In his first seconds in police custody, 17-year-old Andrew Arjune Tiyler Johnson admitted
.
Within hours he would give investigators grisly details of the slaying and discuss his interest in mass murder. And how he once captured, tortured and killed small animals.
In court documents released Wednesday, officers recounted finding Johnson Dec. 10 at a Hayden Island trailer park where he was visiting his 14-year-old girlfriend. As they left the trailer, a squad of cops took the pair to the ground.
"What did you do?" the startled girl asked.
"I killed someone," Johnson said.
When a detective introduced himself, Johnson responded, "Hi, I'm Andrew. I just wanted you to know I did it. I killed her."
Police found
body in a bedroom of her Milwaukie home after a relative requested a welfare check. He has been charged as an adult with murder and is scheduled for trial Dec. 2.
Johnson's attorneys plan an insanity defense.
Attorneys Wayne Mackeson and Diane Rader tried unsuccessfully this week to suppress Johnson's incriminating statements. But on Wednesday, Clackamas County Circuit Judge Douglas Van Dyk ruled that almost everything Johnson told police could be used as evidence.
The court documents released Wednesday summarize an hours-long interview at the Milwaukie police department.
Detectives began by asking Johnson if he wanted to tell them what happened.
"Yeah," Johnson said, "might as well"
With little prompting, Johnson laid out the story dispassionately and in detail.
He lived with Tennant. They were to leave Dec. 8 to visit relatives in Las Vegas. Tennant didn't trust Johnson and didn't want to leave him home alone. Johnson didn't want to go.
Johnson arrived home around 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 8. He had gotten into trouble at school and said he was upset with his grandmother.
She asked him why he got home so late and they talked calmly for 15 minutes. Then she went to bed. Her last words to him: "Good night. I love you."
Love was the last thing on Johnson's mind. "This thing in my head is just saying 'kill her, kill her, kill her,' " Johnson told detectives.
Johnson went to the kitchen to get a knife, deciding on a small sharp blade. A butcher knife "was unrealistic." A sharp knife would inflict less pain, he reasoned.
He checked the time as he entered her room. It was 2:03 a.m. when he plunged the knife into his grandmother's neck. She woke up screaming. Although she was stabbed in the head at least 10 times, Tennant appeared to be alive. So Johnson said he strangled her for two or three minutes.
Then he went washed his hands and went to bed. When he awoke hours later, he checked Tennant's bedroom to assure himself that he had killed her and that it was not a dream.
Near the end of the interview, Johnson told detectives he knew that one day "I was going to jail for killing somebody or probably a mass murder." He had considered a school shooting, perhaps targeting Milwaukie High School.
Johnson exhibited a willingness to kill years earlier. When he lived in Hawaii from ages 12 to 16, he said he caught and slaughtered wild mongooses for fun. He said he would choke them or would stab them with a switchblade knife he bought online.
A mass killing seemed like a bargain, he said. "If you kill somebody ... and you get life, you might as well kill more than one since you're getting the same sentence."
-- Steve Mayes