Son, 30, charged with shooting Snohomish father to death

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, September 7, 2022

SNOHOMISH — One week before a Snohomish man shot his father to death, he fired his .22-caliber rifle at his brother, according to prosecutors.

James Johnston, 30, also reportedly sent a message to his mother telling her she “better come get his brother if she wants to see him alive again.”

The defendant has since been charged with second-degree murder in the killing of his father, Robert Johnston, 59. In a seven-page charging document, Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Elise Deschenes wrote Johnston had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder when he was 10 and had not been taking his medication for years.

On the morning of Aug. 7, Johnston’s brother called 911 to report the defendant had shot their father in the yard of their home in the 6500 block of 57th Avenue SE. The brother told dispatchers the defendant lived in a trailer on their property and was “mentally unstable.”

First responders transported the father away from the yard, and he was pronounced dead shortly after the shooting, charging papers say.

The brother reported he had been on the roof of the house that morning trying to install an antenna when he heard gunshots ring out from the trailer in the yard where the defendant lived. He could not see his brother, he told police, but the shots sounded like they were coming from his brother’s .22-caliber rifle.

He climbed down from the roof and warned his father the defendant had fired his gun. The brother set up a cell phone in the kitchen window to record the incident.

The brother and father told the defendant to come out of his trailer and put his hands up, or else SWAT would be called and he would be arrested. The brother reportedly yelled that he had a gun trained on the defendant.

The defendant fired another shot from the trailer, prosecutors wrote.

The brother yelled once more, telling the defendant to get out of his trailer. Another shot rang out. The father screamed that he’d been shot, prosecutors wrote.

A SWAT team showed up to the scene.

After several announcements, the defendant walked out of the trailer and cooperated with law enforcement, prosecutors wrote.

Johnston reportedly told police he fired two shots from his rifle that day, by his trailer, into the ground near a pear tree.

The defendant told police he got mad when his brother and father came out to the trailer and told him he needed to leave, prosecutors wrote, and that he did not mean to shoot his father.

“He told detectives that he was messing with the gun, trying to clear a malfunction and it went off,” the charges say. “He remembered pointing the gun at the window and it went of. The round went through the window.”

A neighbor told detectives that Johnston had fired shots toward his brother in their yard a week prior. The neighbor reported he did not call 911 out of fear that the defendant’s mental health would “force law enforcement to shoot him,” prosecutors wrote.

Detectives served a search warrant on the trailer and reportedly found a .22-caliber rifle inside. They also found what appeared to be a handgun, the charges say, that the defendant later identified as a BB gun.

Johnston remained in jail this week with bail set at $1 million.

Ellen Dennis: 425-339-3486; ellen.dennis@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @reporterellen.