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Thread: Aaron Norman Dunn - California Death Row

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    Aaron Norman Dunn - California Death Row


    Aaron Norman Dunn


    Summary of Offense:

    On March 25, 2006, Dunn, who had been on a weeklong methamphetamine binge and was enraged at the breakup of his marriage, opened fire with a shotgun on Laguna Boulevard in Elk Grove, killing Michael John Daly, 45, and Jon Johnson, 46.

    Dunn was sentenced to death in Sacramento County on July 6, 2010.

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    July 6, 2010

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- A judge on Tuesday affirmed a jury's death penalty recommendation for a man found guilty of a fatal 2006 Elk Grove shooting spree.

    Aaron Dunn was earlier found guilty of charges in connection with the shootings, which left two people dead.

    A judge earlier in the day denied a motion for a new trial and a request to modify the sentence from death to life without parole.

    The judge said the crimes committed were so horrendous that they merit death.

    Michael Daley and Jon Johnson were shot to death in the attack.

    Johnson, who went by the name "Jonny" by his friends, was a photographer for the Sacramento Kings and KTVU-TV in Oakland.

    Amy Rogers, Dunn's attorney, earlier said her client was a working man and treated his family well. Rogers said Dunn's marriage fell apart in 2005. She said he became depressed and started using methamphetamine and alcohol.

    Rogers said Dunn became paranoid and delusional, adding that a week or so before the shooting his drug use was "out of control."

    http://www.kcra.com/news/24154387/detail.html

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Finding the light

    Widow reflects on spiritual healing five years after losing husband in shooting spree

    Karen Johnson believes that a divine spirit urged her to stay in her car while her husband, Jon, was making his way to her.

    They just finished dining at Mandango’s Sports Bar & Grill in Laguna and Karen was awaiting Jon when she overheard him say something peculiar outside their car.

    “Man, get that out of my face,” he told someone.

    She first assumed he was joking with a friend. Then she heard the gunshot.

    Karen looked out and saw what happened.

    A stranger had shot and killed her husband with a 12-gauge shotgun, and the killer was now looking at her.

    “He turned around and looked back at me, I thought he was going to kill me,” Karen recalled. “He moved very robotically, just like the Terminator.”

    Karen then ducked before the gunman walked back to the scene where he crashed his truck on Laguna Boulevard. It turned out that the killer lost his glasses after the crash and could barely see.

    The gunman earlier shot Xerox salesman Michael Daly in front of his family after they dined at the Chili’s restaurant down the street.

    Two Elk Grove police officers defended bystanders near Mandango’s and stopped the gunman by shooting his chest.

    “I thought, ‘Wow, God covered me,’” Karen recalled about the moment she stayed in her car.

    The experience she underwent in the early evening of March 25, 2006 inspired her autobiography, Covered & Kept – The Tearing Between Two Worlds (Xulon Press).

    The book was released in time for the fifth anniversary of the shooting spree that terrorized Laguna Boulevard.

    Aaron Dunn was convicted and sentenced to death last year for the murders of Jon Johnson and Michael Daly and six counts of attempted murder against bystanders, including Elk Grove police officers.

    He now sits on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

    During an interview at her Laguna home, Karen said that her book is about her experience of spiritual healing in the five years that passed since she lost her husband.

    “I want (readers) to see there is hope out there,” the self-described, devout Christian said. “Where do you find yourself in a tragic situation? Where do you find your strength? My strength is in Christ.”

    The “two worlds” mentioned in the book title describe the two paths taken by Jon and Dunn, despite that both came from difficult childhoods.

    Jon grew up dirt-poor in a family of sharecroppers in Arkansas before he moved to Oakland where he lived among criminals. His mother left his family and his father died when Jon was young.

    Karen said that her late husband still made something out of his life by studying mass communications at California State University, Chico and becoming a freelance video photographer. He also created the Assist One Foundation, a nonprofit that aids foster children.

    Dunn also had a painful childhood, which was detailed during testimonies at his murder trial. His father was reportedly a drug addict who regularly abused him and his siblings, as well as ordering them to fight neighborhood children for his amusement.

    Karen said that Dunn was “doomed from the womb.”

    Karen wrote about Dunn’s life in her book’s subchapter titled, “Life, Without Meaning.”

    She wrote his role model was his uncle who happened to be a major drug dealer in Marysville and noted that Dunn’s adult life was turning around for the best when his daughter was born.

    However, his world fell apart when his wife was leaving him for a law enforcement officer and he faced the possibility that another man would raise his child.

    “‘Daddy, are you still going to be my daddy, cause mommy said you’re not, and I would have a new daddy?’” his daughter asked him, according to Karen in her book.

    On March 25, Dunn set out from the Marysville area to Elk Grove while high on methamphetamine. A copy of the Satanic Bible was reportedly in his home at the time.

    “Dunn set out on a mission, which was commanded by none other than the Devil himself,” Karen wrote.

    Dunn’s dark world collided with Jon’s bright, optimistic world.

    Karen said she felt a “battle within” her when Dunn went to court. She wanted to see justice served to her husband’s murderer, but she also saw how Dunn was shaped by his abused childhood.

    “I had a lot of pity for him,” she said.

    Karen attended Dunn’s sentencing last July and told him that she forgave him.

    “Dunn shocked those of us that could see him when he replied, ‘Thank you,’” she wrote in her book.

    Karen added that the book’s main subject is forgiveness.

    “A lot of people are unhealthy, they are diseased and sick because they cannot forgive,” she said.

    Karen said that she still grieves over her loss and she had to remove all photographs of her late husband from view in her house.

    “It still feels so surreal,” she said. “Like it’s a dream and I’d wake up and things could go back to the way they were.”

    Karen began writing in her journal a few weeks after his death and she started working on her book in 2009. Her son, a Laguna Creek High School graduate, is now completing a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at California State University, Sacramento.

    “He keeps me on track and I keep him on track,” Karen said about her son.

    She mentioned their experience of living in the Los Angeles area when the 1992 riots broke out. A curfew was enforced in her Carson neighborhood and her 3-year-old son saw armed National Guardsmen standing on the roof of a shopping center.

    “My baby at the time said, ‘Mommy, are they going to kill us?,’” she recalled. “I began starting to think that LA was not the place to be.”

    Karen said that she moved to Elk Grove to raise her son in a community she believed was less violent. She then mentioned the recent shooting death of an elderly pedestrian and a brawl that broke out at a local bowling alley this month.

    “We need to take our streets back,” she said.

    Karen revived her husband’s nonprofit and renamed it the Jon Johnson Assist One Foundation. She is also planning to hold a March 25 memorial for him at the Holiday Inn Express.

    “This book is about cleansing, it’s about closure, and it’s about clarity,” Karen said about her book.

    For more information about the Jon Johnson Assist One Foundation, visit www.JJassistOne.org.

    Copies of Kept & Covered can be purchased at the March 25 memorial or at Amazon.com.

    The memorial will be held 4:30-6:30 p.m. at the Holiday Inn Express near Highway 99’s Laguna Boulevard exit.

    http://www.egcitizen.com/articles/20...e063622204.txt

  4. #4
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    Counsel was appointed to represent Dunn on direct appeal on January 13, 2014.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...hTICAgCg%3D%3D

  5. #5
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    On March 14, 2018, Dunn filed an initial brief on direct appeal before the California Supreme Court.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...hTICAgCg%3D%3D

  6. #6
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    The prosecution filed its response on the 25th of March 2019.

    https://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca....hTICAgCg%3D%3D

  7. #7
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Dunn's direct appeal has been fully briefed before the California Supreme Court since November 25, 2019.

    https://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca....hTICAgCg%3D%3D

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