In the quiet town of Millis, Massachusetts, the story of Bryan Johnson, a 24-year-old Caucasian male, came to a tragic end on Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2015. Johnson, a former police officer, was found dead in his home around 3:30 a.m. Another resident of the house discovered him unresponsive and alerted the authorities. While the official cause of death was pending an autopsy by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, the Norfolk District Attorney's Office stated that no signs of foul play were present at the scene and his death was not being investigated as a homicide. Some reports indicated his death was an apparent suicide.
Johnson's death occurred just a week after a grand jury had indicted him on six charges, including calling in a bomb threat, misleading a criminal investigation, and making a false police report. These charges stemmed from a bizarre incident in September of that year when Johnson, then a part-time officer with the Millis Police Department, claimed he had been involved in a shootout. His report triggered a massive police response, including a lockdown of local schools and a shelter-in-place order for residents as officers searched for a non-existent suspect.
The narrative Johnson presented was dramatic: he claimed a gunman in a pickup truck had fired at his cruiser, causing him to crash into a tree as the vehicle caught fire. However, the investigation soon unraveled his story, revealing it to be a fabrication. Investigators determined that Johnson had fired shots into his own police cruiser. He later admitted to investigators that his account was "incredibly embarrassing." Following these revelations, Johnson was fired from the police department. The legal proceedings against him were just beginning, with a not guilty plea entered on earlier charges, but his death brought an abrupt end to the case.
