Parents learn of daughter’s body dumped on LA hillside
The 22-year-old Santa Monica College student who vanished more than two weeks ago was found dead in the Hollywood Hills on Monday — within a block of a house searched by police last week in connection with her disappearance.
In addition, police said they may have located a suspect in the murder, who is being held on an unrelated felony charge by another law enforcement agency.
Hikers found Kristine Johnson’s bound body covered with a blue sleeping bag about 70 feet down a steep hillside in the 8500 block of Skyline Drive in Laurel Canyon at about 1 p.m. on Monday.
“Last week, when search warrants were served, an address in that block was one of them,” said Santa Monica Police Lt. Frank Fabrega. “The house is in the general vicinity of where the body was found.”
Fabrega didn’t know the exact address of the Skyline Drive house or what was specifically found there, if anything. The county sheriff’s crime lab is conducting forensic tests on evidence seized from 10 locations where searches were conducted last week.
Santa Monica police last week released a composite sketch of the man they believed Johnson was supposed to meet in Beverly Hills. The man had claimed to be a photographer auditioning women for a film.
Fabrega said a law enforcement agency other than Santa Monica has a man in custody who matches the description of the possible suspect in Johnson’s murder. Fabrega didn’t know which law enforcement agency is holding the man or how long he has been in custody.
“The person depicted in the sketch we believe is the same man in custody for an unrelated charge,” Fabrega said. “He has no ties to Santa Monica at this point.”
After the composite was released last Tuesday, a caller on SMPD’s tipline provided information that led police to the man who already was in custody.
Although the coroner’s office hadn’t conducted an autopsy and the cause of death is unknown, authorities were able to positively identify the body as Johnson’s from a tattoo on her lower back.
196,“We have definitive identification based on a body marking that lets us know that it is the body of Kristine Johnson,” SMPD Chief James T. Butts Jr. said.
The body was found in the same area volunteers searched over the weekend. About 100 volunteers, who came from as far away as Sacramento and Orlando, combed through areas in Topgana Canyon and the hillsides of Hollywood Hills on Saturday and Sunday.
6AF,A temporary command center was established over the weekend at the Ramada Inn in Culver City that was organized by Johnson’s mother, Terry Wark, and Johnson’s co-workers. Wark, who lives in Los Gatos, a northern California suburb, had been in Santa Monica most of last week and over the weekend.
She returned home on Sunday and was on a flight to New York on Monday when her daughter’s body was found. When the plane landed she learned that her only daughter was dead.
“Obviously she is destroyed,” said Jeff Wark, her husband. “I pray to God she has the strength to go through this. She loved that daughter of hers. She was the apple of her eye, her pride and joy.”
“I pray to God she has the strength to go through this. She loved that daughter of hers. She was the apple of her eye, her pride and joy.” — — JEFF WARK Husband of Johnson’s mother
Fabrega said Chief Butts had left several messages on Wark’s cell phone before he spoke with her. He also contacted Johnson’s father, Kirk Johnson, who lives in Michigan.
“The chief spoke to the mother and the father and they are very distraught and upset,” he said.
Johnson disappeared Feb. 15 after telling her roommate she was going to Beverly Hills to audition for a photographer she met while shopping at the Century City Mall.
Police then learned on Feb. 24 that Johnson’s white 1996 Mazda Miata had been parked Feb. 16 — the day after she disappeared — at the St. Regis Hotel in Century City by a person strongly resembling the man in the composite sketch. Police know his name but aren’t releasing it.
Wark, who pleaded with her daughter’s abductor through the media for more than two weeks to return her unharmed, was scheduled to appear on the television talk show, “The View” and CNN on Tuesday in New York. Wark has done countless interviews with local, state and national media in the past week in an effort to find her daughter.
Wark, who remained composed and focused throughout the ordeal, said she believed that Johnson was still alive and was relying on her faith to have her returned safely. Earlier Monday, Wark appealed for more volunteers to search Southern California for her daughter.
Friends and family gathered in Santa Monica and her hometown of Saugatuck, Mich., for two separate vigils last Thursday, the day of Johnson’s 22nd birthday.
Wark, who spoke to Johnson every day by phone, said last week that she shared a special bond with her daughter, who was described as beautiful, fun loving woman.
“I do have a strong connectedness to Kristi,” Wark told reporters last week. “And she isn’t in my loving arms.”
Co-workers say Johnson was extremely close to her family in northern California and visited her paternal grandmother, Kathryn Johnson, at her home in Santa Maria nearly every weekend.
Johnson lived on 29th Street with two roommates. She moved to California about two years ago after a year at Michigan State. She lived with her grandmother for about a year and a half before moving to the Los Angeles area nine months ago.
Johnson had worked at CNCG Cellular, a small wholesale cellular phone company based in Marina Del Rey, for about 2 1/2 months.
Edwin Ortiz, a manager at CNCG and who helped organize the search for Johnson, said it’s difficult to think she isn’t coming back.
“No one took it well,” Ortiz said of Johnson’s co-workers. “I’m in shock. But I was realistic about this and I had a bad feeling from the beginning. I feel completely wiped out. My heart really goes out to (the family).”
“I’m in shock. But I was realistic about this and I had a bad feeling from the beginning. I feel completely wiped out. My heart really goes out to (the family).” — — EDWIN ORTIZ Kristine Johnson’s co-worker
PULLQUOTE: “I’m in shock. But I was realistic about this and I had a bad feeling from the beginning. I feel completely wiped out. My heart really goes out to (the family).” Edwin Ortiz, Kristine Johnson’s co-worker
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 4, 2003. Read the original PDF.