Joliet's Notorious Serial Killer Milton Johnson Dies At Age 75, Funeral Planned In Joliet

JOLIET, IL — Milton Johnson, the most notorious serial killer to come out of Joliet, a man who Will County police and prosecutors determined murdered up to 14 random people during the sweltering summer of 1983, has died while serving his life prison sentence at the Menard Correctional Center. Johnson died the day after celebrating his 75th birthday, according to his obituary notice published by a long-time Joliet funeral home.

After being notified of Johnson's death late Friday night, Joliet Patch reached out to the Illinois Department of Corrections seeking details of whether Johnson died of natural causes, illness or other. On Saturday morning, Johnson's mugshot and prison information were removed from the Illinois Department of Corrections website listing all of its incarcerated prisoners.

"We’d only be able to confirm his death at Menard Correctional Center on 5/16/25," responded Naomi Puzzello, public information officer with the Illinois Department of Corrections in an email on Monday.

Former Joliet City Councilman Terry Morris, who owns and operates the Minor-Morris Funeral Home on Richards Street, told Patch that Johnson's relatives reached out to his funeral home earlier on Friday. Morris said he did not know any details regarding Johnson's death, other than that he had been in incarceration.

Morris pointed out he was not in Joliet during Johnson's 1980s crime spree. Minor-Morris Funeral Home posted a short obituary notice advising people that Milton Johnson died on Friday, which was one day after his 75th birthday.

"An obituary is not available at this time for Milton Johnson Jr. We welcome you to provide your thoughts and memories on our Tribute Wall," the Minor-Morris website asks.

"I believe God drop-kicked him straight into hell at the very second of his passing," retired Will County Sheriff's Detective Dave Simpson told Joliet Patch on Saturday.

Simpson was the last police officer to sit down with Johnson for an interview, back in March 1984, at the time of Johnson's arrest on first-degree murder charges.

"I'm sorry he didn't live several more tormented decades. But we certainly know God knows what is best for the victims and for their loved ones," Simpson pointed out.

Nick Ficarello is also a retired Will County Sheriff's investigator who also helped investigate Milton Johnson's crimes, including the ceramic shop murders of Aug. 20, 1983.

"I was a newly assigned detective in Will County Sheriff's Department. These homicides he was involved in introduced me to a man that was pure evil," Ficarello remarked on Saturday after learning of Johnson's death. "Being involved in this investigation opened my eyes to pure evil in the world."

During his early thirties, Johnson was convicted of murdering 18-year-old Anthony Hackett and raping Hackett's girlfriend, then stabbing her in the stomach and leaving her for dead, south of Joliet, near Wilmington, on July 17, 1983. At his second murder trial, for August 1983 quadruple murders inside the Greenware By Merry ceramic shop at 1405 E. Cass St. in Joliet, Johnson served as his own criminal defense attorney.

All four women were fatally stabbed and one of the victims, 75-year-old Anna Ryan, was also shot. Their purses were also taken.

Johnson was sentenced to die in the 1980s for a total of five murders. He was also suspected of committing several more murders during the summer of 1983, but then-Will County State's Attorney Edward Petka selected the I-55 murder and the ceramic shop murders as the best cases to bring against Johnson at that point in time.

Here is a rundown of all the Joliet area murders Johnson is suspected of:

June 25, 1983: Sisters Zita Blum, 66, and Honora Lahmann, 67, were found shot to death and their bodies were burned inside their home in Joliet Township.

July 2, 1983: Lockport businessman Kenneth Chancellor, 34, and Terri Lynn Johnson, 19, a Joliet housewife, were both found shot to death near the Will-Cook County line. The two were shot inside Chancellor's car, which was parked in a field, according to news media reports.

July 16, 1983: A total of five people were slain in Homer Township — three civilians and two Will County Sheriff's Department auxiliary deputies killed near 147th Street. The civilians were George Kiehl, 24, Cathleen Norwood, 25, and Richard Paulin, 32, and the two sheriff's deputies were Denis Foley, 50, and Steven Mayer, 22. The killings were described as ambush-style murders, and they happened on a remote stretch of road.

July 17, 1983, just one day after the Homer Township massacre, downstate Illinois teenager, Anthony Hackett, 18, was fatally shot four times as he slept in a car parked along Interstate 55 near Wilmington. He and his girlfriend were heading home from Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. Milton Johnson raped, bound and gagged her and dumped her on a road south of Joliet, but she survived and was found by a motorist. She later testified against Johnson at his Will County Courthouse murder trial.

August 20, 1983: The Greenware by Merry ceramic shop murders, at 1405 E. Cass St. The victims were Marilyn Baers, 45; Barbara Dunbar, 38; Anna Ryan, 75; and Ryan's daughter-in-law, Pamela Ryan, 29. The four women were stabbed a total of 43 times. A Chicago Tribune story from 1986 noted that Assistant Will County State's Attorney Steven White called Johnson "an animal" during the jury trial. "What you have here is five people in that ceramics shop. Four of those people were butchered by an animal, and that animal is sitting in this courtroom today."

Seven months later, in March 1984, Johnson was arrested for the Hackett murder. He was also subsequently tried and convicted for the Joliet ceramic shop murders.

In 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan granted numerous Death Row inmates a sentence commutation to life in prison. Johnson was one of those murderers. Johnson had been serving his life prison sentence for the past several decades in downstate Menard.

In 2019, the Third District Appellate Court issued an 11-page ruling in Johnson's latest post-conviction petition, turning it down. The issues in front of the judges surrounded the post-conviction appeal that dates all the way back to Nov. 23, 1987, court documents note.

About Milton Johnson: He was paroled in February 1983 after serving half of a 25-year to 35-year sentence for raping a woman in Pilcher Park in 1970 when he was 20 years old.

Quotes About Milton Johnson: "He was completely amoral," retired Will County Judge Ed Burmila told the Chicago Tribune for a news story in 1996. "He was a stone-cold killing machine."

Book Published On Johnson's Murders: In 2021, I published Terror Town USA, a true-crime book chronicling Johnson's murders, plus his 1970 attack at Pilcher Park. Although I wrote Johnson multiple letters at the Menard Correctional Center requesting a chance to interview him in preparation for my book, Johnson did not respond to my letters.

Terror Town, USA goes into great detail chronicling the events surrounding each of these truly shocking crimes. In addition to the 14 killings, there were three separate attacks on women who miraculously survived. All of Milton Johnson's victims were picked at random. In other words, he didn't know any of them.

On Saturday, Ficarello, the retied Will County investigator, responded, "It has not surprised me that Johnson never responded to any press inquiries. As far as I recall, he never made any admissions of guilt or showed any remorse. Even from the earlier brutal crimes in which he was convicted on years before these homicides."

Related Joliet Patch coverage:

Ceramic Shop Murders Terrorized Joliet: 40 Years Ago

Joliet Mass Murderer Terrorized Area 35 Years Ago

Joliet Serial Killer Milton Johnson Loses Another Appeal