Federal prosecutors in eastern Kentucky intend to seek the death penalty for a Whitley County man who allegedly killed his girlfriend because she talked to federal law enforcement about his large drug trafficking organization.
Daniel S. Nantz, 30, of Woodbine, has been charged with killing his pregnant girlfriend, 29-year-old Geri D. Johnson, of Williamsburg, on March 16, 2019. Johnson, who was seven months pregnant, was taken to Baptist Health Corbin hospital where she died.
Her unborn baby was delivered by hospital staff and then transferred to University of Kentucky Medical Center. The baby, Amelia Jo Johnson, died days later, a result of a lack of oxygen and blood to the baby’s brain.
According to ATF special agent Todd E. Tremaine, Johnson implicated Nantz in methamphetamine trafficking in fall 2018. Johnson was also involved in drug distribution, but according to Kentucky.com, a witness told police that Nantz suspected Johnson planned to turn herself into authorities on March 17, 2019, the day after she was fatally shot in the neck and shoulder.
Nantz was arrested four days after the murder by ATF agents who wanted the suspect on unrelated federal charges associated with the distribution of a large amount of meth, in what authorities said at the time was a wide-ranging meth distribution conspiracy among several suspects.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr has directed prosecutors to seek a death sentence for Nantz (seeking the death penalty in federal court requires the approval of the nation’s top prosecutor).
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Reed filed formal notice of intent to seek a death sentence for Nantz last week, Kentucky.com reports, as prosecutors cited several factors they plan to use to justify a death sentence if Nantz is convicted, including that he put substantial planning into the crime, committed the crime in an “especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner,” and killed more than one person in a single criminal event; Johnson and Amelia Jo.
No one has been sentenced to death in federal court in Kentucky since capital punishment was reinstated at the federal level in 1988.
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
