Who Killed Lyndon Johnson?
Gallup PD investigators still probing Smith Lake man’s death

By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — Investigators for the McKinley County Sheriff’s Office haven’t given up finding out who dropped off a Smith Lake man without any clothes on about a mile outside town a year ago. He died of exposure.

The body of Lyndon Oscar Johnson was found near the old bow range near the Gallup landfill the morning of March 4, 2007.

Although the body showed no signs of a struggle or a fight, investigators are looking at it as a crime because Johnson had no clothes on.

“The body was found about a mile from the Community Pantry, and he couldn’t have traveled that far without any clothes on and not be noticed,” Sheriff Investigator Merle Bates said.

Whoever dropped him off, he said, could be guilty of manslaughter.

Johnson was not viewed by law enforcement officials as a street person. Bates said that when he stayed in town overnight, he stayed in a motel.

“Robbery could be a motive,” Bates said.

The investigation a year ago came up with witnesses who saw Johnson on March 3, a Saturday, at the Gallup Flea Market and in the parking lot of the Navajo Arts and Crafts Enterprise in Window Rock.

Both witnesses indicated that they saw him in the passenger seat in a dark or black car that could have been a Pontiac Firebird or a car that was similar to that in shape and size.

The witness who saw him in the NACE parking lot said the driver of the vehicle was a Native American male, about 6 feet tall and about 50 years of age with gray in his hair. He was wearing a white cowboy hat, blue jeans and had a mustache. A younger man, who referred to the driver as Dad, was seated in the back seat. He was wearing baggy pants and a pullover shirt.

Bates said he wasn’t sure from the witness statements whether Johnson was seen at the Gallup Flea Market before that or after Johnson was seen in Window Rock. NACE has camera surveillance of the parking lot but Bates said that by the time police had received that information, the video tape of the parking lot that day had been taped over.

There was also evidence that sometime during that day Johnson had stopped by his mother’s house in Fort Defiance since he left off some of his belongings there in a duffle bag.

Law enforcement officials are mystified as to why Johnson was dropped off where he was, since the temperature that night went as low as 12 degrees.

Anyone with information on Johnson’s whereabouts that Saturday or know anything about the people he was with that day are asked to contact Bates at (505) 722-7205.

People can also call Crimestoppers at (505) 722-6161 and get up to a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the capture and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Johnson’s death.