Chapter 4: The Husband

Heads up. This show contains descriptions of violence and strong language.

Last time on Beyond All Repair

Rick Buckner: There was really no connection between Sean Correia and the victim, Marlyne. The only connection is Sophia Johnson. 

Sophia Johnson: There’s a reason this little son of a bitch who I happen to be related to is up here lying.

Therese Lavallee: This is a story that was concocted by Correia to save himself from the charge of murder in the first degree. 

Shane Correia: He would do anything to save his own skin so I don’t trust his testimony at all.  

Cynthia: He’s somebody that’s manipulative, a pathological liar. // Like he almost killed me. I could have been his first victim.

Amory Sivertson: Was there any physical evidence connecting Sophia to the crime scene the way that there was the drop of blood on Sean's boot? 

Rick Buckner: Physical evidence? No.

It's December of 2022. I'm in Vancouver, Washington, about to meet a woman who'd warned me in advance... she's a hugger!

Lyn Page: Alright. Hello. 

Amory Sivertson: It's really nice to meet you. 

Lyn Page: Oh my goodness. 

Amory Sivertson: Look at this place. 

Lyn Page: Oh God. It's a museum. 

Amory Sivertson: It's a museum.

I've barely stepped foot into this basement apartment, but it is a FEAST for the eyes -- handwoven rugs, pottery, animal skulls, houseplants. And an aroma coming from a room to the left.

Amory Sivertson: I smell some incense, maybe? 

Lyn Page: Uh, I made, uh, pumpkin spice muffins this morning. 

Amory Sivertson: Oh, that could be it.

This hugging, muffin-maker is Lyn Page. And the room to the left... is basically the EVERYTHING room. There's a music space with a synthesizer from the 70s, an office zone with a desk and a computer, an art-making area with a table and various fabrics and fibers.

Lyn Page: And there's always a work in progress, so it's always a mess. Now let me show you this. 

Lyn walks me over a couple steps to a particularly impressive work in progress.

Amory Sivertson: Oh my gosh. This is a huge macrame. What is that? Two feet? 

Lyn Page: Yeah, it's 23 inches. 

Amory Sivertson: 23 inches, plus extra string. 

Lyn Page: And I'm not done with it cause I'm putting fringe on it now. The tree is done. This is what I'm making for Dick and Jean for Christmas.

Dick and Jean — a couple Lyn is friends with. Dick... is short for Richard. Johnson. The widower of Marlyne Johnson. Lyn has known Richard since junior high... and she's only become better friends with him since then. 23-inch handmade macrame kind of friends. But Lyn was also a confidante of Marlyne's when she was alive. And her closeness with both of the Johnsons offers a window into a marriage and a family that not many who know about Marlyne's murder have even gotten to peer into before.

Lyn Page: We didn't know whether or not they were gonna separate. And that's where that $10,000 stash comes in. 

I'm Amory Sivertson. From WBUR and ZSP Media, this is Beyond All Repair.

Chapter four: The Husband.

10 months before stepping foot in Lyn’s museum of an apartment, she left me a voicemail.

Lyn Page: Hi there. My name is Lyn Page and I understand that you've been in conversation with Brad and Richard Johnson recently. And they suggested that I give you a call.

The irony of Richard leading me to Lyn, is that… later in this episode… Lyn will lead me BACK to Richard Johnson… who you WILL get to hear from. But when I first reached out to him, he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to me. In fact, I'd say he was pretty sure he DIDN'T want to. Or at least, didn’t want to be recorded. But Richard told me about a couple people who might want to talk to me. Friends of the family. One of whom attended every single day of Sophia's trial in 2003 and had taken detailed notes.

Lyn Page: You can return my call if you're interested in talking about this, uh, the A-frame murder, which is the name of my book. 

A book? The A-Frame Murder? HELL YES I was interested in talking to Lyn.

Lyn Page: And frankly, I think you should read it. 

HELL YES I wanted to read it. Lyn emailed me a PDF of her unpublished opus, “The A-Frame Murder.” It's fiction, technically. Lyn changed all the names. Marlyne is Maureen. Sophia is Sonia. Sean is, wait for it... Shane, confusingly enough. Which I'm sure ACTUAL Shane will cringe at hearing. Lyn added some other embellishments and signature flourishes. “Like a gust of cold air through a warm room, his extended sigh blew across our silent attention.” But the details of the trial itself are based off of pages and pages of shorthand transcriptions of witness testimony and notes. Pages that Lyn had typed up and filed away. Until 2020. When it occurred to her... that Sophia and Brad's son — the one Sophia had given birth to in jail — had just turned 18. The time felt right to finally do something with those notes.

So she wrote the book. I read all 239 pages of it, and hopped back on the phone with Lyn about a month later.

Amory Sivertson: Why did you decide to attend the trial? 

Lyn Page: Well, because Marlyne was my friend, and because I was the only one who was gonna do it, who would be able to attend every single day.

Lyn was a self-employed massage therapist at the time. She gave Richard massages at his house every other week.

Lyn Page: I'm kinda like his sister that he never had, who calls it like it is and tells him what he needs to hear. 

With Marlyne, Lyn had more of a spiritual sisterhood.

Lyn Page: My time with her was mostly in the teepee and we'd just chat about, you know, any old thing going on.

The teepee. Lyn says she has Cherokee ancestry, and she's had several teepees over the years, including a 22-foot tall one that Marlyne and Richard let her set up on their property. You've heard of a man cave... Well THIS... was a lady lodge. Where Lyn says she and Marlyne drummed and chanted, and where Marlyne would open up about problems in her marriage to Richard.

Lyn Page: As a couple, he was, in those days, he was different than he is now.  

Lyn says the Johnsons were on the verge of divorce more than once. At a certain point, Marlyne started putting money aside.

Lyn Page: She had done what we friends of hers counseled her to do in case there was a breakup of the marriage. She needed to be able to take care of herself. 

Lyn was pretty open about the existence of tension in Marlyne and Richard’s marriage generally. But when it came to Richard and the source of the tension…

Lyn Page: I would, uh, she worried about his drinking and his gambling. Now more than that. I, you know, it's hard for me to say much about that. 

Richard’s drinking and gambling. There was clearly more to the story here, and I was hesitant to press further during this first phone call. But, as I told Lyn, I had another call to make. To someone named Lin-DA... whom Richard had also suggested I talk to.

Lyn Page: She is a talker, so if you get her on the phone, she'll dump everything. Oh God, I love her. 

And I... love a talker.

Linda Dillard: Mostly what I remember about her were the birds. She loved the birds so much. 

This is Linda Dillard, who says Marlyne spoiled the birds both outside her house AND inside. She had one particularly memorable pet bird.

Linda Dillard: Bee-dee-pee. That's what the bird said all the time. Bee-dee-pee. She loved that bird. And that bird would rip your nose off, but not hers.

Linda was the Johnsons’ house cleaner. She’d come every other week, and Marlyne was usually home at the time.

Linda Dillard: I was there four or five hours, and we talked about everything you can imagine. 

I could imagine a fair bit after talking to Lyn, but I was hoping to hear more about Marlyne and Richard's marriage. Linda also knew about the money Marlyne had set aside.

Linda Dillard: That was in case things got weird and she wanted to leave.  

Amory Sivertson: Does that have to do with Richard's gambling and drinking problem?

Linda Dillard: Yeah. I also was in a battered relationship for several years…

Amory Sivertson: I'm so sorry to hear that. 

Linda Dillard: Well, I got out. I got out. But, we used to talk about that kind of stuff. Because we had things in common like that, and we could just tell each other anything. 

Amory Sivertson: When you say you had things in common, was Marlyne being abused? 

Linda Dillard: Oh, God. I, physically, I don't believe so, but they would have some pretty rough arguments. 

Amory Sivertson: Marlyne and Richard?

Linda Dillard: Yeah.

This all had an eerie feeling to it… Big arguments. A marriage on the rocks. A stash of money set aside by a woman who ends up getting killed in her own home with no obvious sign of a break-in. Linda’s felt this, too.

Linda Dillard: When it all came down, you know, people always think the husband did it. And that thought came across my mind a few times just because you're wondering and wondering.

It seemed like Linda and Lyn might be holding back. I didn't blame them. I was a stranger on the phone on therr other side of the country. Until…

Amory Sivertson: What's in the hummus? This is great. 

Linda Dillard: It really is. 

I wasn’t … and Linda, Lyn and I were eating salad and bean dip together, knee-to-knee around a small table in the “everything room” in Lyn's apartment

Lyn Page: I went easy on the garlic because I didn't want you to have to worry about breathing on people…

We waited to dig into the topic at hand until after we'd dug in to lunch. And then, we started... just talking about their friend, Marlyne. Their very generous friend.

Lyn Page: The chair you're sitting in came from her. That credenza with all my cookbooks in it came from her.

Some of the handwoven rugs I'd unceremoniously stepped on coming into Lyn's place, those came from Marlyne, too. And Linda has a big yellow bread bowl in her house that used to be hers.

Linda Dilliard: And I used to tease her all the time about it. I’d say, when you die, I get that bowl 

Amory Sivertson: And she gave it to you? 

Linda Dilliard: Well, Dick ended up giving it to me. 

A smaller, but maybe more poignant gesture, are the feathers Marlyne would give each of them, left behind by skybound visitors to her yard.

Linda Dillard: Just good. She was good, and crappy things kept happening to her. And then ultimately the worst thing happened to her. And you, when you, if you knew her, you just can't imagine that anybody could do that to her. 

Amory Sivertson: When you said bad things kept happening to Marlyne, Linda, what were you referring to? 

Linda Dillard: Just stuff in life that, just, just the regular, are you having a good day or are you having a bad day? Those kind of little things. 

Lyn Page: Except Dick's drinking and gambling. 

Linda Dillard: I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna go there. 

Lyn Page: But I already, I've already breached that dam. 

Linda Dillard: I wasn't gonna go there.

But THERE we were… breaching that dam together.

Linda Dillard: It caused her great anguish. I told her many times. You just get rid of him. No, she stood by her man. 

Lyn Page: But she did listen to those of us who were encouraging her to get her own credit cards. Bank account. Establish herself. That was what she was supposed to be saving for her possible exit from that marriage.

Marlyne’s separate bank account had come up in one of my unrecorded phone calls with Richard. He’d told me that Marlyne was just saving up for a new heat pump for their house.

Amory Sivertson: Was that the agreed upon narrative? 

Linda Dilliard: I don't know that story.

Lyn Page: Dick did not know about her bank account that was hers. And whatever she told him, if he found out was—

Bullshit... Lyn's expression suggested. And there are secrets that Linda has kept well beyond Marlyne's grave, and will likely take to her own.

Linda Dilliard: See, even now, I wouldn't talk about it. 

Now, Linda and Lyn have nothing nice to say about Sophia.

Linda Dilliard: She played the whole damn family.

They told me she came across as bratty and materialistic. That they heard stories from Marlyne about Sophia getting caught in lies, being unkind to animals, and having a temper.

Linda Dilliard: She was just a bitch.

But these friends also want to know what Sophia has told me. About her backstory. About Marlyne. And about the murder.

Amory Sivertson: What she said to me is, as long as they think I've done this, then they're not looking for who actually did this. 

Lyn Page: Which is very true. And that's what makes it a cold case. It's listed in Vancouver as a cold case.

Linda Dilliar: Is it? Shit. If somebody got away with this horrendous thing, they're very clever, whoever that might be. So you are gonna have to be really good at trying to figure out who's telling the truth and who's not telling the truth. 

Would Richard Johnson tell me the truth, starting with his relationship with Marlyne, as Lyn and Linda remember it? I was about to find out.

More in a minute.

Amory Sivertson: Hi Jean. 

Jean: Hi, Amory. 

Lyn Page: See, she got your name right? 

Lyn and I have pulled up to a therapist's office on a residential street in Vancouver, not far from her house. Jean, Richard Johnson's girlfriend, is outside waiting for us. This is where Jean and Richard suggested we meet. Which makes sense. I don't expect everyone to invite me into their museum of a home and feed me garlicky bean dip. Certainly not when I'm about to ask them uncomfortable things. Therapists' offices were built for such conversations.

Amory Sivertson: I'm Amory. I'm sorry for the cold.

I offer Richard a cold hand, but he greets me warmly in his reserved, soft-spoken way. He's narrower than the Richard I saw in trial footage from 20 years ago.

Judge: State your name and spell your last name for the record, please. 

Richard Johnson: My name is Richard Johnson. J-o-h-n-s-o-n 

Richard’s in his late 70s when I make this visit. He slurs his words a bit, he warns me.

Slurred words were the least of my concerns. I was predicting this interview to be... unpredictable. Lyn had told me that Richard can go on and on about his wife being murdered, but also that he wants this to all go away. The vibe in the room feels a little like an intervention. Like Richard probbbably doesn't want to be there and is only talking to me as a favor to Lyn or Jean or both. But I'd waited a full year for Richard to feel ready to go on the record with me. I'd flown across the country. It’s now or never to talk to him about Marlyne.

Amory Siverson: How did you meet her?

Richard Johnson: I met her over at Jimmy's house one time. It was, Jim’s a friend, and I said, man, that's a good looking woman. And then I saw her another time and…

Lyn Page: She had the most wonderful dimples. 

Amory Siverson: Oh yeah, yeah, I can see that. 

That’s Lyn chiming in, helping Richard along. I had asked him to bring any photos of Marlyne that he might want me to see. He brought 4 or 5 of her old drivers' licenses. An interesting choice... but Marlyne... didn't take a license photo the way most people -- or at least the way I -- take a license photo. She looks casually perfect in all of them. Cheery, youthful. Fair skin with black curly hair that's in pigtails in one of the photos. Matching dark eyes, and the sweetest smile. As if she had been genuinely happy to be at the DMV. And yep, the most wonderful dimples.

The second time Richard saw Marlyne was on Christmas day, again at his friend Jim's house. They were in their early 20s at the time.

Richard Johnson: Marlyne showed up with Brad, a one-year-old baby. 

Richard Johnson might be dad to Brad, but he's not his biological father.

Richard Johnson: She was estranged from her husband. He was a bum. You know, he was in the Navy and he was screwing around and which that seems to be common for Navy guys. 

The third time he ran into Marlyne, she did not have a 1-year in her arms.

Richard Johnson: I was out at the Longhorn prowling for a, you know, it was a tavern.

Marlyne was there with a friend, whom Richard also knew.

Richard Johnson: And I'm pretty shy person if I'm, you know, I don't just talk very easily to people I don't know, but I knew them. And so I sat down and talked and we proceeded to talk until they closed the place and then we had Chinese dinner at four in the morning. 

Amory Sivertson: That's how all the best memories are made. 

Richard Johnson: Yeah. 

I thumbed through Marlyne's driver's licenses again, looking at them through a slightly different lens now. A young mother who'd already been through a broken heart and marriage, finding new love and a new iteration of family. I studied her eyes from picture to picture, looking for signs of hope or pain or premonition. A stretch, I know. And certainly not something I was going to say out loud. But it's hard to look at a photo of a person who doesn't know they're going to die an unimaginably brutal death and not want to whisper some warning into their two-dimensional ear. What came out of my mouth in the moment was...

Amory Sivertson: She has really kind eyes. 

Richard Johnson: Yes. 

Lyn Page: She's beautiful. 

Amory Siverston: Yeah, absolutely. 

Richard Johnson: And she aged really well. At least up until 58 years old. 

Richard walked me through the day of Marlyne's murder and the immediate aftermath.

Richard Johnson: I was at the office at, uh, midday or so, and then I, um, at that point in my life, sometimes I took a long lunch and went up to La Center and gambled. 

La Center, Washington, about 20 minutes from Vancouver, where there's a cluster of casinos. I wasn't expecting Richard to be the first to bring up his gambling. I was glad he did... although I ALSO wasn't expecting him to talk about it in the present tense.

Richard Johnson: Everybody's wondering why I don't just throw all my money away gambling, but actually I have luck occasionally, more than occasionally. Sometimes I win 4 or $5,000 in one hand. So it's part of my life and I keep it under control. 

I had heard that Richard had gone to the casino the day Marlyne died. He may have been mid-card-game when the attack was happening, in fact. Detective Rick Buckner had surveillance footage.

Rick Buckner: I believe we had Richard at one of the casinos gambling. But again, was it his twin brother? We don't know. 

PAUSE. Richard has a twin brother. Identical. Who also lived in the area. And who also gambles. So was the person they saw on the casino's surveillance footage at the time of the murder... RICHARD Johnson? Or was it the nearly indistinguishable DAVID Johnson?

Rick Buckner: I mean, there was little things in the, in the investigation that we could never really pin down. 

Richard says he went to the casino for an hour or two around lunchtime that day, and then back to his office. And then, in the late afternoon....

Richard Johnson: All of a sudden a phone call came in and my secretary starts going nuts and just says, you gotta go home. And so I drove home, and as I got near the house before I rounded the bend where you could see the house, I just, I just started crying. I knew something was bad, you know, I just knew it was… and sure enough. 

There were a few moments like this during my conversation with Richard. Where the emotion overflowed so suddenly it was almost startling. He told me he suffers from PTSD.

Richard Johnson: It was shock. You know, I mean, you come up there and the sheriff's there and they got a chaplain to talk to you and you can't even step foot on the property. All they wanted to do was find out if I was involved in it. For a couple weeks, that's where they were at. And, you know, that's about as frustrating as you can, you know, imagine because they're wasting their energy, instead of finding the person that might have killed my wife, they're looking at me. 

Rick Buckner: We were looking at everybody at that point. 

Richard Johnson: I mean, the police are pretty hard. There's not a lot of compassion there.

But… as Linda said earlier… people often do suspect the husband when a spouse is murdered. Especially if there’s a history of problems in the marriage… which Richard was also open with me about. And about, supposedly, trying to fix them.

Richard Johnson: Probably the most significant counseling that I had was for alcohol abuse. The first, you know, and I voluntarily did that and was sober for five years, otherwise I would've lost my marriage.I was having some issues with alcohol and stress. Lawyering is a stressful job.

Richard's a real estate attorney. WAS a real estate attorney. He stopped practicing law -- or even really BELIEVING in it as a result of how he feels the legal system has FAILED him time and again… Beginning with failing Marlyne. Richard refutes the idea that her murder is a cold case.

Richard Johnson: No, it's a botched case. That's all it is. I was so full of anger that I knew I was unfit to practice law, and so I just surrendered my license.

Amory Siverston: You stepped away from law because you lost a sort of faith?

Richard Johnson: I have nothing but contempt for the law, at this time in my life, nothing but contempt for the law and the people that earn their living off of it. And then of course they put me up on the stand and have me testify. 

Therese Lavallee: And sir, when you were gambling on Tuesday, January 8th, isn't it true that you drank some black Russians at the New Phoenix? 

Richard Johnson: If that's what I told the detectives, that's what I told them. 

Therese Lavallee: So is that the truth? 

Richard Johnson: I told the detectives the truth. I have no reason to lie. You know, their lawyer was very effective at goading me, and I'm sure my temper came out, which has been exploited more than once. Didn't you know I was convicted of domestic violence for raising my voice? And so if they had any evidence at all that I was involved, that my temper would've, uh, led 'em to that. But obviously I wasn't, I was out playing cards in La Center at the time, and I had no motive, you know, but I have a temper. We don't need to get into that sad chapter of, uh, alleged domestic violence, which that law is so flawed. 

Lyn Page: Don't go there, dick. 

Richard Johnson: All right. 

Jean: You're on the record here.

Richard Johnson: It's over and done with now, finally. 

I'm not going to go there either in this series... other than to acknowledge that Richard did have a domestic violence-related charge brought against him 6 years ago. It was in the relationship he was in before Jean.

And there was another relationship Richard spoke openly about. The one with his son, Brad. Which has been complicated, at times. Richard raised Brad. They love each other, but I couldn't help but detect some degree of bitterness... maybe even distrust. Because... Brad brought Sophia into the Johnson family.

Richard Johnson: And, as far as I'm concerned, she is the person who committed, who murdered my wife, and nobody's ever gonna convince me otherwise. 

Now, I don't think Richard blames Brad for Marlyne's murder. But he does hold him accountable for things he didn't tell him and Marlyne about Sophia. Like the fact that she had been married once already. To be fair, Brad had too. So had Marlyne! But it was the deception that Richard told me he's still angry about today.

Richard Johnson: Not only her lying, but convincing Brad to lie. 

After Marlyne's murder, Richard had an interesting conversation with a legal partner of his. This guy told Richard… that he’d run into Brad and Sophia at the courthouse about a month before they got married.

Richard Johnson: And he says, what are you doing here? And then, well, Sophia's here to get her divorce finalized. “Well, don't tell dad!” That's the kinda lie I'm talking about. I didn't talk to Brad for about two years.

I get why Richard would be unsettled by the secret-keeping here. But I also don't think that's something you cut contact off with your son for years over unless there's a deeper, unspoken sense of betrayal simmering below. Or maybe the therapist's office was having an effect on me.

I had this conversation with Richard Johnson in December of 2022. Almost exactly a year later, he died… suddenly… days before his 80th birthday. He’ll never hear this, but it’s still important to me to say… I don't think Richard Johnson killed Marlyne. He may have had a temper, he had a history of addiction, and as much as he laid into Brad and Sophia for lies they told, it's quite possible he lied to Marlyne at times about his gambling and alcohol use during their marriage. I don't know. I do know... that I had the sense talking to Richard that I was in the presence of a man who's was as scarred as he was flawed. Who lost his wife of 32 years in the most nightmarish way and was never the same.

I also think… there’s a chance Richard was wrong about Sophia being the person who murdered Marlyne. Linda and Lyn at least seem open to another explanation.

Linda Dilliard: Because I still don't know for sure. None of us know for sure.

And as such, they left me with words of warning.

Linda Dilliard: Be careful. You're digging in a place that's been very peaceful for a while, and if Sophia didn't do it, then you might dig up something that nobody wants you to dig up. 

Lyn Page: Do it, anyway. Do it, anyway. Dig.  

Linda Dilliard: And then I wanna know.

Moments after Linda left Lyn’s apartment that day, she came hurrying back in with something in her hand: a large brown and white feather that she’d found on the hood of her car. “Marlyne was here,” she said. A sign, Linda thought, that she’d been watching over our conversation. A sign of approval? I wish I knew.

But I have kept digging. And the next spot to tell you about… is one where most people didn't think to look.

Amory Siverston: Hey Brad, how's it going? 

Brad Johnson: Oh, not bad. Another peachy day. 

Amory Sivertson: Another peachy day?

Rick Buckner: If anything were to happen to Richard or to Marlyne, who inherits it? Brad Johnson. 

Next time, the motive. And the secret that Sophia and Brad may have been keeping TOGETHER.

Rick Buckner: Who's married to Brad? Sophia Johnson.

Sophia Johnson: So the embezzlement started in… what year did I marry Brad? 

Richard Johnson: I don't remember talking to Brad much about it, saying, you know, it's your problem. I don't know a thing about it. 

Shane Correia: There's no erasing him from those pictures depositing the checks. 

Beyond All Repair is a production of WBUR, Boston’s NPR, and ZSP Media.

It’s written and reported by me, Amory Sivertson, and produced by Sofie Kodner.

Mix, sound design and original scoring by Paul Vaitkus, production manager of WBUR Podcasts.

Theme and credits music by me.

Our managing producers are Samata Joshi for WBUR and Liz Stiles of ZSP Media. Our editors and executive producers are Ben Brock Johnson of WBUR and Zac Stuart-Pontier of ZSP Media.

If you have questions about the case, the people at the center of this story, or anything else about this series, we want to hear ‘em. Email beyondallrepairpod@gmail.com. Voice memo or written message, you do you: beyondallrepairpod@gmail.com.

Do me a favor, will ya? Eat a treat, go for a little walk, tell someone you love ‘em, and then tell them about this show. In that order.

THANK YOU for listening.