Family: Bitter divorce preceded plane crash that killed father, daughter

BEDFORD, Ind. -- The cracks in Eric and Beth Johnson's marriage first appeared after their daughter's birth. They deepened last summer as Beth Johnson sought a divorce and a restraining order amid allegations her husband had held her at gunpoint in an effort to change her mind.

Despite the strain between them, though, everyone was sure that if nothing else, both parents loved the girl.

Those who knew the family were stunned, then, to learn that police believe Eric Johnson deliberately crashed a single-engine Cessna he was piloting into his former mother-in-law's house Monday, killing him and his 8-year-old daughter, Emily.

"I couldn't believe he could do something like this because he did love the little girl. He really wanted her and didn't want this all to happen," longtime neighbor Mary Webb said Tuesday.

His former mother-in-law, Vivian Pace, told reporters outside her damaged home Tuesday that her daughter, Beth Johnson, reached him on his cell phone shortly before the crash.

"I've got her, and you're not going to get her," Eric Johnson said, according to Pace.

"She could hear Emily in the background: 'Mommy, come get me, come get me,'" Pace said.

It was unclear whether the call was made from the cockpit or before the plane took off.

State Police 1st Sgt. Dave Bursten said eyewitness accounts of the plane's movements just before the crash and the fact that the home belonged to his ex-wife's mother raised serious questions. The couple's November divorce also may have been a factor, he said.

"All of those things together lead us in the direction that this was done intentionally," Bursten said.

Andrew Todd Fox of the National Transportation Safety Board declined to say if Johnson, 47, said anything over the plane's radio before the crash in the community about 20 miles south of Bloomington in southern Indiana. The airport has no controller on duty, so no recording was available of any communication, he said.

Fox said investigators would look at the plane to see if mechanical failure was a factor.

Eric Johnson, a forestry manager for the state, obtained his pilot's license in November, the same month the couple divorced after 12 years of marriage.

The couple met in recreational volleyball leagues and dated for about a year before he proposed during a carriage ride in downtown Indianapolis, Pace said.

She said their relationship began to change after the birth of Emily, whom her grandmother described as a "feisty" girl who liked Cinderella, basketball and volleyball.

"He didn't get all the attention," Pace said. "Before that, he got all of Beth's attention."

Court records showed Beth Johnson obtained a restraining order against him July 14, but police would not disclose the reasons.

Pace said Eric Johnson threatened his wife with a gun last summer, while Emily was in Iowa with relatives, in an effort to change her mind about the divorce. Bedford police said they never received a complaint about that.

Webb, who lived across from the Johnsons for about 12 years, said Johnson moved out in the fall under police supervision and was "very bitter about the divorce."

The couple shared custody of Emily, alternating weekends, according to court records. Eric Johnson was supposed to take Emily to school Monday after a week's vacation together in Cancun.

When she didn't arrive, Beth Johnson went to the Bedford Police Department to file a missing person report, unaware of the crash at her mother's home.

Police Maj. Dennis Parsley said there were no notes indicating what Eric Johnson's plans had been.

A man who identified himself as Eric Johnson's brother declined to comment when reached in Iowa.

At Parkview Primary School in Bedford, where Emily was a first-grader, counselors were called in to help the students, Principal Sari Wood said.

"She just was one of those really friendly, really open little kids," Wood said.

Pastor Paul Neuman of the Calvary Lutheran Church in Bedford said Eric and Emily Johnson were regular attendees at the church, where the father was a member of the board of trustees and helped with remodeling and landscaping.

Johnson and his daughter had attended service Sunday morning and there was no sign of anything wrong, Neuman said.

"Everything seemed normal."