Opinion ID: 1254168
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Minnesota events and return to California.

Text: Jim Johnson's wife, Sondra Johnson, and Sondra's daughter met Weller at the Minneapolis airport at 10:00 p.m. on December 31, 1991, and took Weller to their apartment in Edina. Weller met Johnson, who had just returned from Florida, the next day at another person's home. Later in the day, at the Johnsons' apartment, Weller told him that the silencer did not work the first time, but did work for the second and third rounds. Johnson indicated he knew what she was talking about. Weller did not go to authorities at this point as she was terrified by appellant's threats to kill her. She believed that the Johnsons were watching her for appellant. When appellant called and asked if she was going to return to Hawaii, she told him she would do so in a month, after seeing relatives. She did not intend to return, but did not tell appellant that, as she feared appellant would come to Minneapolis and kill her. Appellant began calling repeatedly in the middle of the night asking when she was returning, saying that he missed her, and saying he was lonely. She thought he was trying to lure her back in order to kill her. Dahl appeared a few days after Weller arrived in Minnesota and had a private meeting with Jim Johnson. Weller then saw the Johnsons in possession of a number of guns she recognized as having belonged to appellant, including what appeared to be the gun used to kill de Laet and MacVicar. One gun described to her as a Datonic firearm looked like a gun that had been in California. Appellant had told Weller that Johnson was a cocaine dealer, and Johnson himself told her that he had been to prison, that he dealt drugs, and that he manufactured firearms and firearms parts. He showed her a machine gun. Weller decided not to go home as she believed appellant was going to kill her and she did not want to present problems to her family. After being with the Johnsons for two weeks, she trusted them more. She became fond of Jim Johnson and a sexual relationship developed between them. This occurred notwithstanding her knowledge that Johnson himself had killed a man and was a cocaine dealer. She believed Johnson could help keep her from being killed. Weller then told Johnson that appellant had gone crazy and had killed two people in a drug setup and that she was certain he would kill her because she was a witness. Johnson seemed surprised and said he thought he had made the silencer for appellant to kill snitches. He had originally gotten the parts for the gun and silencer from appellant for use in a robbery, but he was later asked to get the gun ready immediately because appellant had to kill some snitches in California. Appellant and Garcia arrived at the Minneapolis airport on February 19 or 20. Jim and Sondra Johnson, Weller, and Dahl, all armed because they feared appellant, met them at the airport in the Johnsons' van. Garcia had a black eye. Garcia said a karate opponent caused it. Garcia was quiet, appeared to be very scared, and throughout her stay was robot-like, doing what appellant told her to do. At the apartment appellant accused Weller of calling him a punk and became angry when she denied the accusation. He demanded that she apologize to Johnson for being disrespectful in his house and ignored Johnson, who protested that Weller was not disrespectful. Appellant followed Weller into the bathroom, grabbed her, slapped her into the tile wall, twisted her arm, and held a comb to her throat as if to slash it. He stopped only when Johnson intervened. Weller finally apologized to Johnson in response to appellant's demands. Appellant then threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the California murders and told her to consider herself hunted. When she opened a vitamin bottle, clicking off the safety cap, appellant ran toward her, pulled a gun, and pointed it at her. He put the gun down at Johnson's direction. Appellant and Garcia left the apartment shortly afterwards. Weller did not see them again until the murder prosecution commenced. Early in March 1982, Weller moved into an apartment with the money supplied by the Johnsons. She did so because she believed Johnson could no longer protect her from appellant. The apartment was rented in the name of Tonya Tate. Johnson stored cocaine and equipment used for cutting, pressing, and packaging the drug, which had previously been kept in Dahl's apartment, in this apartment. Weller remained in the apartment until April 22, 1982, when she surrendered to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Minneapolis. She did so on the advice of an attorney, although still afraid of being killed by appellant or his associates, after learning that the Johnsons had been arrested, appellant had been arrested, and a warrant had been issued for her arrest. When contacted by Santa Cruz law enforcement officers a day or two later, she refused to talk to them because she was afraid. At the end of June 1982, having been charged with being an accessory to murder, she agreed to talk to them after her Minnesota attorney explained her options and she was promised immunity from prosecution for anything in her statement. The only exceptions to the grant of immunity were perjury and if the prosecutor discovered that she had actually shot someone. Weller agreed to make a statement even though she still feared that appellant would have her killed either in or outside of jail. Weller first talked to California authorities on June 30 and July 1, 1982, giving taped statements while in the Hennepin County (Minnesota) jail. She had been advised that the charges against her would not be dismissed until she arrived in California. She was returned to Monterey County in protective custody and held in the county jail, first in Santa Cruz and then in Salinas under another name, until August 2, even though the charges against her had been dismissed earlier. The Johnsons pleaded guilty to state and federal charges in Minnesota and Weller did not testify against them, but she did testify against Dahl in Minnesota. For three months she received funds from the California Witness Protection Program during which time she found a job. The Federal Witness Protection Program rejected her request for an identity change. Weller conceded that she had initially told representatives of the district attorney's office that she did not know that MacVicar and de Laet were going to be killed until the murders occurred. She also testified to that effect at the preliminary hearing and denied that she had seen the hatchet, hacksaw, and garbage bags in the Millbrae Travelodge. Although she had originally denied seeing Dahl in California, because she did not know where he was and was afraid, at the preliminary hearing she testified that she had seen him. On cross-examination at trial she conceded that she had not been truthful in her preliminary hearing testimony when she denied involvement in and knowledge of many of the Johnsons' unlawful activities. The defense also brought out occasions during which Weller was in proximity to law enforcement personnel and could have alerted authorities to the criminal conduct of appellant and the Johnsons, but did not do so, and the many occasions on which there was no impediment to her leaving appellant.