Police find no motive for Gwatney slaying

LITTLE ROCK — CORRECTION: Starting in 2002, Timothy Dale Johnson voted in three Republican primaries, one Republican runoff, one Democratic primary and one Democratic runoff. The story below about the investigative reports into the shooting deaths of Johnson and state Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney gave an incomplete characterization of Johnson's voting record.

In the end, Little Rock police detectives never learned what was in Timothy Dale Johnson's head when he took a revolver into the Arkansas Democratic Party headquarters in August and shot Bill Gwatney dead.

The 986 pages in their investigative file made public Thursday - and 310 more pages from an Arkansas State Police investigation - did show what was in Johnson's house, in his blood, inhis truck, in his Internet-search history and even in his will.

But none of the pages contained a reason for why Johnson decided to kill Gwatney, then the state Democratic Party chairman.

"That's the one thing we never could figure out," Little Rock Police Department spokesman Lt. Terry Hastings said. "We just never could dig deep enough to find an answer to why he did it."

Little Rock police were the primary agency investigating the events of Aug. 13, when Johnson, 50, scrawled graffiti on the walls at the Target store in Conway where he worked, headed home to White County to pick up three of his 17 guns, then drove to the northwest corner of West Capitol Avenue and South Pulaski Street in Little Rock and asked to see Gwatney at 11:49 a.m.

The two men had never met.

Three gunshots later, Gwatney, 48, who owned three General Motors dealerships in addition to his political work, was mortally wounded. He died four hours later at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital.

After the shooting, Johnson fled in a blue 2000 Dodge Dakota and led law enforcement officers from four agencies on a chase that ended in the Grant County city of Sheridan, 34 miles away. When an armed Johnson got out of the truck, two state troopers and a Little Rock police officer fired at him, hitting him six times. A single shot in the head proved fatal, and Johnson died a short time later at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock.

After he was shot, investigators found a semiautomatic handgun near Johnson's hand, a revolver tucked into a holster in the small of his back and a rifle in the pickup.

In a letter included in the state police investigation, the prosecuting attorney's office in Grant County ruled that the troopers and the officer were justified in killing Johnson.

The 13 witnesses to Gwatney's shooting - inside and outside the headquarters building - were little help in establishing a motive.

Leads such as Gwatney dealership key chains and a sticky note bearing the words "Gwatney - ax" and a phone number were found in Johnson's house but led detectives only to dead ends. The key chains were old and may have belonged to Johnson's dead parents. The phone number belonged to an out-ofbusiness Jacksonville towing company and had not been in use for five to seven years.

A will found in a safe in his home was signed in 2000 and had not been updated since.

An examination of his computer by the FBI showed that Johnson spent part of the day before the shooting checking out Web sites: one about windsurfing, another about weather and the home page of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The FBI report shows that Johnson also logged in to the auction site eBay and checked his Yahoo e-mail account.

In the files, there was only one hint at an explanation.

Little Rock police detective J.C. White noted in his case summary report that the antidepressant drug Effexor - prescribed to Johnson since 2005 for anxiety - was found in Johnson's blood during autopsy. The detective cited research on the drug provided by an anti-psychiatry group founded by the Church of Scientology.

"There is a strong possibility with the research done that Effexor [could] have played a part in the irrational and violent behavior," White wrote of materials he received from the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International.

Effexor does carry a warning against use for children. Documented but rare side effects - occurring in fewer than one in 1,000 patients - include impulsive actions and violent thoughts. More common side effects include nausea, constipation, insomnia and sexual dysfunction.

"But the shortest possible answer I can give you is that there is no answer," Hastings said. "We didn't find any one thing we could point to and say, 'That's it. That's why this happened.'"

Matt DeCample, the chief spokesman for Gov. Mike Beebe, who was a friend of Gwatney's, said the result was expected but disappointing. The governor had been monitoring the case, and his office kept in touch with the state police and Little Rock detectives.

"There's a lot we'll never know," DeCample said. "A lot of the people who knew and liked Bill now know they never will probably get the answers they were hoping for."

THAT MORNING

While the motive remains unclear, the files only make clearer the actions of that morning.

The suddenness and the panic that followed the shooting inside the low-slung brick party headquarters at 1300 Capitol Ave. are captured in 911 calls and detectives' witness interviews.

Gwatney had not been scheduled to go into the office that day, the investigators learned. But he canceled a golf game andwanted to sign a few letters and checks, and so was in his office just to the right of the headquarters' main reception area when Johnson walked in the door.

Johnson introduced himself at the counter and said he needed to talk with Gwatney about problems in White County. Gwatney's assistant, Amy Bell, stepped out and met Johnson, telling him that maybe he should get in touch with the White County party chairman.

If he wanted to volunteer, she told him, that was a good way to get involved. And she gave him a Barack Obama bumper sticker and a few Obama buttons.

Johnson persisted, then walked past her into Gwatney's office.

Gwatney was sitting in a chair at one end of the office at a small table. The party's executive director, Mariah Hatta, was the only other person in the room. The chairman turned.

"And uh, he [Johnson] didn't say anything, and we were all looking at him like confused," Bell said, according to a transcript of her interview with detectives. "And I said 'sir, uh' and he pulled the gun out of his pocket."

After the first shot, Bell ran.

"And, then I heard this really loud pop .... Heard this really loud pop and I didn't look," Hatta told detectives. "Um, so I didn't see a gun. I didn't see if the Chairman had been shot."

The emergency calls began almost right away, from cell phones and phones in nearby buildings.

"Little Rock 911?" an operator answered in the first call, according to a transcript.

"Uh yes," a person said, "I believe we just had shots fired at the Democratic Party Headquarters on West Capitol Avenue. I heard what sounded like gunshots and screams?"

"How many?" the operator asked.

"Five or six," the person answered.

"And you heard screams?"

"Yeah."

"And you heard about how many?"

"Five or six."

"Okay, we'll get somebody out there," the operator said. "Thank you."

The second person to call 911 had more information.

"Uh yes Ma'am we have an emergency at uh the Democratic Party, someone just shot Bill Gwatney," the person told the operator.

"Somebody just shot who?" the operator asked.

"Uh Bill Gwatney, the - the Chairman. You - you got to - you got to get an ambulance and the police over here."

"Okay," the operator said, "you're going to have to stop yelling, calm down."

That 911 caller and several more start to paint a picture.

Three gunshots. Gwatney was down inside his office. The suspect was a white man, not too tall, probably about 50 years old and wearing glasses, khaki pants and white shirt. There was a blue pickup.

At noon - 11 minutes after the shooting - Little Rock police first broadcast the name Tim Johnson to officers hunting for the suspect - some of whom were already following his truck.

JOHNSON'S FAMILY

Johnson was the only boy born to his parents along with three girls. They grew up on a farm near Searcy. Two of his sisters told investigators that they could recall nothing in his childhood that would have set him on this path.

One of his sisters, Janice Peacock, lived in Sheridan and used to live within sight of where police killed her brother. The state police notified her of Johnson's death as next of kin.

In a conversation with the state police summarized in the Little Rock police file, Peacock said she had no idea why Johnson would have wanted to killGwatney but that her brother did have some mental problems.

"She further advised that she had figured investigators were coming to tell her that her brother had committed suicide," according to the summary.

Two days later, Little Rock detectives talked to her again. She told them that Johnson was always smart, an A and B student in school. Their parents had bought him a house in Conway at one point, which he sold when they got sick. He moved in with them and did not work.

"When their mother died Timothy took the death hard because he was present at the house when she passed," according to the summary. "When their father took ill Timothy would not visit him in the hospital because of that reason."

About the time of his father's illness, Peacock told the detectives, Johnson was first prescribed Effexor.

In the most recent exam notes in his medical file, performed June 20, his physician noted, as he had the year before, that Johnson was doing "extremely well" on the drug and reported no side effects.

"He comes in today and says he is still doing well, and he is very pleased with his response to it," the doctor wrote.

But Peacock told the detectives that something hadn't been right with Johnson recently. He was "somewhat depressed," she said and had been having money problems. He pawned two of his guns and asked to borrow $500 from Peacock for computer classes at Arkansas State University's Beebe campus after his check bounced.

He always followed the news and had an interest in politics, she said, but nothing dangerous or all that specific, mostly just following current events. He often voted in Democratic primaries.

But she could think of nothing to explain why he would kill Gwatney.