This article mentions little Amber
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Interview With Killer David Penton
Did A Serial Killer Take Niecie?
Reporter Questions Convicted Serial Killer
Multimedia: Map of Killings, Interview in Prison With Penton [/FONT]
By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer
BIG SANDY — A child serial killer convicted in three Dallas- area abductions and murders in the 1980s is now a “person of interest” in the 1986 abduction of a Big Sandy girl.
For more than two decades there were no leads in the disappearance of 5-year-old Ara “Niecie” Johnson, apparently snatched from her bed in the middle of the night. Now, Upshur County Sheriff detectives say fresh information points to 49-year-old David Elliot Penton.
Penton, a mechanic who drifted from Ohio to Texas, is being held in Ohio for the abduction and murder of a 9-year-old Ohio girl. In addition, he has confessed to the Dallas-area cases.
Officials in Texas and several other states are investigating the possibility Penton may be in-volved with other unsolved child disappearances after cellmates claimed he bragged about killing more than 50 children.
Niecie’s disappearance on April 2, 1986, has stumped authorities and remained unsolved with no clues or suspects.
After learning that Penton allegedly spoke of Ara Johnson to cellmates, Upshur County sheriff detective Freddie Fitzgerald told the
Tyler Courier-Times—Telegraph they now consider the Ohio inmate a “strong person of interest” in her abduction.
“From the information we are getting we definitely need to talk to him (Penton),” he said. “We have to talk to him — there is no getting around it.”
The seasoned lawman added, “We have to err on the side of caution, but this information brings hope to a case where hope was all but abandoned.”
ABDUCTED
Niecie was last seen by her father about 2:30 a.m. the day she disappeared. A search by law enforcement using tracking dogs and on horseback turned up no clues to the girl’s whereabouts, according to sheriff officials at the time.
Authorities noted there was no forced entry into the mobile home in the 300 block of Boulder Street and the rear door was left open. The bedspread she was sleeping under was also missing from the home, but there were no signs of a struggle and her parents said they didn’t hear anything unusual.
James and Ophelia Johnson made passionate pleas through the media for the safe return of their only daughter, but the case soon grew cold.
Since the disappearance, James has died and attempts to reach Mrs. Johnson over a two-week period have been unsuccessful.
Niecie was added to the Texas Clearinghouse of Missing Persons and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but no information surfaced in the investigation until late last month when detectives learned about Penton.
“He tossed out the name of a little girl abducted here in Big Sandy, Texas, and he is in an Ohio prison serving life sentences for this same type of crime,” Lt. David Dickerson, also with the Upshur County Sheriff’s Department, said. “That really interests me because who has ever heard of Big Sandy? And he was in Texas about the same time as her disappearance.”
Within 18 months of Niecie’s disappearance, three abductions occurred in the Dallas area with authorities finding the bodies of Christi Lynn Meeks, 5, Christie Diane Proctor, 9, and 4-year-old Roxann Reyes.
SERIAL CHILD KILLER?
Garland Police detective Gary Sweet has spent seven years working cases against Penton, a man he describes as intelligent, elusive and cunning.
Sweet, who worked the kidnapping and murder cases of the three Dallas-area girls, has interviewed Penton and some of cellmates and other young girls who Penton allegedly attempted to kidnap.
The abductions in Dallas began with Meeks, who was kidnapped from her mother’s front yard as she played on Jan. 19, 1985. Her decomposing body was found several months later about 40 miles away in Lake Texoma after it surfaced. She had been strangled and drowned, a report showed.
As detectives worked the Meeks case, Proctor was kidnapped while walking home in north Dallas in February 1986. Her body was discovered in a field in the Plano area, two years later. According to a medical examiner and forensic evidence, she had been raped and strangled. Reyes was kidnapped while picking wildflowers for her mother near her Garland apartment Nov. 3, 1987. She was found in Murphy one year later. Evidence also suggested she had been raped and strangled.
Sweet said Texas authorities are looking at Penton as a suspect in the disappearances of Angelica Gandara, 11, of Temple, missing since July 14, 1985, Amber Nicole Crum, 2, of Dallas, missing since Dec. 26, 1983 and Johnson.
“He won’t come right out and admit the crimes, but the inmates all had specific information about each missing girl,” he said.
The Collin County District Attorney’s office was prepared to move forward with the capital murder trial against Penton and seek the death penalty four years ago.
In their arsenal prosecutors had information that Penton had attempted several other kidnappings in Dallas in the 1980s and those victims had identified him after he was indicted on the capital murder charges in 2003.
Records in Collin County contained allegations, which have never been made public, that he possessed child *advertiser censored* and verbally expressed fantasies of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering young school girls in Franklin County Ohio.
The records also quoted one of Penton’s ex-wives who told prosecutors that her ex-husband had sexually assaulted her daughter and had tortured and killed small animals while stationed at Fort Hood in the 1980s.
Letters to his family while he was jailed in Texas pending the trial were also part of the file in Collin County. Using immaculate penmanship, Penton expressed his innocence in letters to his family.
A statement by Collin County District Attorney John Roach said his office was seeking the death penalty.
“The acceptance and prosecution of these cases will serve as a notice to anyone who would abduct and murder our children that we will not forget,” he said in 2003. “We will not forget the killer, we will not forget the crime and we will not forget the victims.”
Before the cases could go to trial, Penton avoided the death penalty, pleaded guilty to the capital murder charges levied against him. He was convicted and received three concurrent life sentences in January 2005.
WHO IS PENTON?
Investigators and court records paint a picture of a troubled man who crisscrossed the country venting rage against children.
David Elliot Penton was born Feb. 9, 1958, and was raised in Columbus, Ohio, by his mother. His father abandoned both the mother and child.
After graduating high school he joined the U.S. Army in 1977 where he specialized as a track vehicle mechanic until 1984.
He quickly made a name for himself as an expert marksman and a soldier, who superiors called “highly motivated,” with an excellent record.
In 1980 he was charged with storing alcohol in his foot locker and a few months later he was charged with lying about his marital status to obtain military benefits for which he was not entitled.
He was demoted from sergeant to specialist.
In 1984 while stationed at Ford Hood, Penton would face his first charges of killing a child.
A Bell County medical examiner told authorities Penton violently shook his 2-month-old son to death in a “fit of rage,” because the child would not stop crying. Penton pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge and was discharged from the Army. While out on bond appealing his case, Penton fled from Texas authorities and began crossing the nation.
He remained on the lam until he was arrested for the murder of a friend’s niece in Ohio three years later.
The abduction, rape and murder of 9-year-old Nydra Ross, whose body was found in a creek bed, led authorities to Penton, who admitted to smoking crack and doing other illegal narcotics with the girl’s family members. He was placed into custody and convicted by a jury in 2001 where he received a life sentence in prison.
After his arrest in Ohio, Texas authorities learned of Penton and began their own investigation into the man who made numerous trips between the two states. They were especially interested in the striking similarities between the Ohio and Texas cases, but they could not tie Penton to the Dallas area crimes.
Eight years later, cellmates of the convicted child killer would go to authorities with new information about several cases.
Armed with the new evidence and the cellmates’ information, Penton was extradited to Collin County, Texas for the murders and was to face the death penalty.
However before the case went to a jury, Penton pleaded guilty.
Sweet said Penton is evasive, but intelligent and seems to take pleasure in bragging about his “killing spree,” which may span multiple states.
“He (Penton) has made claims to killing more than 50 children across the states,” he said. “I personally believe the actual number is between 25 and 30.”
NEW CHARGES
Mark Harper, a private investigator close to the case, said officials in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Alabama, Michigan, Georgia and several other states are also looking at Penton as a possible person of interest.
Penton is also a suspect in the abduction of 6-year-old Shannon Marie Sherrill, who was last seen in Thorntown, Ind., playing hide and seek with friends on Oct. 5, 1986.
Harper was hired by the Sherrill family to investigate the abduction of their child after the case by law enforcement stalled.
Penton is scheduled to be extradited to Indiana later this month to face charges in the case.
“I believe this guy may be responsible for an enormous number of missing girls and although I was hired by the Sherrill family to find their daughter’s killer, I want every case this monster might have been involved in solved before he dies,” he said. “I want these families to have some closure as to what happened to their children.”
Harper has worked with detectives across the country including Gary Sweet and the two men have shared a wealth of information regarding Penton.
Sweet said after interviewing Penton and his cellmates he knew about the Johnson case and he is now working with Dickerson and Fitzgerald and the three lawmen are sharing information.
“It’s my belief that Penton is their guy,” Sweet said.
“I feel pretty certain he is responsible for Ara’s abduction.
Fitzgerald told the newspaper Thursday he and Dickerson are planning to look at Sweet’s files to better prepare themselves for a meeting with the man labeled a “monster” by Collin County officials.
“Before we go up there to talk to him, we want to make sure we have all the information available to know how to question this individual,” he said.
Fitzgerald said a capital murder charge is not out of the question.
“It is definitely a possibility because she was abducted out of her house, against her will and if she was killed then it would be a capital murder case,” he said.
Sweet summed up his involvement with the Penton cases.
“What case can you work that is more important that a child abduction and murder?” he said.
“I am a parent and this is a parent’s worst nightmare.”
