Christmas Eve 2000 started out like any other Christmas Eve for the Johnson family. They planned to have dinner together that night at their daughter’s new house in Fort Shannon, and the next day have Christmas dinner at the family house in Essex. The family of five was fairly well-to-do, with the father, Kurt Johnson, a well-respected lawyer in Shiloh County, and the mother, Christine, a pharmacist in Essex. They had three children together - Kelly, 23, John, 21, and Phillip, 19. Kelly was a nurse at Shiloh County Medical Center, John was in college for pre-law, and Phillip was attending the Naval Academy.

While Kurt, Christine, and the two boys were at the family house in Essex preparing for dinner, Kelly was at her home in Fort Shannon getting ready to host the rest of her family. She spent the day cleaning her house and preparing some of the food, with the rest being brought by her family. By all accounts, Kelly was a happily single nurse who made friends with everyone and had no enemies.

As Kurt, Christine, and their sons arrived that evening for dinner, they discovered that tragedy had struck. Kurt found the front door to Kelly’s house open, and there were signs of a struggle in the house. Kelly was found in the backyard, face-down and dead. She had been strangled and brutally beaten. Kurt immediately called 911, and Shiloh County Sheriff’s Department deputies responded to the scene.

Deputies interviewed all of Kelly’s family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers, but ultimately came up empty-handed. Someone had forced their way into a house in suburban Fort Shannon, violently murdered a 23 year old girl in her backyard, and no one was able to provide any helpful information. The only lead ever discovered was that the neighbor that backed up to Kelly’s house reported that he found boot prints in his backyard near Kelly’s fence. The lead investigator over the case theorized that Kelly’s family arriving had interrupted the killer and caused him to flee, but was unable to prove his theory.

This case remains open, and is another tragic murder in Shiloh County’s cold case files.