Man who killed brother in Spanaway over light-rail conspiracy theory sentenced to prison
A man sentenced to more than two decades in prison for fatally shooting his older brother in Spanaway killed the man because of a long-held conspiracy theory, according to court records.
Bruce Eric Johnson was sentenced in Pierce County Superior Court to 21 years, eight months for the March 26, 2019 fatal shooting of Thomas Johnson, 52. The defendant pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in December after a jury trial had begun. Judge Grant Blinn handed down the punishment Friday. It included a firearm sentencing enhancement and was near the high end of the standard sentencing range.
The defendant, now 54, was arrested the day of the killing and was ordered to undergo multiple assessments of his mental competency to stand trial.
According to a forensic psychological evaluation, Bruce Johnson long maintained that SeaTac government officials, law enforcement and his brother conspired in 2010 to kill his mother and a number of other people at a SeaTac trailer park to take their land for a Link light rail station. Relatives of the victim have said that Johnson’s mother died in a car crash that year.
The defendant surrendered to military police at Joint Base Lewis-McChord immediately after the shooting. According to charging documents, while he sat in the back of a patrol car, Johnson said his brother was responsible for murdering his mother and trying to murder him. He claimed his actions were self defense. In interviews with a psychologist in 2021, Johnson said his brother assaulted him in 2011 and that SeaTac neighbors could testify to that, but his defense attorney reported the witnesses did not exist.
The shooting occurred on a construction site near 1823 Military Road S. in Spanaway. Court records state Johnson fired gunshots from his work truck after the two argued, striking his brother in the abdomen. Pierce County Sheriff’s Department deputies arrived at about 2:53 p.m., and Thomas Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.
After Bruce Johnson was arraigned on murder charges, Thomas Johnson’s wife, Tina, told news reporters her husband was someone who would give anything for his family. She said he was a man who loved his family and grandchildren.
Bruce Johnson, the youngest of five children, was born in California and moved with his family to Washington state as a child, according to court records. He graduated from Puyallup High School. According to his psychological evaluation, the defendant had no history of mental health diagnoses before his arrest, but a relative reported that Johnson began to behave erratically and have delusional thoughts in his early 20s. Records state he has a history of chronic substance use, and family reported his psychiatric symptoms emerged after he began using drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
The defendant was provisionally diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. In his most recent evaluation, Johnson was found able to understand the nature of the charges against him and to assist in his defense. He underwent about 12 months of treatment in Department of Social and Health Services facilities to restore his competency.
Johnson planned to kill his brother for months, according to charging documents.
A manager for the construction company the defendant worked for told law enforcement that the brothers’ relationship had worsened after their mother’s death, allegedly because Bruce Johnson didn’t pay bills on his mother’s SeaTac home and lost the residence. A witness interviewed by detectives said the defendant told them three months prior that he was going to shoot his brother.
