2 weeks Ago By Noelle Crombie
Laura Johnson sat in the front seat of her car, her windows down as she smoked a cigarette and texted with her boyfriend on her lunch break. A stranger walked over. He asked for a cigarette and a light.
Johnson obliged. Then Oen Nicholson , 34, drew a .40-caliber handgun and pointed it at the Eugene woman through the passenger window.
He opened the unlocked rear door and climbed in. Drive, he told her. Johnson steered north, vanishing onto the interstate, a killer sitting behind her.
On that late spring day four years ago, Johnson unwittingly found herself at the center of a sprawling criminal investigation focused on her passenger, who hours earlier had attacked four people in a frenzied rampage through Coos County. Nicholson had stabbed his 83-year-old father 18 times with a hunting knife, run over a retired couple visiting from Florida with his father’s truck and gunned down a marijuana store worker. A delusional Nicholson told Johnson that he had killed undercover federal agents and a woman in North Bend.
He said the federal government was out to harm him and that tracking devices lurked in his teeth. He asked Johnson for her name and age and introduced himself. Johnson shook from terror.
She worked to contain her panic, knowing she would need a clear head to survive. He asked how she was holding up, his gun rattling as he checked the chamber. She told him the clatter frightened her, making it hard to concentrate.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I won’t do it again.” But the gun always remained within his reach, either in his hands, in the waistband of his dirty pants or tucked between his legs.
They headed north along Interstate 5, toward Portland. “Are these your kids?” Nicholson asked, scanning the image on her phone’s screensaver. “Yes,” she said.
“You’ll see your kids again,” he said. “Just keep driving.” Nicholson tossed Johnson’s phone out the window, leaving her boyfriend’s texts unanswered.
‘Help me’ A Coos County judge last week found Nicholson guilty except for insanity for killing his father, Charles Nicholson; Anthony, 74, and Linda Oyster, 73; and Jennifer Davison, 47. Johnson, 38, attended the hearing, sitting in the second row of the public gallery. She listened as the judge described Nicholson’s schizophrenia and paranoid delusions and committed him to the state’s psychiatric hospital.
Johnson chose not to address the court. Nicholson, wearing gray jail scrubs and restrained by chains, didn’t turn to look at his former captive. His scruffy hair fell around his shoulders.
It was the first time they had been in the same place since they spent nearly 40 hours in Johnson’s black Honda CRV in June 2021. Johnson has never publicly spoken about her abduction from the parking lot of the Springfield Cabela’s, where she worked. This account of her kidnapping and the terrifying hours that followed are based on interviews with authorities, police reports and her two-hour videotaped interview with detectives.
She declined to speak with The Oregonian/OregonLive about the case. A soft-spoken Johnson sat across from a pair of investigators after her ordeal, calmly recounting how she kept her wits on the 2,500-mile drive alongside her deeply disturbed, occasionally chatty and sometimes even courteous kidnapper who never let her out of his sight. Around Portland, as they made their first stop for gas, Nicholson scrambled into the front passenger seat.
Johnson sensed he lacked a plan. He talked about fleeing to Canada through Washington but later changed his mind when they got close to the border. He eventually ordered Johnson to head east, no destination in mind.
His only goal: Avoid getting caught. Paranoid and desperate, Nicholson fixated on his fate and lack of options. He worried Johnson had a gun — she didn’t — and said he would shoot her if she tried anything.
During one stop, he frisked her. “Don’t worry, you’ll make it through this,” he told her hours into the drive. “I’m the one that’s going to die.
I’m going to kill myself or take out a bunch of cops or turn myself in. I don’t want to turn myself in because they’re going to keep torturing me.” He ordered Johnson to keep driving even if police spotted them.
He’d shoot his way out of any confrontation, he told her. “You’re probably going to get hit, but don’t stop,” he told her. Worried she might try to alert authorities, he warned Johnson not to drop her license or wallet anywhere on the route.
She found other ways to leave crumbs. At a bank where Nicholson told her to take out $500 in cash from his account, she stared into the security camera, ensuring it captured her image. She glanced around for cameras at each gas station stop, making sure to look up so they recorded her face.
She kept her shoulder-length hair in buns just as she had styled it that morning. She wanted to match the description that her coworkers and family no doubt would provide to police once they realized she was gone. But she moved through the world unnoticed.
Gas station attendants and other people filling up saw her, unaware of the danger she faced. She was just another motorist passing through. She feared Nicholson planned to kill her.
“Am I going to live, am I not going to live?” she wondered. Maybe she should search around for a pen to scrawl “help” on a bathroom stall, she thought. She worried she would set off Nicholson, so she abandoned the idea.
She searched her memory for the Morse code for SOS as Nicholson dozed. She guessed, flashing her high beams in rapid succession at oncoming truckers — a silent call for help that went nowhere. Once, while Nicholson nodded off, Johnson caught the eye of a pickup driver.
She shaped her fingers to resemble a gun and pointed toward herself. “Help me,” she mouthed. Startled, the pickup driver slowed to a stop along the side of the interstate.
Johnson, afraid of rousing Nicholson, drove on, the pickup disappearing in her rearview mirror. A killer’s confession Early in the ride, Nicholson told Johnson he had ditched his truck after the killings and hitchhiked to Gateway Mall, where he spotted Johnson in the parking lot. Nicholson told her he hadn’t harmed the man who picked him up.
“I only kill bad people,” he told her. “I don’t kill innocent people.” The two stopped in Portland, before the Interstate Bridge, to get gas.
Act normal, he told her, demanding that she kiss him. In Washington, as they approached Canada, she wondered if Nicholson would let her go. “No, go a little farther, go a little farther,” he kept saying.
At the time, the pandemic limited border crossings to essential travel, so Nicholson changed his mind about trying to cross. He quizzed Johnson on U.S.
and Canadian geography and interstate routes when they started out. They retraced their route south toward Seattle and turned east. Johnson filled the hours with light conversation, telling Nicholson about her kids, her parents, her life.
Nicholson offered few details of his own. From time to time, they scanned the AM and FM dials, listening for news about the search for Nicholson. They heard none.
Nicholson wouldn’t always let her stop to use a restroom, forcing her instead to relieve herself in the seat as she drove. Urine soaked through her capri pants by the time they crossed into Montana. They stopped at a crowded gas station store, where Nicholson found a rack of dresses.
He got one for Johnson, following her into the restroom while she changed. The hours dragged. As they drove deeper into the Midwest, Nicholson reminded Johnson of his earlier promise: He wouldn’t hurt her.
“You’re a really cool lady,” he said. Johnson had managed to remain composed for most of the drive, her mind focused on ways to distract her kidnapper and keep him from hurting her. But fear seized her.
She cried, wondering if his attempts to offer comfort amounted to a ruse to keep her calm. “Everything is going to be fine,” he said. Driving east Johnson caught snatches of sleep when Nicholson occasionally took the wheel.
She thought Nicholson might shoot and kill her, push her out of her car and drive on. She awoke as they crossed into North Dakota. Nicholson began to consider his fate.
Prison seemed likely. Maybe he would be condemned to death, he told her. He turned to Johnson: What should he do? She saw an opening.
He hadn’t hurt her or anyone else since the kidnapping, she told him. And he’d been nice to her despite the grim circumstances, she said. Those factors could work in his favor, she offered.
Plus, she listened to enough true crime podcasts to know that perpetrators sometimes catch a break after turning themselves in. They passed through Bismarck, then Fargo. She took in the landscape, struck by its beauty.
Nicholson grew quiet. By the time they reached Minneapolis, Johnson felt sick. Her kidneys hurt.
Dehydration made her dizzy. As Nicholson nodded off, Johnson slipped off the highway, hoping the exit would lead to a hospital. Nicholson jogged awake.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. “Get back on the freeway.” ‘I abducted this woman’ Johnson thought Nicholson would direct her toward Chicago.
Instead they headed to Milwaukee. They drove through Madison, home of the University of Wisconsin, and traveled east, passing a sign for the city of Oconomowoc. Johnson recognized the name from an episode of “Small Town Murder,” a podcast she listens to.
She mentioned it to Nicholson. By then, it had been nearly two days since Nicholson plucked her from the Springfield parking lot. Fatigue washed over her.
She guzzled energy drinks, worried about drifting off and wrecking the car. He had warned her that he would shoot her if they crashed. She told Nicholson that she needed medical help.
She thought about her dad. It was Father’s Day. Chain-smoking and downing beers he picked up at gas stations along the route, Nicholson reached a decision.
He would turn himself in. Daylight broke as they pulled into downtown Milwaukee. Nicholson asked a pedestrian for directions to the courthouse, then found the way to the Milwaukee police station.
They circled the station as Nicholson debated his plan, eventually parking near a line of police cars, and got out. They stepped into the station. Nicholson turned to Johnson.
Would the police be kind to him, he asked. Or would they hurt him once they realized what he had done? Johnson, so close to freedom and safety, offered reassurance. He apologized.
“Thank you for being who you are,” he said. They climbed the stairs and approached an officer on duty. It was still early, about 7 a.
m. The puzzled officer surveyed the pair. Johnson wore dirty clothes.
Back home, her panicked family had reported her missing. “What’s going on?” he asked. “I abducted this woman,” Nicholson said.
“I am here to turn myself in.” The officer radioed for help. Nicholson reached into his waistband for the gun and turned it over.
He fished bullets from his pockets. Police handcuffed Nicholson and led him away. An officer turned to Johnson.
“Who are you?” the officer asked. “He abducted me in Springfield, Oregon,” she said, “and we have been driving nonstop pretty much since then.” Going home Milwaukee authorities helped Johnson clean up, trading her soiled dress for gray sweats, and arranged for her return flight to Oregon later that day.
Back at the Springfield Police Department, Johnson told investigators she thought about running away from Nicholson every time they stopped for gas and water. She considered grabbing a tool in her backseat and striking him with it. She thought about taking his gun.
She needed to see her kids. She wanted to go home. But she worried, too, that she might trigger Nicholson.
She didn’t want to make a move that would lead to more tragedy. He was willing to kill others, he told her. So she stuck it out, hoping her poise would save her.
“I just didn’t want him to shoot anybody else,” she said. After the case drew to a close last Monday, Johnson lingered briefly in the courtroom after deputies ushered Nicholson through a side door and back to the county jail before taking him to the Oregon State Hospital. She quietly walked out of the courthouse, her mother by her side, into the sparkling sunshine.
— Noelle Crombie is an enterprise reporter with a focus on criminal justice. Reach her at 503-276-7184; [email protected].
