evidence in the case.

In his Feb. 19 motion, Hailey attorney Christopher Simms says fingerprints on the weapon used in the slayings have been recently identified and that Johnson could be entitled to a new trial.

“This newly discovered evidence goes directly to the heart of the case, in that it is very likely that the person who left this fingerprint is in fact guilty of committing the crime,” Simms states in his motion.

Blaine County authorities contend the fingerprints recently discovered at the state Police Bureau of Criminal Identification lab have nothing to do with the September 2003 murders of Alan and Diane Johnson at their Bellevue home.

The rifle used in the murder belonged to a renter who was living in the family’s guesthouse and the new fingerprints belong to the renter’s former roommate, Blaine County Prosecutor Jim Thomas wrote in an e-mail to the Mountain Express.

The former roommate, a man who now lives in Bellevue, had taken the rifle to a local shooting range prior to the murders and his fingerprints were recently found on the scope of the gun, Thomas said.

“The identification of this print does nothing to lesson the guilt of Sarah Johnson, nor does it undermine the original investigation,” Thomas wrote in his e-mail.

Johnson, now 22, was convicted of the murders in 2005 and sentenced to two life terms plus a 15-year weapons enhancement. During her trial, prosecutors said Johnson first pulled the trigger on a .264-caliber rifle and killed her mother as she lay in bed early on Sept. 3, 2003, and then turned the weapon on her father as he exited the shower.

Prosecutors said Johnson committed the murders after fighting with her parents over her boyfriend, Bruno Santos, a then 19-year-old undocumented Mexican immigrant who was living in the region.

The Idaho Supreme Court upheld the double first-degree murder conviction last year.

Johnson asked the court to throw out her conviction because she said there were errors in the charging document, jury instructions and juror selection biased the case against her.

The state crime lab worker who identified the fingerprint is scheduled to appear in court for a March 3 hearing.