LA CROSSE, Wis (WSAU-Wheeler News) A Dubuque Iowa man will spend 50 years in prison for hijacking a taxi in Platteville and killing its driver near La Crosse. 26-year old Timmy Johnson Junior was sentenced yesterday in Grant County on reduced charges of reckless homicide, kidnapping, and armed robbery. He had pleaded no contest in the death of 79-year-old Merle Forbes Junior last June, just hours after Johnson completed jail time for another crime.
Prosecutors said he was high on P-C-P when he called a cab to go to a secluded spot where he planned to kill himself. However, Johnson assumed Forbes would hurt him — so he stabbed the cab driver with a stolen knife, put him in the trunk, and drove north to La Crosse. That’s where police started chasing him at speeds up to 115-miles-an-hour before the cab rear-ended another vehicle and flipped over.
Three people in the other vehicle had minor injuries.
Johnson’s lawyer blamed it all on his client’s under-treatment for mental illness. Prosecutors said he clearly had a pattern of dangerous behavior, with 30 prior convictions.
