Jury returns guilty verdict for Michael Waddell Johnson in 1998 killing

SALT LAKE CITY — A jury found Michael Waddell Johnson guilty of the 1998 slaying of his ex-wife, Cathy Cobb, after deliberating for only two hours on Thursday.

After the verdict was read, Cobb's son, William Hall, rose from his seat with tears in his eyes, thanking the prosecutors.

"My mom will finally be able to rest in peace," he said.

Johnson, 65, had been charged in 2007 with murder, a first-degree felony, after the cold case was reopened.

Prosecutor Katherine Bernards-Goodman said in closing arguments that, contrary to what defense lawyers contended, the four-day trial had left no unanswered questions.

"They have all been answered," Bernards-Goodman said. "The answer is Michael Johnson killed Cathy Cobb."

Bernards-Goodman said DNA under Cobb's fingernails showed Johnson was the "major contributor" of that DNA, and it was not through a casual touch. Johnson has told conflicting versions of what happened to police, and Johnson also told another man in jail details of the crime the man would not have known otherwise.

In addition, Johnson told the 13-year-old son of a woman with whom he was staying "a bizarre story" about coming into Cobb's apartment, spotting "a Mexican" strangling her, fighting with the man, who was armed with a knife, and kicking the knife out of the man's hand.

Johnson told the stunned youth — whose mother overheard part of the conversation — that he fatally stabbed the Mexican man, rolled him up in a rug and tossed the body into a trash container.

"Even if this was true, why didn't he try to revive her?" Bernards-Goodman asked, referring to Johnson's claim to a police detective that he and Cobb were attempting to reconcile. "This was someone he cared about?"

Bernards-Goodman also said it was clear from the autopsy and medical examiner's testimony that Cobb died from strangulation, not a drug and alcohol overdose.

Defense attorney Marlene Mohn said Cobb, her family, the jury and Johnson all have been let down by a police investigation that messed up by failing to preserve evidence, ignoring other evidence and not following up on leads.

That happened, Mohn said, because police already had decided Johnson was guilty and did not look for anything that pointed to anyone else.

"This was a shoddy, substandard, inadequate investigation," Mohn said. "The problem is, it's too late — we can't fill up those big gaps we have."