Daniel Scott Nantz and Geri Johnson (U.S. District Court documents)
A 33-year-old man in Kentucky will spend the rest of his days behind bars for shooting and killing his pregnant girlfriend after finding out she was a federal witness planning to testify about his methamphetamine trafficking operation. U.S. District Judge Robert E. Weir on Wednesday ordered Daniel Scott Nantz to serve a life sentence in a federal penitentiary for the 2019 slaying of 29-year-old Geri Johnson, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Nantz in March reached a deal with prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky and pleaded guilty to one count of intentional murder of a federal witness for fatally shooting Johnson. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors dropped charges of kidnapping, conspiracy to distribute meth, possession of a gun in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime, and possession of a gun as a person convicted of domestic violence.
According to prosecutors, Nantz was involved in the trafficking of methamphetamine in Whitley County from March 2017 to March 2019. A federal grand jury in the spring of 2019 indicted some of Nantz’s suppliers and co-conspirators in the methamphetamine. One of the co-conspirators indicted was Johnson, who was in a romantic relationship with Nantz and was pregnant at the time.
Prior to the killing of Johnson, Nantz learned that she had given a statement to law enforcement and had been given the option to cooperate against him. He had previously confided in Johnson that he believed he was a target in the federal methamphetamine trafficking investigation.
A handwritten note penned by Nantz was found inside his trailer which read “Funeral/fed’s pulled geri out asking questions.” This note indicated that Nantz was increasingly anxious about the possibility of being indicted for drug trafficking and feared that Johnson might testify against him.
Additionally, authorities uncovered text messages Nantz sent to Johnson in the days leading up to the incident that were particularly incriminating. For example, on March 13, 2019, Johnson sent Nantz a message saying she planned to turn herself in to authorities. Nantz responded by writing, “I’ll kill you whore.”
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The following day he sent her another message saying, “You’re very dangerous for me. Very, very dangerous.”
Court documents also state that on the day Johnson was killed, Nantz told an acquaintance, “Geri’s talking to the feds. I think she’s telling. If so, I’ll just kill her.”
Johnson on March 16 was at Nantz’s trailer alone with his minor children when he confronted her, led her outside, and then shot her twice with a .38 revolver. One of the bullets hit her right back shoulder and the other pierced her neck. The autopsy revealed that the shot through her neck caused her to “drown in her own blood,” according to the stipulated facts in the plea agreement.
Following the shooting, Nantz rushed Johnson to a hospital in Corbin, Kentucky, where she was pronounced dead. She was 33 weeks pregnant with Nantz’s child. Tragically, Johnson’s daughter was born prematurely via an emergency C-section, but several days later the newborn succumbed to injuries caused by a lack of oxygen and blood loss resulting from her mother’s wounds.
In a sentencing memo filed earlier this month, prosecutors urged the court to apply enhancements to Nantz’s sentence, despite the fact that he was already required to serve a life sentence.
“Nantz deserves every second, of every hour, of every year this Court will adjudge,” the document states. “[Nantz] personifies the depraved violence that goes hand-in-hand with methamphetamine trafficking. But make no mistake, the Defendant’s conduct has taken methamphetamine violence to an extreme end based on his individual characteristics.”
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