THIS WOMAN IS ME


May 30, 2008

A Greenwood woman cries when she talks about the memories and the life she shared with the man who stabbed her and ran her over with a car last month.

Theresa Johnson and her two children are recovering from the night her boyfriend went on what police called a rampage, eventually being shot and killed by officers.

Her youngest daughter, who recently turned 1, was burned, her wounds later becoming infected. Her 7-year-old daughter recovered from a concussion and pelvic injuries.

And Johnson, 29, is trying to deal with the mixed emotions she's left with about her boyfriend of more than a year, Jerry "Brian" Bobb.

"There are days when I can't get out of bed and I miss him so much, but then there are days when I'm full of hate because of what he did," she said.

And now, she's left to rebuild her life.

Her car, the car Bobb used to run her and her 7-year-old down, is in the repair shop, needing $5,000 in work.

Her apartment, which police said Bobb set fire to, and everything in it is gone.

"I lost everything that I had worked so hard for," she said.

The two had problems, including fights that ended with Bobb moving out for a few days or weeks. But she loved him, and they planned to get married, Johnson said.

Both Johnson and Bobb were married to others and were separated. Bobb was a father of five children, ranging in age from 2 to 14.

Johnson's youngest daughter also called him dad, something he had wanted, she said. "Brian gave me the opportunity to enjoy being a mother," she said.

But he could be insecure and worried she would leave him for someone else. He lied about small things, even when she knew he was telling lies, she said.

Johnson said none of the issues seemed like a big deal, and, if she would have known something was wrong, she would have helped him.

"I don't know what went wrong, and I don't think anyone will ever know what went wrong except for him," Johnson said.

One thing she does know is that what happened is not her fault.

"No one on this Earth could ever do anything to deserve what happened to me and my kids that night," she said.

She goes over the night of April 19 in her head, trying to understand what led to her lying on the ground, bleeding from a stab wound to her chest, and hearing gunshots in the distance.

Johnson's account of the events of that night is her story. Police have refused to comment on the case and have not corroborated her report.

The Saturday began with Bobb and Johnson going to her 7-year-old daughter's softball game.

Bobb coached third base that day because the coaching staff was short.

After the game, Bobb stayed home with the baby, and Johnson left with her other daughter and her niece. She and Bobb talked on the phone a few times, and everything seemed fine, she said.

But when she came home, his mood had changed, she said.

He was acting strange, saying nothing was wrong when she asked, but she could tell he was upset about something.

She saw a beer bottle in the trash can but knew Bobb wasn't drunk. He didn't drink.

She wouldn't allow him to drink around her because alcohol made him emotional and he had threatened to throw her through a mirror once after he'd been drinking, the only time he had ever even threatened physical violence, she said.

She asked him if he was cranky. He closed the laptop computer he was working on and cursed.

Hoping to stave off an argument, she told him that, if he was going to leave, she didn't want him to come back.

Arguments were normal for the couple, Johnson said.

The two disagreed on lifestyles.

She had worked hard to make a life for herself and her children and didn't want to lose it. He didn't mind starting from scratch and switching jobs.

That would sometimes lead to arguments, but they stayed together because she loved him, she said.

When they would fight, she would ask him to leave because she didn't want her children to be around the argument. And later he would come back, and they would get back together, she said.

But this time Bobb hit her, knocking her out of a chair. She fell, slamming her hand on the table and instantly feeling pain.

Bobb had never been physically abusive to her before, she said.

He went outside to his truck and then came back inside. Then Johnson took a swing and hit him.

Next, she was on the floor, in a chokehold, and she was grabbing at his arms, trying to break free. Any time he loosened his grip, she would cry out in fear for her children.

Finally, she went limp, hoping that would stop him. He let her go, slammed her head to the floor and went to the kitchen, coming back with two knives.

For the next hour and a half, Bobb put the knives against Johnson's throat and side, cut her hand and eventually taped one of the knives to his wrist.

He repeatedly said: "I don't want to be here anymore," and "I've gone too far," she said.

At one point, she tried to run out the patio door, but he grabbed her, shut the door and the blinds and slammed her head to the floor again.

She pleaded with him to put down the knives so they could talk and work this out.

He asked her to tell his kids that he loved them and to tell his mother about a note he left at her home that said Johnson should get everything that was his if he were to die.

Bobb talked about not wanting to return to prison. He said he would kill her and use her daughters and her niece, who were playing in their bedroom, as hostages.

He offered her a knife and asked her to kill him.

She refused.

Looking for help, Johnson asked if she could call her sister and ask for pain pills for her throbbing hand she thinks she broke when she fell out of the chair. That sister noticed something was wrong and called Johnson's other sister, whose daughter was at the apartment.

Moments later, her sister and husband arrived. They came onto the patio and started to go inside when Bobb swung the knife at her sister's husband, narrowly missing him. Bobb stepped back inside, closed the patio door and locked it.

Johnson and relatives took off.

They ran to the window, telling her daughter to open it, and pulled her 7-year-old and her niece from inside. They kicked in the next window to get the baby. As she was reaching in, Bobb came around the corner outside, stabbing her in the chest.

She let go of the baby, grabbed her 7-year-old and ran.

They ran into the street, heading toward Stop 18 Road when she saw the headlights of her car and heard the engine. She tried to push her daughter out of the way, but she held tight to Johnson's wrist.

The car struck them both, flipping her daughter over it and dragging Johnson into a creek, pinning her underneath.

Her brother-in-law pulled her from underneath the car, a man grabbed her daughter, and they ran. Johnson tried to run but couldn't, believing her foot was broken.

Then, Bobb was gone.

Johnson lay down in the grass with her 7-year-old.

She was covered in blood. Her glasses and her shoe were gone, she said.

And she remembered the baby, pleading for someone to get her 1-year-old daughter.

The she heard gunshots and was taken to the hospital, unaware of how her baby was or that she had been burned in a fire in her apartment police said Bobb set.

The next day, when she saw her baby was burned, imagining she was probably screaming in fear and pain as flames grew in the apartment, she was crushed.

"I'd have taken 20 bullets that night for him to leave my children alone," she said.

Johnson doesn't know what happened before Bobb was shot and killed by police officers. She believes the officers did everything they could.

"I don't know what sparked him that night," she said.