Tattered Reality: One Man's Schizophrenia Leads to a Brutal Death

Preface:  I was recently written a note criticizing this piece, claiming I have an agenda, and questioning how I could defend a murderer.  This is a quick response.  I wrote this piece after spending an afternoon with a lifelong friend of Johnson, who was there even when both of his parents were not.  I gathered true accounts from Johnson's roommates, who lived with him and had him committed to a mental hospital, as difficult as it might have been.  I poured over news clips, some of which either made no initial mention of Johnson's mental decay, or included an "allegation" of schizophrenia in the last sentence or so of the article.  I have not seen one article tell Johnson's story, nor use any of his close friends as primary sources.  I did not sit and listen to Andrew Potter, the man Johnson confided in about his hallucinations, speak hour after hour about what happened to his friend because I have an agenda -- I simply told the story of Johnson by speaking to those closest to him.  I never try to defend or explain why Johnson did what he did -- I try to paint a broader picture of what actually happened.  To speak with his friends for hours, and then to read newspaper articles which quote one source, with that source claiming, "Nobody remembers her being mean or cruel to any of the kids," that is what prompted this article.  Not because I wanted to tarnish a victim's image, but because every single source I spoke to -- those who knew and loved Johnson -- had an entirely different story to tell.  

__________

"This summer a black cloud will dampen the five-year reunion of North Iowa High School's class of 2003," University of Iowa law student Andrew Potter wrote.  "Since the state of Iowa's failure to provide adequate safeguards for the mentally ill will deprive the class of one of its friendliest and most beloved members." 

This letter to the editor refers to Jordan Johnson of Buffalo Center, Iowa.  Friends since age five, Johnson and Potter finished high school together and continued to remain close even after college drew them to different cities.

Potter watched and laughed at Johnson's practical jokes throughout their adolescence.  He remembers fondly the night Johnson spent scouring Buffalo Center's neighborhoods collecting every lawn-animal decoration he could find, only to reposition them down Main Street to create a plastic zoo.

Potter also watched in shock as Johnson's life was slowly torn apart by paranoid schizophrenia just a year after graduating high school, his grip on reality slipping to the point of incomprehension.  To Potter, Johnson's downward slide is the subject of anger, not at Johnson, but at the circumstances that surrounded Johnson's mental decay.  

__________

When Johnson was in the 8th grade, his father Kevin left to live in Oregon.  Nearly three years passed before Johnson heard from him again.  Johnson's mother, Rita, had told her husband that neither she nor her son every wanted to speak to him again, Potter says. 

"She tricked him into not being a part of [Johnson's] life," Potter said.  "She was evil to that guy.  She would throw s--- at his dad, belittle his dad, tell him how stupid he was."

Rita's treatment of her son was similar, Potter says, explaining how Johnson's mother would tear him down to the point that Johnson would avoid inviting friends over.  "She was horrible to him," Potter said.  "He wouldn't talk about it.  He thought the world of his mom."

When Johnson was 17, his mother left him as well, moving to Clear Lake, Iowa to live with her boyfriend.  Johnson now lived alone in his parent's home, making payments on the rented house while working upwards of 70 hours a week at a local grain elevator.  In school, Johnson still managed to prosper. 

After graduating high school in 2003, Johnson enrolled in the University of Northern Iowa, while Potter chose the University of Iowa.  Though 90 miles apart, they remained close friends.  Potter made regular trips to UNI, staying at Johnson's apartment after nights downtown.

Johnson would only go out with his friends occasionally.  On top of his course work, he was working two separate jobs, 50-60 hours a week.  With the money he earned, he bought his mother a car. 

Johnson didn't attend school long before deciding to transfer to the University of Iowa, moving into a house just a few blocks away from Potter.  It wasn't until Johnson made this transition that Potter began noticing unsettling behavior. 

No longer needing a quarter tank of gas to see his friend, Potter visited often.

"What I noticed first of all is that he stopped making eye contact," Potter said.  "He would always stare at the floor."  Potter reenacts Johnson's behavior, staring at his feet while shaking his head from side-to-side. 

One weekend, a few of Johnson's friends from Cedar Falls, Iowa came to visit.  They were distraught, later confiding in Potter that Johnson would not even look at them.  No longer able to even look at those he once considered his closest friends, Johnson's peers were becoming concerned. 

Toward the end of Johnson's first semester at the University of Iowa, he told Potter of a woman from one of his courses, amazed at how attractive she was.  He explained to Potter how he had e-mailed the woman, telling her how she was too good for him -how she needed to stay away. 

"I just thought he was acting weird, maybe a little depressed" Potter said.  "Later, I found out that he thought she was stalking him."

In March 2006, Johnson's roommates began confiding in Potter.  They told him that Johnson was acting strange.  He was becoming paranoid, searching his house for surveillance equipment.    "One day his roommate Aaron called me and told me, 'Jordan looked through my stuff in my room today.'" Potter said.  "Obviously, something wasn't right."  

__________

It was 5:00 a.m. later that March when Potter received a phone call from Johnson asking for a favor.  He needed to be pick up at the sheriff's department in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, a town about an hour south of Johnson's Iowa City residence.  After receiving directions, Potter arrived at 5:45 a.m. just as Johnson was being released.  Johnson was acting standoffish, not explaining to Potter what had happened.

He explained to Potter that his car had been towed to Wayland, Iowa, and Potter obliged, driving Johnson another ten miles Northwest to the towing company.  It was still early.  The towing company wouldn't be opening its doors for another half hour. Potter picked a parking spot, waiting with Johnson in the rain. What Johnson said to him in the car that morning is still a vivid memory.

"Do you see the triangles in the trees?" Johnson had asked.  Potter was dumbfounded, but Johnson continued.  "When I get this pain in my side, I see things.  I know they're not there, but I see them."

"I was concerned," Potter says.  "He wasn't wearing shoes the entire time.  It didn't bother him that he wasn't wearing shoes."  When Johnson left the car, he left an admit-sheet from the Henry County Emergency Room, though for what, the document didn't say.

Soon, Johnson began removing his friends from a popular social-networking website.  He slowly continued this process until only Potter, Potter's friend Tyler Burlage, and an unknown woman remained out of approximately 200 former contacts.  Then it was Potter and Burlage.  Finally, only Potter.  The circumstances of this behavior remained mystery to Potter and others.  On a different social-networking website, Johnson began uploading photos he had taken of himself to look like Satan. 

"He started getting really bad," Potter said.  "He was scaring the living s--- out of his roommates.  He accused them of plotting against him."  Johnson also spoke of hearing voices.  

__________

In April 2006, Johnson's roommates made the difficult decision to go to the Johnson County Courthouse to see a judge and have him committed to a psychiatric hospital via court order.  Painful as it might have been to do this to their friend and roommate, they received a telephone call from Johnson soon after his admittance.  He thanked them for what they had done, agreeing that he did, indeed, have problems to deal with. 

Johnson's mother was livid.  A week and a half after Johnson was admitted to the psychiatric hospital, she took him out.  Johnson was off his medication, and dropped off the face of the earth.

Johnson's ex-roommates woke one morning to a disturbing sight.  Just outside a window lay Johnson's jacket, a pair of sunglasses missing both its lenses, and some Slim Jims.  He had been been camped outside of his former roommate's home, looking in from the outside.  

The last time any of Johnson's friends spoke with him was in June, 2006.  Potter received a call from Johnson one night while enjoying a few beers with friends.  The two talked for 37 minutes, Potter remembers.  It was one of those innocuous details that stays with Potter to this day.  The reason for all of his problems, Johnson explained, was dehydration. He tried to explain to Potter that he was perfectly fine.  The visions of axes chopping hammers in the sky, the voices from across the block, the paranoia, the triangles in the trees was all for lack of water.

Any attempt to reach Johnson beyond that disturbing conversation was futile.  Potter tried contacting Johnson through his cellular phone, only to hear Johnson's Mother's voice answer the call.  "She didn't say not to call back ever again," Potter said.  "But she made it pretty clear that calling him was pointless."  Johnson remained a ghost for the next year and a half. 

In January 2008, Potter's parents were in Iowa City visiting the weekend before their son's 23rd birthday.  They had planned to go out that night, but first Potter wanted to take a shower.  The mood in the room had changed drastically by the time he had finished.  His mother was crying.

"Did you hear about Jordan?" She said through tears.

Andrew was puzzled, but his mother continued.

"He killed Rita with a hatchet." 

__________

At approximately 11:00 p.m. on January 19, 2008, Johnson locked Rita's husband of one year, Phil Seely, in the basement of the couple's Mason City home.  He approached Rita and struck her in the head and neck 14 times with a hatchet.  When Phil was finally able to escape by sawing through the basement door, Johnson was gone. 

Johnson later turned himself in to the Clear Lake Police Department, telling them he had done "something very bad."  In his taped confession, Johnson told the police, "the voices just kept telling me to kill her and get it over with."

Potter was shocked, but shock gave way to pragmatic cynicism.  "Well, it finally happened," Potter said, recounting his thoughts at the time.  "That's what happens when you have a dangerous schizophrenic thinking everyone is out to get him, take him out of the hospital and off his medication." 

With Johnson charged with first-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping, the trial began April 20 and ended may 2 in the Cerro Gordo County District Court.  Believing that Johnson was aware of his actions, it took the Jury an hour and forty minutes to convict him on both counts.  Johnson would not be going to a psychiatric facility.  He would be spending the rest of his life in prison without parole, a mandatory sentence for first-degree murder conviction. 

Among those who testified was Doctor Dale Armstrong, who described his meeting with Johnson in early 2007, diagnosing him with depression and Body Dismorphic Disorder.  In February 2008, Armstrong met with Johnson a second time, describing him as disturbed and possibly schizophrenic, with reduced decision-making capability.  Doctor David Widitz testified that in April 2006, he recommended Johnson be committed to a mental health facility.

Potter also testified in the trial.  He was shocked at how quickly the jurors came to their unanimous decision.  "I don't contend that Jordan should be free, but in the hospital where he can get help," Potter says.  "The prosecution's case rested largely on Jordan's confession and the physical acts of murder.  Jordan also confessed on numerous occasions that radio towers beam energy into him and the mafia planted assassins in his college classes.  Jordan would never hurt anyone had he the slightest grasp on reality." 

Phil Seely spoke to the media on numerous occasions in the wake of the trial.  "Nobody remembers her being mean or cruel to any of the kids," Seely told the Globe Gazette.  Seely told CBS network KIMT that nobody cared more about Johnson than his mother Rita.  When asked about these statements, Potter called them "bulls---."

Johnson's closest friends also tell a different story.  "In the years that I knew both Jordan and Rita, I had not seen her treat him with respect at any one time."  Former roommate Aaron Jacobson said.  "In fact, she belittled him in front of people and cut him down.  I feel like this is where his insecurities with himself stemmed from."  Kim Gray, the mother of two of Johnson's best friends also raised questions regarding Rita's treatment of Johnson, going on to express how her heart went out to Johnson when news of the killing reached her. 

Aaron Jacobson, the man who lived with and worried about Johnson wrote the following after the trial's conclusion.

"The cold, hard truth of the matter is that Rita was not only the worst example of a parent that I have come across, but she kept herself and everybody around in constant danger by keeping Jordan off the medication that was absolutely necessary for him.  The man who committed murder was not the Jordan Johnson that many could tell you was a great guy.  the horrifying mugshot of him that I have seen is not Jordan Johnson.  The real Jordan was a moral, caring person who would never hurt anybody.  More than anything, I am furious that this opportunity to live a normal life was taken away by the person who should have cared the most." 

To understand this case, one must understand Johnson's story, 23 years in the making.  As an inmate, he will be identified as Jordan Johnson, but that is no longer who this man is.  Jordan Johnson played football.  He worked two jobs to put himself through college.  He loved practical jokes.  The man spending the rest of his life in a jail cell is anything but Jordan Johnson.  

[Mugshot Photo]