Jury selection begins Monday in Belleville hair salon triple-murder case

It was one of the bloodiest and most gruesome killings in Belleville history — the stabbing deaths of hairdresser Michael Cooney and two of his clients, 79-year-old Doris Fischer and 82-year-old Dorothy Bone.

For years, Belleville Police Chief Terry Delaney, now retired, insisted Samuel L. Johnson did it. On Monday, St. Clair County prosecutors will set about the job of convincing 12 people that Delaney was right. Jury selection for Johnson's murder trial is set to begin Monday at the St. Clair County Courthouse.

But Johnson’s attorneys, Tom Keefe III and Greg Nester, will try to show that prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence to charge Johnson, much less convict him. They point to the fact that another man, Darrell Lane, was charged and went on trial for the murders as proof. Lane was acquitted by a jury in 2010.

“My client has long maintained his innocence," Keefe said. "We are looking forward to vindication by a jury of his peers."

Johnson, 52, was charged with murder in 2016 in connection with the killings of Cooney, Fischer and Bone. The three were found stabbed to death on March 2, 2005, in Cooney’s home-based salon at 7813 W. Main St. in Belleville. Fischer and Bone were sisters.

“I am innocent,” Johnson said in a jailhouse interview earlier this year. “If you get a conviction, you will be convicting an innocent man.”

St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly declined to comment, citing the upcoming trial.

Despite Delaney’s belief that Johnson committed the murders, no murder charges were issued at the time. Johnson initially was charged only with attempting to break into Cooney’s house on Dec. 3, 2003 — more than a year before the killings. He eventually pleaded guilty and served a seven-year prison sentence.

During the upcoming murder trial, jurors will hear about the December day in 2003 that Johnson allegedly kicked in the door of Cooney’s home.

Prosecutors also want the jury to hear that on Feb. 26, 2005 — four days before the killings — Johnson came to Cooney’s house and demanded money.

Keefe, however, had argued that the jury shouldn't hear about Johnson's two encounters with Cooney prior to the killings. Keefe argued in a written motion that the stabbing attack on three people was a violent and deadly crime, unlike Johnson's previous encounters with Cooney.

Keefe, in a motion, argued that prosecutors want to use evidence of the first encounters only to "show a ‘continuing narrative,’ i.e. the 2003 attempted murder and the February 2005 demand for money are so intertwined with the March 2, 2005, triple-stabbing that to omit evidence of these other crimes would deprive the jury of essential information."

St. Clair County Associate Judge Julia Gomric, who will preside over the trial, decided to allow the jury to hear testimony about the break-in on Dec. 9, 2003, and about Johnson appearing unannounced at Cooney’s house four days before the killings demanding money.

Prosecutors will call Anna Nicole Hobbs, who was the girlfriend of Johnson’s cousin, DeMico Evans.

In an interview with the News-Democrat in 2005, Hobbs told reporters that Johnson took a hook-bladed knife from her nightstand the day before the killings. Hobbs told reporters how a nervous Johnson returned the next day with a wad of cash, saying he had “messed up.”

Hobbs told police that she did not give them a truthful statement in the days after the murder because Johnson had hit her in the face with a wine cooler bottle, breaking her nose, and telling her he wanted to see "how tough Hobbs was when he killed her," according to a police report.

She later told police she was afraid because Johnson had told her that she could be charged as an accessory to the murders.

In 2017, Hobbs told police that she believed Johnson was capable of the murders. She then recalled passing Johnson at the St. Clair County Jail, and Johnson putting his finger over his mouth “which she interpreted as indicating that she should keep her mouth shut," according to a police report.

Johnson’s phone records are expected to show that Johnson called Cooney’s house phone on the morning of the killings.

Keefe also sought to bar testimony of Johnson’s fellow inmates at the St. Clair County Jail.

Early Kidd, Johnson’s former cellmate, told Belleville Police Lt. Matthew Eiskant that Johnson confessed. Keefe has argued that when Kidd was asked to repeat the story on video eight months later, Kidd got things wrong and couldn't provide details.

“What Kidd actually has to offer is police-bolstered hearsay about an unidentified third party, which they hope to convert into an admission on the strength of Kidd’s inadmissible opinion,” Keefe wrote.

But prosecutors argued that Kidd stated that Johnson told him he was present at the time of the killings, and that a younger man committed the crime “over money.” Kidd also stated that Johnson told him that he took money and jewelry during the killings and later got rid of the jewelry in St. Louis.

“Mr. Kidd relayed that (Johnson) and Cooney were gay,” the motion filed by prosecutors also stated.

Another jailhouse informant, Monte Franklin, stated that on the evening of March 8, 2005, he was arrested in St. Louis for drunken driving. He stated he was placed in a cell with a man he identified as Johnson. Franklin said Johnson told him that he was being held for burglary, but that “it’s much deeper than that," according to prosecutors.

Johnson paced the cell and occasionally banged his forehead against the wall, Franklin stated.

Keefe argued that Franklin’s testimony isn’t reliable because he was drunk at the time and waited four years to tell police.

Franklin told police that he saw Johnson’s picture in the paper the next day and recognized him as the person who was acting nervously at the jail. Franklin stated that he waited so long to call the police because he was embarrassed about his arrest.

Gomric ruled she would allow both Kidd and Franklin to testify.

Kidd and Franklin are among 59 witnesses who will potentially be called during the trial. They include police from the Belleville Police Department, St. Louis Police Department, Illinois State Police crime-scene investigators and a special agent, FBI agents, inmates from state and federal prisons and Delaney.

Prosecutors have also asked that Keefe be barred from mentioning the jury’s acquittal of Lane or the fact that he was previously charged with the killings.

“The failure to convict one co-defendant does not raise a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the other co-defendant unless it is shown that the evidence against both defendants is identical in all respects,” Assistant State’s Attorney Amanda Fischer argued in a motion.

Gomric has not yet ruled on the issue involving Lane.

Prosecutors and Johnson’s attorneys have agreed to suppress three statements Johnson made to police. On March 8, 2005, Johnson spoke with police for an hour and half and then asked for a lawyer. He again was interviewed on April 22, 2005; May 23, 2005; and June 2, 2005.

The last three statements cannot be used during the trial unless Johnson testifies and those statements are contradictory to his testimony.

From jail, Johnson has told a reporter that he knew Cooney. He said he met him in a St. Louis antiques shop 10 years before the killings. But he insisted he had nothing to do with the murders.

Police reports obtained by the News-Democrat in 2010 showed that Johnson, who was unemployed, bought clothes and shoes, $200 worth of marijuana and treated his cousin to lunch and bus fare the day after the killings. Johnson also bought a 1994 Lincoln Town Car for $1,400 from a Pagedale, Mo., car dealer five days after the killings. Johnson later said he used money from the sale of shoplifted items.

Cooney was known to carry large sums of cash in connection with his estate-sale business.

Lane, the teenager who was originally charged with the killings, was connected to the case by a bloody fingerprint found on a seat of Cooney's Nissan Pathfinder. The Pathfinder was stolen from the salon property and abandoned in north St. Louis. A series of teenagers, including Lane, eventually got hold of the vehicle. An expert for the prosecution once stated that he believed the print could only have been made in fresh blood. Lane's attorney disputed that. Lane was acquitted by a jury in four hours.

This story was originally published June 1, 2018 at 12:02 PM with the headline "Jury selection begins Monday in Belleville hair salon triple-murder case."