A man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole in the April murder of a Utah couple shot and killed while their young children were sleeping.
Albert Enoch Johnson, 31, agreed to the sentence Thursday in a plea deal with prosecutors who agreed not to pursue the death penalty. A judge imposed the sentence Thursday in Salt Lake City after accepting Johnson's guilty plea to the murder, the Deseret News reported.
Police had accused Johnson of killing Tony and Katherine Butterfield during a robbery in the middle of the night April 18.
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Tony Butterfield, 31, and his 30-year-old wife Katherine were killed April 18 as their three small children slept. (West Jordan Police Department)
Butterfield, 31, and his 30-year-old wife doted on their three children — and knew Johnson through their landscaping business, the paper reported. The children were 6-months-old, 2 and 4 in April.
“They will never get to see their youngest daughter’s first birthday,” Katherine Butterfield’s sister, Emily Hurst, told the court, the paper reported. “Tony and Katherine will never be able to watch their children go on to graduate kindergarten or high school or college, or go on missions or get married.”
The couple were forced from their bed at gunpoint and robbed of $20 and a pair of cellphones by a masked Johnson, the paper reported.
Police said Johnson returned without the mask to retrieve his car keys which he left behind, according to the paper. He kicked in the door and shot the couple, who had picked up knives to defend themselves.
Mugshot for Albert Enoch Johnson, 31, after his arrest in California in April. (San Joaquin County Jail )
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“Why, Albert, why?” Tony Butterfield asked, prosecutor Anna Rossi said, according to the paper. He stabbed Johnson in the arm before being shot in the head. Johnson then killed Katherine Butterfield because he worried neighbors might hear her screams.
“That night, they experienced what is every parent’s — every person’s, to be honest — worst nightmare,” Rossi said, the paper reported. “They were the mom and the dad to three little kids who now have to grow up knowing that their parents died doing absolutely everything they could to protect them in that house that night.”
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After the murder Johnson fled to Stockton, Calif., where he was arrested. His wife was charged with helping him coverup the crime. She was jailed and released in August after pleading guilty to a reduced charge.
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