POUGHKEEPSIE – Jurors on the fourth day of the murder trial of Roy Johnson Jr, dubbed the “Courtyard Killer,” heard testimony from another hotel guest, a firearms expert from the state police, the Dutchess County Medical Examiner, and the woman who rented the room for Devin Taylor and Roy Johnson Jr. The trial is expected to conclude later this week.
The account of recent testimony and the history of the case against both Devin Taylor, who previously entered a guilty plea, and Roy Johnson Jr., can be found here.
On Monday, a Morris County, NJ resident testified that he had been at the hotel with his wife to attend Marist College Family Weekend where their son is a student. The man, a bank executive, testified that he left the hotel early Sunday morning to get coffee and returned to the lobby to have coffee and read the news in the there.
The witness said, while he was seated, a man, now identified as Roy Johnson Jr., walked past him heading toward the lobby, and they exchanged pleasantries. He said he thought the man “looked out of place” because he didn’t appear to be a Marist parent, like most of the guests. He also noted that his attire consisted of shorts, a jacket, and a hat.
As Johnson arrived in the lobby, the guest heard obscenities being yelled and then Johnson returned and approached the guest saying, “I don’t know why they are treating me like this.” The guest apologized for not being able to assist and Johnson walked back toward the lobby again and resumed yelling. The witness described hearing gunshots at which point he dropped to his hands and knees and began crawling back toward his room.
The firearms expert testified that he had evaluated the 9MM Glock and magazines recovered at the scene in including test-firing the weapon to compare the bullets with ones recovered at the scene, which he claims were a match.
Dr. Dennis Chute, the Chief Medical Examiner of Dutchess County told jurors that the victim, Paul Kutz, had sustained a bullet wound that had entered the right side of his rib cage, tracked right-to-left and front-to-back, exiting just under the victim’s shoulder blade, causing the fatal wound.
The third witness was the woman who knows both Taylor and Johnson and testified that she had rented the two men a hotel room at the Holiday Inn on Friday night. On Saturday, she went to the room prior to checkout to make sure the room was okay and found a note on the desk saying, “We’re going to go out in a blaze of glory, like Jesse James and Billy the Kid.” She asked both men about it and they denied knowledge. She also testified that she argued with Johnson after checkout and refused to rent him another room, instead renting one only for Taylor at the Courtyard by Marriott on Saturday, October 1, 2022.
The young lady also testified that she had known Johnson for approximately four years and she would routinely use her credit card to make online purchases for him. She noted that Johnson would send her screenshots of the items he wanted and pay her in advance before she would place the orders. Included in her Amazon purchases were a guitar case and a tactical light for his Glock. The guitar case was recovered in the Courtyard hotel room and the light was attached to the Glock that Johnson used.
Testimony is scheduled to continue on Tuesday, May 9, 2023, according to Dutchess County Court Judge Edward McLoughlin, who is presiding over the case.
