The former resident of a Manchester homeless shelter who shot and killed a fellow resident will spend the next five years in a psychiatric facility, authorities said.
A Hillsborough County Superior Court judge ordered Timothy Johnson, 41, committed to the state Secure Psychiatric Unit after finding him not guilty by reason of insanity for the Feb. 13, 2021, killing of Jean Lascelle.
Lascelle, 67, was standing on the steps of the old Manchester police station, the site of an overflow winter shelter, and smoking a cigarette when Johnson walked up and shot him in the head. Johnson fled and was arrested four days later in Framingham, Mass., after stealing a car.
Johnson had a lengthy criminal record and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia with paranoid delusions, said Ben Agati, a homicide prosecutor and senior assistant attorney general.
Agati did not dispute the insanity defense when Johnson appeared in a courtroom on Wednesday.
“Judge (Diane) Nicolosi explained that this would lead to a substantial amount of rehabilitation and treatment, and that was the appropriate resolution in this case,” said public defender Eleftheria Keans, who was part of the team that represented Johnson.
When Johnson killed Lascelle, he believed a blue halo encircled his victim’s head, and killing the man would allow Johnson to escape an alternative-reality world in which he was stuck.
Believed freed, Johnson ran off and stashed his coat and backpack, which contained the 9mm handgun, in snowbanks around the Victory Parking garage, Agati said.
When caught in Massachusetts, Johnson had shaved his head.
When police spoke to Johnson’s mother and ex-wife, they said Johnson had been living with psychosis for 14 to 15 years and had grown increasingly paranoid. He was obsessed with pedophilia and believed his new stepfather had raped him as a child.
He believed that the government was after him and that officials had implanted a electronic device into his body that had been delivering shocks.
Agati said there is no indication that Johnson knew that Lascelle was a registered sex offender.
His mother told police he had stopped taking his medication for at least a year. In October 2020, he took a plane from Florida to New Hampshire.
Agati said Johnson told police he found the gun in a homeless camp. Agati said the gun “looked like it was half put together” and was half metal and half polymer. The shell jammed in the chamber after Johnson shot Lascelle.
Under terms of the commitment, any changes to Johnson’s treatment, such as transfer to a less secure facility such as the New Hampshire State Hospital, must be approved by a judge, Agati said. Every five years, the judge reconsiders the commitment.
Johnson faced six felonies, including second-degree murder, felon in possession of a firearm and falsifying evidence.
