Twenty years ago on this date, 23
May 1993, Julie Johnson, an elementary school teacher was murdered by Jason Scott Byram in South
Carolina. He was executed by lethal injection on 23 April 1994. Let us not forget
her and remember that justice was served.
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Jason Scott Byram
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Summary: Julie
Johnson had been an elementary school teacher for 12 years, specializing in
emotionally handicapped children with special needs. In the early morning hours
of May 23, 1993 she was dozing on her living room couch with her husband and
three children asleep upstairs. Byram broke and entered through her kitchen
window, took her purse and stole her van. Hours later, Byram came back to steal
a TV and VCR. Upon his return, he woke Johnson and stabbed her repeatedly with
a butcher knife from the kitchen. After she was stabbed, Johnson made it to the
front yard where her husband and a police officer heard her final words. She
died on the way to the hospital. When Byram was arrested later that afternoon, he
admitted to police he had entered Johnson's home and stabbed her to keep her
quiet, but said it was an accomplice named "Jim" who stabbed her
repeatedly and killed her. Byram's fingerprint was found at the scene of the
murder, and an eyewitness testified they saw him after the murder driving a van
with blood on his shirt and no passengers. No evidence of an accomplice was
ever found. The jury decided he had none.
QUOTE 1: The victim's husband, Jeff Johnson, spoke after the execution and says
justice was served, "And so what's happened here
today is justice was done for the citizens of South Carolina. Not for me and
not for my family. It was done for everybody out there that goes to bed at
night."
QUOTE 2: Peggy Ferrell says she felt she had to witness the
execution, "I have no feelings of vindictiveness,
just profound sorrow that I will probably carry for the rest of my life. But
today I followed through with this to fulfill something that I needed to fulfill
for Julia."
AUTHOR: Loved ones of Julie Johnson who was murdered by Jason Scott Byram on 23
May 1993. Jason Scott Byram was executed by lethal injection in South Carolina
on 23 April 2004.
INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/byram909.htm
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