By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
(Last week, I published part one of Deception, Death, Dementia, and Double Homicide on my little newspaper route.)
For several months in the Summer of 1974, I had a job delivering The Ogden Standard-Examiner to my neighbors in my hometown. When I gave up my newspaper route to start eighth grade, I stayed in touch with the local distribution manager Marion Howard.
Mrs. Howard lived in our neighborhood. I’d see her on the street or at the store, and we’d stop for a few minutes to say hello and chat.
A year later, when I started at St. Joseph High School in Ogden, Utah, in the Fall of 1975, we freshman had to endure an initiation day. Every senior at the school got to pick a freshman to “initiate.” Mrs. Howard’s son David chose me, perhaps because he remembered seeing me working or talking with his mother.
He did not do anything cruel, just embarrassing and uncomfortable stuff (like all the other seniors did) such as making me eat strange food (he claimed it was canned octopus) and wear funny clothes. Afterwards, he told me I was a good sport.
I did not talk with or see him much afterwards, and he graduated in the Spring of 1976. About another year passed and I ran into Mrs. Howard. I asked about David.
She looked worried. She said he’d been in a very bad motorcycle accident and was suffering through a slow recovery.
And then, just few months later in early 1978, I was shocked and horrified to read in the Ogden newspaper that David was accused of murder.
A published decision from the Utah Supreme Court eventually summarized the evidence in the case against David, and told the basic and awful factual story about what had happened:
“The facts are essentially undisputed. In late summer of 1977, animosity developed between two former friends, Marilyn Rust and Tammy Johnson. The feud between the girls involved their friends, including the defendant [David Howard], who was a friend of Marilyn Rust.
In November of 1977, Marilyn found two threatening notes on her automobile. Defendant thereafter brought a 30-06 rifle and a .22 pistol to Marilyn’s apartment, leaving them there fully loaded. Late in November, defendant slashed the tires on Tammy Johnson’s car; subsequently, the tires on Marilyn’s car were slashed. On January 13, 1978, defendant slashed tires on various automobiles belonging to Tammy and her husband, Danny Johnson.
The next day defendant, expecting trouble, brought a loaded 12-gauge shotgun to Marilyn’s apartment. Defendant and a friend, Paul Onstadt, remained at the apartment with Marilyn throughout the evening of January 14. At approximately midnight, Tammy and Danny Johnson, Decie Johnson, and Eddy Foy came to the apartment to see Marilyn. An argument over the tire slashing ensued which lasted approximately one hour. During the argument, two friends of Marilyn and defendant, Liz Stoker and Stan Crager [sic], arrived at the apartment. During the entire argument, defendant stood by the couch in the living room holding the shotgun in plain view at his side, indicating at one point that it was loaded.
After the argument, as Tammy, Danny, Decie, and Eddy were leaving, Tammy made an obscene remark to defendant. He in turn made an obscene suggestion to her which was heard by her husband, Danny, as he was walking downstairs. Danny ran back to the apartment door and told Marilyn to open it, which she did. Danny stood in the doorway and demanded that defendant come out and fight; defendant, however, had no intention of fighting Danny since Danny was larger than defendant. Danny then stated he would count to five and if defendant did not come out in the hall, Danny would come in and get him.
When Danny reached the count of five, he lunged through the door toward defendant, who in turn aimed the shotgun toward Danny and fired. At that second, Stan Crager [sic], who had been standing in the room in front of defendant, jumped in front of Danny in an effort to prevent a fight, and was hit in the back by the shotgun blast. Danny, knocked off balance when Stan fell against him, veered in the direction of the kitchen door on the other side of the room by which stood the 30-06 rifle. As he did so, defendant pumped the shotgun and fired again, hitting Danny in the back. Both Stan and Danny subsequently died from their wounds.”
Newspaper reporting about David’s June 1978 trial and related court proceedings shed even further light on the ugly situation. Tammie and Marilyn’s argument, the cause of contention between the two sides, apparently was about either a wedding dress or Tammie’s decision not to include Marilyn as a bridesmaid during Tammie’s wedding Danny the year before.
As the feud escalated, Danny allegedly beat up Marilyn’s boyfriend. David heard that Danny carried a shotgun with him. The involved sides (all in their late teens or early 20s) started slashing each other’s car tires and leaving each other threatening notes, culminating in the fatal shootings.
I talked to Mrs. Howard two or three times after the night of the shootings and during the criminal court jury trial that followed a few months later. She was devastated and distraught. She mourned the loss of the two young men killed, but also was trying to support and understand her own young son who claimed he had acted in self-defense.
It was painful for her to read accounts of the murder, and various accusations about David, in the very newspaper that had employed her. Mrs. Howard also mentioned that the defense lawyer and related court costs had become a large financial burden for the working class family.
David’s lawyers did argue at trial that Danny scared him, and thus that David had acted in self-defense when Danny lunged at him. Some people at the scene concurred with that version of events.
Stan Creager’s fiancée Liz Stoker spoke up on David’s behalf, and said he did not intend to hurt Stan. Local doctors testified that at the time of the shootings, David was medically vulnerable and still recovering from the motorcycle accident six months earlier.
News reports indicate that a beloved local Catholic priest, Father Neale Herrlich, testified at trial too. He said he knew David from school and considered him “exceptionally peaceful.”
Knowing Father Herrlich as I did, I expect he also was involved in trying to comfort the grieving Johnson family. Danny was a Catholic too, and Danny’s sister Decie (who also was at the crime scene) also was one of Father Herrlich’s students.
On the other hand, David’s friend Marilyn Rust testified at the trial she could not be sure that Danny was reaching for a gun when David shot him. Jurors almost certainly were troubled by the fact that both victims were shot in the back.
The jurors probably did not like David’s post-shooting statement to a policeman that he did not regret what he had done. And David’s statement that he shot whatever he aimed at likely did not help him much either.
The jury of 11 men and 1 woman rejected the claim of self-defense and found David guilty in June of 1978 after about six hours of deliberation. A few days later, an Ogden judge sentenced David to 5-years-to-life in prison for second degree murder and to 1-15 years for manslaughter. On appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed the verdict.
Shortly after all these court decisions, I left Utah to attend the University of Notre Dame. In the hustle and bustle of college, and then law school, and then life, I lost touch with Mrs. Howard.
I think she died about 20 years ago. Hopefully, the passage of time brought her more peace than she seemed to know when I last talked with her.
I don’t know what happened to David, but I think he served his time and was released from prison after several years.
I also don’t know how the Johnson or Creager families, or anyone else involved in the shootings, fared in the years that followed. I can only imagine that they all dealt with unspeakable anguish and grief.
What I do know is that the facts of the shooting remain sad and disturbing all these years later, even more so because I knew at least a few of the people involved or effected and it all happened in an apartment building kitty corner from my paper route.
I cannot help but wonder if all the anger and violence might somehow have been avoided.
And even today, having aged almost fifty years since the day of those tragic moments, I am shocked and sad that all the persons who got entangled in this tragic situation were so incredibly young at the time.
Danny Johnson was still a newlywed. At age 22, he left behind an even younger widow as well as his parents and siblings, but also his sister who, when Danny died, was a senior at the same small high school David and I attended.
The other shooting victim—Stan Creager—was 17 and also just a senior in high school when he died trying to stop the fight. On his tombstone, his family carved the words, “He really cared.” Stan left behind not only parents and siblings, but also a young fiancée who had to both witness his death and find a path forward without him.
David’s future wife Patricia Monahan, who roomed with Marilyn Rust, watched the carnage unfold too. She’s the one who talked David into giving up his shotgun when the police arrived on the scene early Sunday morning.
At trial, she testified she was pregnant with David’s child, meaning that David’s son or daughter likely would grow up for many years without a father. And David, at age 20, faced a long time in prison, another young life marred by the terrible circumstances.
And although she was not young when it all happened, I can only imagine how the whole ugly situation exponentially aged my kind friend Mrs. Howard.
So much pain.
So much sorrow.
So much waste.
So much loss.
So much darkness.
So much bad news on just one little paper route.
*Mike O’Brien (author website here) is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Paraclete Press published his book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, in August 2021. The League of Utah Writers chose it as the best non-fiction book of 2022.
