A hardworking employee at a Savannah, Georgia, liquor store, Fred Johnson, a Male, was nearing the end of his shift on the evening of Thursday, May 21, 1981. It was a night that would end in tragedy, not just for him, but as part of a violent crime spree that crossed state lines. His life was cut short by a man who had killed before and would be linked to a string of murders.
The crime that ended Fred’s life would ironically be the one that led to his killer's downfall, bringing an end to a series of brutal robberies and shootings.
That night, Maurice Oscar Byrd entered the liquor store with the intent to rob it. During the commission of the crime, Byrd shot and killed Fred Johnson. The act was sudden, violent, and left a community in shock. Five days later, on May 26, 1981, police in Savannah arrested the 25-year-old Byrd for the robbery and murder of Fred Johnson. It was this arrest that would unravel a larger, more horrifying story.
At the time of his capture, Byrd was already a wanted man, though authorities in Georgia did not initially know the full extent of his crimes. Seven months earlier, on October 23, 1980, four employees had been executed during a robbery at Pope's Cafeteria in a shopping mall in St. Louis County, Missouri. The victims in that massacre were James Wood, 51, Carolyn Turner, 51, Edna Ince, 68, and Judy Cazaco, 37, who succumbed to her injuries a week after being shot. Byrd, who had previously worked for a pest control service that serviced the cafeteria, had fled Missouri shortly after the killings.
The investigation into Fred Johnson’s murder in Savannah provided the crucial break in the Missouri case. Evidence found at the time of Byrd's arrest, including a St. Louis policeman's missing badge, connected him to the Pope's Cafeteria massacre. Byrd had moved to Savannah to be with his wife and their child, telling her he had killed people to be with them. His brother-in-law, who was also charged in connection with Fred Johnson's murder, later testified that Byrd had boasted about the killings in Missouri.
Maurice Oscar Byrd's legal journey involved trials in two states. On October 25, 1983, a Chatham County jury in Georgia found him guilty of the armed robbery and malice murder of Freddie Oliver Johnson. He was sentenced to two life terms for these crimes. However, he was first extradited to Missouri to face justice for the quadruple homicide. In August 1982, a St. Louis County jury convicted him of four counts of capital murder. For these crimes, he received four separate death sentences.
Byrd's case went through numerous appeals, with his lawyers arguing issues of jury bias and the validity of witness testimony. Despite these efforts, the convictions and sentences were upheld. His wife, who initially lied on the stand, eventually confirmed that Byrd had confessed the Missouri murders to her. Other witnesses, including a former cellmate, also testified to hearing Byrd confess to the restaurant robbery and killings.
On August 23, 1991, ten years after the murder of Fred Johnson led to his capture, Maurice Oscar Byrd was executed by lethal injection at the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri. He was pronounced dead at 12:04 a.m. His execution brought a final, legal end to a murderous path that stretched from the Midwest to the coast of Georgia, a path that tragically included Fred Johnson, a man working a late shift whose death ultimately solved a series of heinous crimes.
