An Alabama father remembers finding the bodies of his two children after his ex-wife killed them in a murder-suicide amid their bitter divorce and custody battle.
Derek Johnson, 33, found the bodies of Jacob, 2, and his daughter Mia, 5, under a blanket on the couch in their home in Semmes, about 20 miles west of Mobile.
They had been drowned by their mother, Nancy Johnson, 37, who also slit Mia’s throat before hanging herself in a closet, just two days after a judge ordered her to share custody of the children.
“I’m dead inside,” Derek told Fox News Digital. “I feel lost. I have nothing, absolutely nothing, and I don’t know how I’m going to recover,” he said.
He called his wife his “angel,” who had a history of mental health problems.
“She lost her grip on reality,” he said. “She didn’t want me to have the children. The children were hers and if she had to share them, she would take them.”
The distraught father, who has been cleared of any involvement, feared something was wrong when he woke up that morning and did not hear the children from the caravan where he was staying in the garden.
Derek Johnson, 33, found the bodies of Jacob, 2, and his daughter Mia, 5, under a blanket on the couch at their home in Semmes, about 20 miles west of Mobile.GoFundMe
“I had a very bad feeling,” Derek told the outlet, adding that he had to drill the lock on the house’s doors to get inside.
“I looked to my right and saw my son and daughter, and they were covered in blankets. It looked like they were taking a nap,” she said.
“I put my hand on my son’s back to wake him up and realized he was completely stiff and foaming from his nose and mouth.”
Derek said then he noticed that Mia’s throat had been slit.
The children were drowned by their mother, Nancy Johnson, 37, who also slit Mia’s throat before hanging herself in a closet.Facebook
“I started to panic,” he said of the moments before he also discovered Nancy’s body. “I went into shock. She was screaming. Call the police.”
He said detectives told him Nancy had drowned the children in the bathtub.
“But my daughter was fighting with my wife, so he cut her throat and then put her back under the water,” he said, adding that the tub was full of red water when he made the gruesome discovery.
Derek said Nancy, whom he met at his church in 2015, blindsided him by asking for a divorce for the first time last Christmas.
Derek was ordered to place the camper in the backyard so that both parents would sleep in it when they alternated weeks spent with their children, according to the outlet. Google Maps
He accepted her request and moved to Washington state to work as a mechanic at Boeing so he could make child support and alimony payments, Fox News Digital reported.
But Nancy became increasingly paranoid and made wild accusations to the police, including that she had poisoned the family even though she was not close to them, according to Derek.
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He requested emergency custody, which was granted, amid his erratic behavior, the outlet reported, citing court records.
Nancy then asked him to lift the emergency order and said she wanted to reconcile, but when the order was lifted, she left for Utah with her children for about three months, according to the outlet.
But on Sept. 20, a judge granted the couple joint custody and placed their children under “protective supervision” under the Alabama Department of Human Resources, Fox 10 News reported.
Derek was ordered to place the camper in the backyard so that both parents would sleep when they alternated weeks spent with their children, according to the outlet.
But he said that, in retrospect, he realizes that she planned to kill her children the moment the judge ordered them to split custody.
“I loved Nancy very much, but then I realized she was manipulating me,” Derek said. “I had a lot planned for my children. “They took away the purpose of my life.”
Derek also posted a message on GoFundMe created by his sister, Kendra Bandock.
“I loved Mia, Jacob and Nancy very much. “Nancy had been struggling with mental issues and she had an identity crisis since the pandemic began,” she wrote.
Derek said Nancy “lost her grip on reality.”
“She let the teachings and rumors of the world consume her and no matter how much I tried to help her, she pushed me away and I couldn’t force her to seek help. “We have been in a custody battle for the last 6 months and she kidnapped my children for about two and a half months,” Derek wrote.
“The amount of happiness and love that emanated from Mia and Jacob was very evident to everyone around them. Our house was filled with joy and happiness, his future was so bright in every way possible,” she continued.
“A lot of love and care was put into them during the 7 years of our marriage. Now I’m on the ground [zero] and I was left with a debt of around $25,000, a bathroom that I can’t look at where my children drowned, I want to rip it all out,” he added.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn