| For Immediate Release Case # 04ZF0071
June 6, 2008 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Public Affairs Counsel Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718 Farrah Emami |
SEX OFFENDER FACES DEATH PENALTY TRIAL FOR 1985 RAPE-MURDER OF 19-YEAR-OLD WOMAN AFTER DNA LINKED HIM TO THE CRIME
SANTA ANA – A sex offender faces trial next week for the 1985 rape-murder of a 19-year-old Anaheim woman. Lynn Dean Johnson, 52, formerly of Anaheim, is charged with the special circumstances murder of Bridgett Lamon during the commission of rape and sodomy. The District Attorney is seeking the death penalty in this case. Opening statements are scheduled to begin Monday, June 9, 2008, at 9:00 a.m. in Department C-35, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.
On May 25, 1985, Johnson, a then 31-year-old sheet metal worker, is accused of raping, sodomizing, and murdering 19-year-old Lamon. The victim, a hostess at a Mexican restaurant in Anaheim, had been dropped off after work earlier in the evening at her apartment by her mother and was never seen alive again. Lamon’s body was discovered the following morning behind an industrial business complex in eastern Anaheim. The Anaheim Police Department (APD) investigated the case and collected physical evidence from the scene, but the DNA technology to test the evidence did not exist in 1985 and the case went unsolved.
In August 1988, three years after the murder of Lamon, Johnson was arrested for kidnapping an 11-year-old girl from a bowling alley and sexually assaulting the child in his car. He was convicted and sentenced to 32 years in state prison. Based on the sentencing laws of 1988, Johnson was required to serve 50 percent of his sentence and was set to be released in May 2004.
In 2002, a law was passed requiring all violent felons to submit their DNA to the Department of Justice (DOJ), and Johnson’s DNA was collected. Later that year, APD had some of the physical evidence from the Lamon murder DNA tested. In 2004, shortly before Johnson was scheduled to be released from prison, his DNA was linked to the 1985 murder. APD obtained an arrest warrant and upon completing his sentence at Soledad State Prison in May 2004, Johnson was brought to Orange County to face charges for the murder of Lamon.
Assistant District Attorney Kevin Haskins is prosecuting this case.
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