Prosecutor: Mrs. Johnson, can you please describe for the court your relationship with your brother.
Barbara Johnson: As children, my brother and I were very close. I adored him, hugged him, kissed him...we even bathed together. We were always together, a pair. I think I felt very motherly toward him. Back then, he was so sweet, so vulnerable.
Prosecutor: And has your relationship changed since your childhood?
Johnson: Well, I remember after we moved to San Francisco with my mother, I began to notice a change in how I felt about Perry. But that was only because Perry himself was changing. He was no longer the innocent little baby that I loved and cared for and felt so protective over. There was something dark living inside him, and I started to feel afraid of him. I remember he got arrested on his eighth birthday for stealing. Then it was constant: in and out of the juvenile institutions and detention centers...It was like I didn't even know him anymore, like the baby brother I knew and loved had died and been replaced with this monster. I just couldn't reach him anymore. Then he went away to live with our father in Alaska, and I didn't see him for a real long time. Sometimes he sent the occasional picture for the whole family, but that was about it. The last time I saw him was about four years ago. He came to see me when I was living out in Denver. He was drunk. He began railing against our father, and he threatened me. Told me how he had no problem hurting people for no real reason, and how he'd throw me in the river if I didn't shut up and listen to him. He said he hated me, hated our whole family because we got to be educated while he was up in Alaska being our father's slave. He said he hated himself. I haven't seen him since then. Since that last time, I've been real afraid of him. The way that his mind works, I just can't understand it, and it makes me scared for myself, and it makes me scared for my family. He just has this way about him that makes you want to hug him and feel all sorry for him, but then he will snap and turn on you in a second with no reason.
Prosecutor: Do you believe that there was a particular incident or event that can account for Mr. Smith's behavior? Reduce the personal responsibility on his part?
Johnson: Absolutely not. That's exactly what Perry does; he blames others for his own actions because he can't take the blame on himself. But like I said to him when I wrote to him in prison, none of us can blame anyone but our own selves for our own actions. Everybody in my family suffered. Our mother was suffering inside, and she took it out on us kids. I'd be interested to see how Perry might react if I suggested that the grief our mother caused him wasn't her own fault. He wants so bad to hate others for the wrongs they've done him, but can never fully admit to the pain he has given others. Don't even dare to suggest that the quality of his childhood might be right justification for his actions. He had the same childhood that I did, and I didn't become a murderer. It's because of his choices that he's here. He chose to begin a life of petty crime in San Francisco, and it was because of that choice that he was sent to so many places and was subjected to the abuse that he suffered in them. It was because he chose to leave the rest of us and work for my father that he was unable to get an education. And when he knew he was in trouble, he didn't even try to get out of it, to start over and make a good life for himself, as I have. He just sank deeper; he kept a dirty face. He thinks that because he's sunk so deep - and that's only because he's allowed himself to - that nobody else has any right to be happy.
Prosecutor: Knowing Mr. Smith from a familial perspective, what is your opinion on the Clutter murders and your brother's role in the slayings?
Johnson: As a Christian woman, a humanitarian, and a mother, there is nothing I could even begin to say in my brother's defense. The Perry I knew as a child is gone, and I feel no closeness with the person who has replaced him. Not only has he killed, but he killed good, kind, selfless people, children with educations and futures, the kinds of people that he always said he wanted to be, but never made any effort to be. I could never say that I want to see my brother hanged for this crime. Killing is a terrible thing, regardless of the victim, and should never be actively argued for. However, while I ethically cannot advocate the killing of my brother and his accomplice, neither can I ethically argue against whatever penalty may be given to him because at the same time, he has done nothing to deserve redemption from his punishment. I would have stepped in to defend my brother, but my brother is gone, and I will not intervene in the sentencing of a criminal.