Murderous Mother Martha Ann Johnson

Martha Ann Johnson's Mugshot

Content Note: This case involves violence against children.

On this day in 1989, Georgia resident Martha Ann Johnson was arrested and confessed to the murder of two of her four children. All four children had died under mysterious circumstances, which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution questioned in an article about the case. The article prompted investigators to reopen an investigation into Johnson and they discovered that each death came after Johnson had experienced marital strife with her husband, Earl Bowen.

Martha Ann Johnson was born in Georgia in 1955. In 1971 she gave birth to her first daughter, Jenny Ann Wright. By 1975 she had divorced her first husband, married her second husband, and had her second child, James William Taylor. In 1977, she married her third husband, Earl Bowen. Together they had two children, Earl Wayne Bowen (b. 1979) and Tabitha Jenelle Bowen (b. 1980).

On September 23, 1977, Martha Ann Johnson rushed her son James, who was then 23 months old, to the hospital. She claimed that he wouldn't respond when she tried to wake him up from a nap. The hospital staff declared the child to be dead on arrival and the caused of death was listed as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Earl Bowen, who had moved out of the home before James' death, decided to move back in with Johnson and try to work things out. However, by 1980 Bowen had again moved out.

On November 30, 1980, paramedics were called to Johnson's home. When they arrived they found 3-month-old Tabitha blue and unresponsive. They were unable to revive her. Again, Martha Ann Johnson claimed that she had laid her child down for a nap before the child was found in distress. Like James before her, it was determined that Tabitha had succumbed to SIDS. Earl Bowen, who later claimed to be suspicious at the time, returned to the household.

After Bowen moved out for the third time, Johnson found their son Earl Wayne, who was then 31 months old, with a package of rat poison. He was treated at the hospital but after his release, Johnson claimed that he was having seizures. On February 12, 1981, the child went into cardiac arrest as Johnson was taking him to the hospital for treatment of one of these seizures. He was revived and placed on life support. However, doctors declared him brain dead and he was taken off life support three days later.

Due to the suspicious deaths of Martha Ann Johnson's three younger children, social workers interviewed her oldest daughter, Jenny Ann, who was now 10 years old. Despite the girl telling them that she was scared of her mother, they released her back into Johnson's care. Just a year later, paramedics arrived at Johnson's home to find Jenny Ann lying face down on her mother's bed and foaming at the mouth. Johnson said the child had been complaining of chest pains. Paramedics were unable to revive her and an autopsy determined that she had died of asphyxia.

In 1989, Martha Ann Johnson and Earl Bowen had separated for good and Johnson married her fourth husband. After her arrest, she quickly confessed to the murders of Jenny Ann and James. She had sat on them until they suffocated. She also admitted that she had murdered them to punish her husband. However, she denied having any part in the deaths of Tabitha and Earl Wayne.

Martha Ann Johnson ended up retracting her confession but that did not stop a jury from convicting her of first-degree murder in May 1990. She was given a death sentence which was later commuted to life in prison. She resides in Pulaski State Prison in Hawkinsville, Georgia.

After the conviction of Martha Ann Johnson, authorities started to look more carefully into the sudden deaths of young children, especially in families where multiple young children have died under mysterious circumstances. Many doctors believe that there have been multiple cases where it's been wrongly determined that a child has died from SIDS.