Shonda Johnson

Shonda Johnson was born on September 30, 1969. She wasn’t your traditional beauty, but in her small town in Alabama, she was popular.

She dropped out of high school, but told men that didn’t know better that she had been a cheerleader and Homecoming queen.

Despite being unemployed, she often told people that she was a paramedic.

She married Jeff Nelson at just 18 years old. The relationship was tumultuous. Jeff called the police on Shonda more than once. They were divorced after 6 years of marriage.

Her second marriage was to a man named Jimmy Tidwell. This marriage ended in divorce after 5 months.

She married Randy McCullar in 1995. They seemed happy at first, but the couple separated. They did not file for divorce.

Just 3 months after the split, Randy heard a rumor that Shonda had married another man named Bill McIntyre. What he didn’t know was that Shonda was pregnant with Randy’s child when she married Bill.

Bill knew she was pregnant and knew it wasn’t his child, but he didn’t care.

Before the couple had been married a year, Bill became very sick. He discovered that he had AIDS. Shonda left him when he was admitted to the hospital in August 1996.

Shonda began living with a man named Ronnie Webb. Shonda became pregnant with Ronnie’s child.

Since she had never divorced Randy, Shonda was a bigamist. Randy filed charges against her in 1997.

Later that year, while still pregnant, Shonda met Tim Richards. The couple married soon after. Again, Tim knew that she was pregnant. He knew the child wasn’t his. What he didn’t know was that Shonda hadn’t divorced either of her two previous husbands.

Shonda initially lied to Tim. She told him that the marriage between her and Randy had never been legal. Then she told him that Randy raped her. Then she admitted that she was a bigamist and that, if convicted, she would go to prison and lose her children.

She asked Tim to kill Randy. He agreed to do it.

On November 30, 1997, Shonda and Tim flattened one of the tires on Randy’s car outside of a bar where he was drinking.

Randy didn’t realize until he had driven away, with Shonda and Tim following behind, so he stopped in a church parking lot to check the tire. The couple pulled up beside him as Randy began changing his tire.

Shonda handed Tim a rifle and told him to “do it!” Tim shot Randy in the head. The couple drove away and threw the rifle off a bridge into a river.

Randy’s body was found early the next morning.

Police immediately suspected Shonda and arrested her. She denied planning the murder, but admitted to being in the truck with Tim when he shot Randy.

When Tim heard tapes of Shonda throwing him under the bus, he broke down and told police everything.

Tim took a plea agreement that included testifying against Shonda.

Shonda pled guilty to bigamy and was found guilty of the murder of her third husband. She was sentenced to death.

Ronnie died of AIDS shortly before the murder trial was over.

Tim was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.

In April 2012, Tim escaped from a minimum security prison in Alliance, Ohio. Two days later, he was found and returned to prison.

A video summary of this week’s post can be found at

https://youtu.be/5eAjAs-hzeg

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Sources/Photo Credits

**Thank you Chyna for catching the error in this post. It has been corrected.