Forget Her Murderer. Who Was Sharma Ruth Johnson?

Newsweek ran a sob story about Willie B. Smith III, the man who murdered Sharma Ruth Johnson, 22, on the night of October 26, 1991. She was at an ATM. He did not know her. He asked her for directions to a fast-food restaurant.

Then he pulled a sawed-off shotgun, ordered her into his trunk, and with his girlfriend, Angelica Willis, cleaned out the last $80 from her bank account.

The Trussville (Alabama) Tribune reported, “The suspects then drove to Huffman to pick up Willis’ brother. Angelica Willis testified that once her brother learned the woman was in the trunk, he taunted her. The three then drove to Zion Memorial Cemetery, where Smith shot Johnson, execution-style. {snip}

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Newsweek made him a hero with its “Who Is Willie Smith? Alabama Death Row Inmate With IQ in the 70s Set to be Executed.”

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The liberal argument is he is too stupid to be executed.

And yet he was not too stupid to execute a woman for a lousy $80.

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Who was Sharma Ruth Johnson?

She was a manager at the TCBY in Trussville. Shelley Luna, told the Tribune said, “I’ve known her since seventh grade. She was one of the sweetest people you would ever meet. Just very humble.”

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But the press now plays up murderers instead of victims. The Los Angeles Times had the audacity earlier this year to run a column, “Alabama prepares to execute another black man, under laws going back to slavery.”

{snip} Sharma Ruth Johnson was white. To America’s media, it is OK to execute her for no reason at all but it is wrong to execute him because he is black.

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