Saturday, February 28, 2015
Associated Press
CLEVELAND
A 911 caller reporting the fatal shooting of the brother of Cleveland’s police chief said the man’s girlfriend confessed killing him, according to a recording of the call released by the city.
The caller initially told a dispatcher he went to the girlfriend’s home and called for help because he had reason to believe someone might be hurt. While still on the line with the dispatcher, he found William D. Williams dead in the woman’s home early Tuesday. The caller said Williams’ girlfriend, Dana Johnson, was “acting erratic” and confessed.
“His girlfriend killed him,” the caller said.
Authorities obtained an arrest warrant for the 36-year-old Johnson and stopped her vehicle later Tuesday morning on a western Pennsylvania highway. State police said she shot herself in the head as troopers approached her along Interstate 376 in Brighton Township, northwest of Pittsburgh.
She was pronounced dead Thursday at a Pittsburgh hospital, according to the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy was scheduled for Friday.
A medical examiner in Ohio determined Williams, the 34-year-old brother of Cleveland police Chief Calvin Williams, died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Johnson and William Williams were raising two children and had an on-and-off relationship that included previous domestic violence allegations documented in police reports, the Northeast Ohio Media Group reported. Johnson accused Williams of punching her in the face and biting her hand in 2009, and Williams accused Johnson of slashing him with a steak knife in 2011, but it wasn’t clear whether prosecutors reviewed those cases, the media group reported.
After Williams’ slaying, authorities suspected Johnson was headed to Maryland, where she has relatives, said U.S. marshal Pete Elliott of the Cleveland office. Johnson was alone in the vehicle.