Suspect dead after western Wisconsin deputy's killing had extensive criminal history

The 34-year-old Minnesota man accused of shooting and killing a sheriff's deputy in western Wisconsin on Saturday night had a long criminal record in Minnesota, state records show.

Jeremiah D. Johnson was on supervised release following a yearslong prison stint after pleading guilty in 2015 to two felonies: kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct.

Johnson, formerly of Stillwater, had moved to Shakopee within the past year. Wisconsin officials said he killed St. Croix County sheriff's deputy Kaitie Leising near Glenwood City, Wis., about 60 miles east of the Twin Cities, then fled. He was later found dead, a gun near his body.

Johnson's first big run-in with the law as an adult came in 2007, when he was 18. Washington County sheriff's deputies went to Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater shortly after midnight on Dec. 2, 2007, about a stabbing. The victim told deputies that he'd been at a party at a mobile home park in Lake Elmo when he and Johnson got in a fight; Johnson stabbed the victim twice in his shoulder.

Johnson was later convicted of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, a gross misdemeanor.

Johnson's criminal record is dotted with petty misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors: traffic violations, a DWI when he refused to submit to a sobriety test, giving officers a false name, violation of a no-contact order in a domestic abuse case.

Patricia Reed of Lake Elmo was neighbor of Johnson's and knew him when he was growing up. She said his home life lacked structure and he was a "messed-up kid."

"I was really hoping he was doing better," Reed said. "You know how you wish for kids — he isn't that old."

But the most serious came in 2015, when Johnson was 26.

Late on a July night, Johnson found an 18-year-old woman passed out drunk next to a telephone pole in St. Paul's Payne-Phalen neighborhood. According to reports, Johnson got out of his pickup and carried her — "limp and lifeless," according to a witness — to his vehicle.

Police traced his vehicle to his apartment in Stillwater and found the disoriented victim, wearing only her underwear and wandering a hallway. An examination at a hospital showed evidence of sexual assault, the criminal complaint said.

Johnson told police the woman couldn't remember where she lived so he drove her to his apartment.

At first, Johnson denied any sexual contact, saying she had vomited from being drunk. Then Johnson admitted he, too, had been drinking and that he did have sex with her, but "she is 18, and there is nothing illegal about that," the complaint said.

Imran Ali, the former assistant criminal division chief in the Washington County Attorney's Office who handled Johnson's 2015 case, said the callous and premeditated nature of his crime made it stick out among hundreds of sex crimes and sex-trafficking cases he's prosecuted.

"You have someone that's incapacitated, and you'd expect someone to be a good Samaritan and not take advantage of the situation — but that's exactly what he did, took advantage of someone completely vulnerable," Ali said. "It's one of those cases that'll stick with me my entire life."

Johnson pleaded guilty to kidnapping and third-degree criminal sexual conduct with a helpless victim, both felonies, and received a state guideline prison sentence of six years and five months. While in prison, he was cited for a number of disciplinary infractions, according to state records: fighting, disorderly conduct, failure to comply, and failing or refusing mandated sex offender treatment. He was put on supervised release in October 2019 after serving two-thirds of his sentence, which is standard in Minnesota.

Johnson lived in Ramsey and Hennepin counties after his release from prison before buying a 700-square-foot house in Shakopee late last year, according to Scott County records.

Molly Bruner, director of Scott County Community Corrections, said Johnson had been in compliance with his conditions of supervised release, which included attending chemical dependency and sex-offender programming and treatment.

A woman answered the door at Johnson's house in Shakopee on Monday afternoon, saying she was Johnson's wife but declining to give her name. The woman said she wasn't ready to talk and neither was Johnson's family: "I know who my husband was. Nobody else did," she said.

A neighbor across the street, who gave her name only as Jeanne, said the most action they ever saw at the house was a dog in the window.

"This is just bizarre," she said. "You don't expect this to happen in your own little town."

In Glenwood City, blue ribbons can be seen hanging from utility posts throughout town this week. A squad car parked outside the Sheriff's Office in Hudson was adorned with colorful flowers.

Deputy Leising, 29, had been with the department since 2022. Before that, she served the Pennington County Sheriff's Office in South Dakota for about two years. She will be remembered as having an "infectious smile and personality," St. Croix County Sheriff Scott Knudson said in a statement.

Leising is survived by her wife, a young child, her parents and a sibling, according to the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Memorial's Facebook page.

More information on funeral arrangements for Leising will be shared Tuesday, officials said.

Staff writers Paul Walsh and Matt McKinney and news researcher John Wareham contributed to this report.