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1980's Child Serial Killer : David E Penton
Topic Started: Feb 17 2008, 03:08 AM (1,887 Views)
Mja Inc Investigations
Advanced Member
[ *  *  * ]
3-9-07

Mja Inc Investigations

Mja contacted a Tyler Texas newspaper reporter,Kenneth Dean concerning the Ara Johnson case..The following article is the result of Mja reaching out to someone who would listen to the facts of the case..

Mr.Dean helped jump-start this case when all other efforts by a Texas Detective and Mja had failed..The law enforcement agencies involved in the case are now on the same page.

Mja Inc--Mark A Harper
__________________________________________________________________

East Texas Posted on Sunday, March 04, 2007

Did A Serial Killer Take Niecie Johnson?

New lead in the disappearance of 5-year-old Ara “Niecie” Johnson emerges.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Since being confined in 1988, David Elliot
Penton has denied scores of interviews sought by local
and national media outlets, but he granted the
interview with the Tyler Courier-Times--Telegraph.
Kenneth Dean traveled to Ohio to meet the man, who
authorities say has claimed to fellow cellmates of
abducting and killing at least 50 children.


Did A Serial Killer Take Niecie?

Reporter Questions Convicted Serial Killer

By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer


BIG SANDY — A child serial killer convicted in three
Dallas- area abductions and murders in the 1980s is
now a “person of interest” in the 1986 abduction of a
Big Sandy girl.

For more than two decades there were no leads in the
disappearance of 5-year-old Ara “Niecie” Johnson,
apparently snatched from her bed in the middle of the
night. Now, Upshur County Sheriff detectives say fresh
information points to 49-year-old David Elliot Penton.

Penton, a mechanic who drifted from Ohio to Texas, is
being held in Ohio for the abduction and murder of a
9-year-old Ohio girl. In addition, he has confessed to
the Dallas-area cases.

Officials in Texas and several other states are
investigating the possibility Penton may be in-volved
with other unsolved child disappearances after
cellmates claimed he bragged about killing more than
50 children.

Niecie’s disappearance on April 2, 1986, has stumped
authorities and remained unsolved with no clues or
suspects.

After learning that Penton allegedly spoke of Ara
Johnson to cellmates, Upshur County sheriff detective
Freddie Fitzgerald told the Tyler
Courier-Times—Telegraph they now consider the Ohio
inmate a “strong person of interest” in her abduction.

“From the information we are getting we definitely
need to talk to him (Penton),” he said. “We have to
talk to him — there is no getting around it.”

The seasoned lawman added, “We have to err on the side
of caution, but this information brings hope to a case
where hope was all but abandoned.”


ABDUCTED

Niecie was last seen by her father about 2:30 a.m. the
day she disappeared. A search by law enforcement using
tracking dogs and on horseback turned up no clues to
the girl’s whereabouts, according to sheriff officials
at the time.

Authorities noted there was no forced entry into the
mobile home in the 300 block of Boulder Street and the
rear door was left open. The bedspread she was
sleeping under was also missing from the home, but
there were no signs of a struggle and her parents said
they didn’t hear anything unusual.

James and Ophelia Johnson made passionate pleas
through the media for the safe return of their only
daughter, but the case soon grew cold.

Since the disappearance, James has died and attempts
to reach Mrs. Johnson over a two-week period have been
unsuccessful.

Niecie was added to the Texas Clearinghouse of Missing
Persons and the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, but no information surfaced in the
investigation until late last month when detectives
learned about Penton.

“He tossed out the name of a little girl abducted here
in Big Sandy, Texas, and he is in an Ohio prison
serving life sentences for this same type of crime,”
Lt. David Dickerson, also with the Upshur County
Sheriff’s Department, said. “That really interests me
because who has ever heard of Big Sandy? And he was in
Texas about the same time as her disappearance.”

Within 18 months of Niecie’s disappearance, three
abductions occurred in the Dallas area with
authorities finding the bodies of Christi Lynn Meeks,
5, Christie Diane Proctor, 9, and 4-year-old Roxann
Reyes.


SERIAL CHILD KILLER?

Garland Police detective Gary Sweet has spent seven
years working cases against Penton, a man he describes
as intelligent, elusive and cunning.

Sweet, who worked the kidnapping and murder cases of
the three Dallas-area girls, has interviewed Penton
and some of cellmates and other young girls who Penton
allegedly attempted to kidnap.

The abductions in Dallas began with Meeks, who was
kidnapped from her mother’s front yard as she played
on Jan. 19, 1985. Her decomposing body was found
several months later about 40 miles away in Lake
Texoma after it surfaced. She had been strangled and
drowned, a report showed.

As detectives worked the Meeks case, Proctor was
kidnapped while walking home in north Dallas in
February 1986. Her body was discovered in a field in
the Plano area, two years later. According to a
medical examiner and forensic evidence, she had been
raped and strangled. Reyes was kidnapped while picking
wildflowers for her mother near her Garland apartment
Nov. 3, 1987. She was found in Murphy one year later.
Evidence also suggested she had been raped and
strangled.

Sweet said Texas authorities are looking at Penton as
a suspect in the disappearances of Angelica Gandara,
11, of Temple, missing since July 14, 1985, Amber
Nicole Crum, 2, of Dallas, missing since Dec. 26, 1983
and Johnson.

“He won’t come right out and admit the crimes, but the
inmates all had specific information about each
missing girl,” he said.

The Collin County District Attorney’s office was
prepared to move forward with the capital murder trial
against Penton and seek the death penalty four years
ago.

In their arsenal prosecutors had information that
Penton had attempted several other kidnappings in
Dallas in the 1980s and those victims had identified
him after he was indicted on the capital murder
charges in 2003.

Records in Collin County contained allegations, which
have never been made public, that he possessed child
pornography and verbally expressed fantasies of
kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering young
school girls in Franklin County Ohio.

The records also quoted one of Penton’s ex-wives who
told prosecutors that her ex-husband had sexually
assaulted her daughter and had tortured and killed
small animals while stationed at Fort Hood in the
1980s.

Letters to his family while he was jailed in Texas
pending the trial were also part of the file in Collin
County. Using immaculate penmanship, Penton expressed
his innocence in letters to his family.

A statement by Collin County District Attorney John
Roach said his office was seeking the death penalty.

“The acceptance and prosecution of these cases will
serve as a notice to anyone who would abduct and
murder our children that we will not forget,” he said
in 2003. “We will not forget the killer, we will not
forget the crime and we will not forget the victims.”

Before the cases could go to trial, Penton avoided the
death penalty, pleaded guilty to the capital murder
charges levied against him. He was convicted and
received three concurrent life sentences in January
2005.


WHO IS PENTON?

Investigators and court records paint a picture of a
troubled man who crisscrossed the country venting rage
against children.

David Elliot Penton was born Feb. 9, 1958, and was
raised in Columbus, Ohio, by his mother. His father
abandoned both the mother and child.

After graduating high school he joined the U.S. Army
in 1977 where he specialized as a track vehicle
mechanic until 1984.

He quickly made a name for himself as an expert
marksman and a soldier, who superiors called “highly
motivated,” with an excellent record.

In 1980 he was charged with storing alcohol in his
foot locker and a few months later he was charged with
lying about his marital status to obtain military
benefits for which he was not entitled.

He was demoted from sergeant to specialist.

In 1984 while stationed at Ford Hood, Penton would
face his first charges of killing a child.

A Bell County medical examiner told authorities Penton
violently shook his 2-month-old son to death in a “fit
of rage,” because the child would not stop crying.
Penton pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge and was
discharged from the Army. While out on bond appealing
his case, Penton fled from Texas authorities and began
crossing the nation.

He remained on the lam until he was arrested for the
murder of a friend’s niece in Ohio three years later.

The abduction, rape and murder of 9-year-old Nydra
Ross, whose body was found in a creek bed, led
authorities to Penton, who admitted to smoking crack
and doing other illegal narcotics with the girl’s
family members. He was placed into custody and
convicted by a jury in 2001 where he received a life
sentence in prison.

After his arrest in Ohio, Texas authorities learned of
Penton and began their own investigation into the man
who made numerous trips between the two states. They
were especially interested in the striking
similarities between the Ohio and Texas cases, but
they could not tie Penton to the Dallas area crimes.

Eight years later, cellmates of the convicted child
killer would go to authorities with new information
about several cases.

Armed with the new evidence and the cellmates’
information, Penton was extradited to Collin County,
Texas for the murders and was to face the death
penalty.

However before the case went to a jury, Penton pleaded
guilty.

Sweet said Penton is evasive, but intelligent and
seems to take pleasure in bragging about his “killing
spree,” which may span multiple states.

“He (Penton) has made claims to killing more than 50
children across the states,” he said. “I personally
believe the actual number is between 25 and 30.”


NEW CHARGES

Mark Harper, a private investigator close to the case,
said officials in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Alabama,
Michigan, Georgia and several other states are also
looking at Penton as a possible person of interest.

Penton is also a suspect in the abduction of
6-year-old Shannon Marie Sherrill, who was last seen
in Thorntown, Ind., playing hide and seek with friends
on Oct. 5, 1986.

Harper was hired by the Sherrill family to investigate
the abduction of their child after the case by law
enforcement stalled.

Penton is scheduled to be extradited to Indiana later
this month to face charges in the case.

“I believe this guy may be responsible for an enormous
number of missing girls and although I was hired by
the Sherrill family to find their daughter’s killer, I
want every case this monster might have been involved
in solved before he dies,” he said. “I want these
families to have some closure as to what happened to
their children.”

Harper has worked with detectives across the country
including Gary Sweet and the two men have shared a
wealth of information regarding Penton.

Sweet said after interviewing Penton and his cellmates
he knew about the Johnson case and he is now working
with Dickerson and Fitzgerald and the three lawmen are
sharing information.

“It’s my belief that Penton is their guy,” Sweet said.

“I feel pretty certain he is responsible for Ara’s
abduction.

Fitzgerald told the newspaper Thursday he and
Dickerson are planning to look at Sweet’s files to
better prepare themselves for a meeting with the man
labeled a “monster” by Collin County officials.

“Before we go up there to talk to him, we want to make
sure we have all the information available to know how
to question this individual,” he said.

Fitzgerald said a capital murder charge is not out of
the question.

“It is definitely a possibility because she was
abducted out of her house, against her will and if she
was killed then it would be a capital murder case,” he
said.

Sweet summed up his involvement with the Penton cases.

“What case can you work that is more important that a
child abduction and murder?” he said.

“I am a parent and this is a parent’s worst
nightmare.”

Kenneth Dean covers police, fire, public safety
organizations. He can be reached at 903.596.6353.
e-mail:news@tylerpaper.com
________________________________________________________________



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Its only moral Justice & Fair that we are buried with a
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