Strange details coming out on the murder of Guerneville mother Michelle Johnson
Patty
Victim's stepfather denies any involvement in slaying
March 26, 2004
By STEVE HART, DEREK J. MOORE and CAROL BENFELL
THE Santa Rosa PRESS DEMOCRAT
The stepfather of Michelle Johnson is named in court records that raise the possibility of
a conspiracy in the Guerneville woman's death.
An affidavit filed Wednesday in Sonoma County Superior Court doesn't explicitly name any
co-conspirators but says stepfather Paul Shkurkin "had mentioned to others that Johnson
had become a problem."
The same statement, signed by Sheriff's Detective Jack Neely, says Johnson had threatened
to give authorities a videotape showing Shkurkin and another man having sex with a woman.
Court papers filed in a child custody case involving Johnson and her common-law husband
allege that underage girls participated in sex parties at Shkurkin's home in 2000.
Neely's affidavit was filed in support of a search warrant to obtain cell phone records
for Luke Clay Hasler, the man charged with kidnapping and murdering Johnson, 32, who
disappeared March 14 while walking home from a Guerneville bar.
"The investigation has indicated the possibility that Hasler may have conspired with other
suspect(s) prior to this incident to kidnap and murder the victim," Neely's statement
says.
Hasler, 34, who is being held without bail at the Sonoma County Jail, pleaded innocent in
court earlier this week.
Shkurkin hasn't been arrested or charged in connection with his stepdaughter's death.
Shkurkin said Thursday any suggestion that he was part of a conspiracy was "conjured
directly from gossip in the town. It was hearsay."
He added: "I don't know this individual who is being charged with the murder and
kidnapping."
Shkurkin, who was released Thursday from jail, where he was being held on unrelated drug
charges, said he was questioned by detectives for several hours and voluntarily consented
to a search of his home.
He confirmed the existence of the tape, saying it was made at a time when he was separated
from Johnson's mother. He said Johnson returned it after the couple reconciled, but some
of her friends were still angry with him.
"It's completely false that she threatened to share the tape with authorities," he said.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Larry Scoufos said prosecutors were unaware of any suspects
other than Hasler, an unemployed butcher who lives in Odd Fellows Park, not far from where
Johnson's body was found in the Russian River eight days ago.
But sheriff's detectives said they haven't ruled out a possible conspiracy in Johnson's
slaying and confirmed that their investigation hasn't eliminated Shkurkin.
"We're not at the point in the investigation where we can exclude other possibilities,
including accomplices," Sheriff's Lt. Dave Edmonds said Thursday.
He said investigators are "still chasing leads."
"We believe we've arrested the right guy," he said. "If there are other people that have
criminal responsibility in this, we're making every effort to discover that."
Rumors of the sex parties at Shkurkin's home and the videotape have swirled in Guerneville
since the slaying. Johnson's boyfriend, Tim Mills, said he gave the tape to investigators
along with photos allegedly taken at the parties.
"None of that is true," Johnson's mother, Dorothy Dong, said in a phone interview Thursday
from a Guerneville mortuary where she and Shkurkin were making arrangements for her
daughter's funeral.
"Michelle gave the tape back to somebody who owned it, somebody else, and that was the end
of it," Dong said. "She was getting along fine with Paul."
Shkurkin said Johnson may have kept a copy of the tape.
Dong said an unnamed detective apologized for interrogating her husband.
But Edmonds later repeated that investigators haven't ruled out anyone.
"We're not at the point where we're willing to positively exclude anyone," he said.
Shkurkin, whose full name is Pavel Vladimirovich Shkurkin, had been in jail on charges of
possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia and was released Thursday on his own
recognizance pending future court hearings.
Shkurkin has past convictions for marijuana possession and assault and battery, according
to court records.
The search warrant affidavit that names him was submitted by investigators who wanted to
review Hasler's cell phone records from March 1 through 17.
The affidavit revealed other details about the investigation.
It said an anonymous caller contacted deputies about Hasler on March 15, one day after
Johnson disappeared on her way home from McT's Bull Pen bar in Guerneville.
Friends said they saw her screaming from the bed of a red pickup headed west on Highway
116.
The caller said Hasler owned a red, extended-cab pickup and and she had seen him leaving
the parking lot of the Bull Pen at 1:30 a.m., about the same time Johnson left.
"Hasler left the bar at a high rate of speed, driving up a one way street the wrong way,"
according to the affidavit.
Detectives contacted Hasler and inspected his truck, observing "damage to the right front
fender consistent with an impact."
However, Troy Warren, a friend and former co-worker of Hasler, told The Press Democrat
that he had seen the damage to Hasler's truck on March 11, three days before Johnson's
disappearance.
On March 16, a person identified only as "a concerned citizen" told investigators that
Hasler admitted to him that he hit Johnson with his truck.
"After the accident," the affidavit said, "Hasler told Johnson he would take her to the
hospital. However, because she was bleeding he asked that she sit in the back of his
pickup truck."
"Hasler said that while he was driving Johnson to the hospital she began yelling at people
on the side of the road and jumped out of the bed of his pickup as it was traveling at
approximately 55 mph," the affidavit said.
Johnson's leather jacket, some jewelry, some blood and a tooth were found March 14 near
Monte Rio -- about a mile west of the Guerneville bar and the opposite direction from the
nearest hospital.
Her nude body was found in the river four days later. Investigators said she wasn't shot
or stabbed but have declined to release a cause of death.
Hasler's attorney, Bernabe Hernandez, didn't respond to phone calls seeking comment on the
affidavit.
Hasler is scheduled to return to court Tuesday.
Patty
March 27, 2004
By DEREK J. MOORE
THE Santa Rosa PRESS DEMOCRAT
About 100 yards upstream from where Michelle Johnson's nude body was found is a secluded
Russian River beach where Luke Hasler enjoyed tossing sticks to his dogs.
Hasler, who is accused of kidnapping and killing Johnson, used to sit for hours in a lawn
chair along the water's edge, basking in the serenity afforded by the undeveloped banks
bordering Odd Fellows Park.
A 34-year-old unemployed butcher who bounced from one job to another, he lived alone in a
hilltop cabin he bought from his father. Stocky and sporting thick black hair and a bushy
mustache, Hasler was described as friendly by neighbors in the private community.
But he was estranged from his family, and court records reveal trouble with women,
including allegations of domestic violence. Friends and acquaintances said he sometimes
made suggestive remarks and inappropriate contact with women.
"Luke was the kind of guy who in conversation would ramble on," said Troy Warren, a former
co-worker who often went boating with Hasler at Lake Sonoma. "You didn't want to hurt his
feelings, but you didn't always listen intently."
Posted on a steep and narrow staircase leading to Hasler's home are "No Trespassing" and
"Beware of Dog" signs.
Such warnings are unusual inside the gated Odd Fellows community, a mile east of
Guerneville, where many residents are on a first-name basis and most of the homes,
including Hasler's, have been handed down
through the generations.
Despite his quest for privacy, Hasler was a conscientious neighbor, participating in
community work days and checking water systems in people's homes while they were away.
He recently attended a community meeting on plans to cut the river's flow, telling one
neighbor that he hoped to enroll in college and earn a degree in water management.
"He seemed willing to help people," said the neighbor, who asked not to be identified. "I
can't believe this has happened, and that poor girl and her two little kids. It makes me
want to cry."
Authorities have declined to say how Johnson died and have released few details about
evidence that links Hasler to her slaying, although they say the location where Johnson's
body was found is significant.
"Obviously, the proximity where she was located to Hasler's home is somewhat suggestive of
a connection," Sonoma County Sheriff's Lt. Dave Edmonds said.
Hasler reportedly told a witness that he accidentally struck Johnson with his pickup after
she left a Guerneville bar on March 14 and that she jumped out of the vehicle as he was
taking her to a hospital.
Authorities have impounded the pickup, as well as a pick and shovel found in its bed.
Other witnesses reported seeing Johnson arguing with someone in a red pickup outside the
Guerneville Safeway store, where Hasler once worked in the fish department.
Warren said Hasler left that job after two women accused him of harassment. Store
officials wouldn't comment, and Hasler has declined interview requests at the jail.
Warren said Hasler subsequently was fired from another grocery store after he was caught
cutting up turkeys that were beyond their expiration date and repackaging the parts for
sale. Hasler's most recent job lasted only a day because he injured his wrist, Warren
said.
Hasler also had problems with women.
He won a visit to a Nevada brothel in a KXFX radio's "biggest loser" contest, which
rewarded the listener with the worst sex life.
Court records show his girlfriend obtained an emergency protective order last year, saying
he grabbed her hair and throat during an argument, then destroyed the phone when she tried
to call for help. The couple apparently reconciled, and it was at her Santa Rosa home that
Hasler was arrested.
One woman who attended a Thanksgiving dinner with Hasler said he made unwanted advances
toward her.
"I said I was tired and going home to bed. He asked if he could go with me," said the
woman, who didn't want to be identified.
Several family members said Hasler's personal problems stem from a childhood marred by
divorce and a sense of rootlessness. He bounced back and forth between his parents, who
didn't mingle with other members of the family.
"Luke had problems, you know, coming up through a broken family," said Ann Hasler, his
stepgrandmother.
Hasler attended El Molino High in Forestville for two years before moving to San Luis
Obispo, where he graduated from high school in 1987.
In recent years, he lived in the Odd Fellows Park cabin that he bought from his father,
Milton Hasler. The pair have been estranged ever since.
Milton Hasler "just signed it over and then he (Luke) wouldn't pay him a penny on it," Ann
Hasler said.
Milton Hasler, who now lives in Hawaii, couldn't be reached for comment.
The home shows signs of disrepair. Plastic sheeting covers the second-story windows.
Warren said Hasler sounded lonely on the phone but never invited friends to the house.
"He was embarrassed about his place," he said. "It was beat up and needed a lot of work
... He said that when he got it fixed up he was going to have a big barbecue."
When Hasler wanted to get away, he drove down the hill to the secluded beach. To gain
access, he used an unmarked road known mostly to residents and a dirt path that cuts
through the dense forest.
Don Lockman, who's lived in the park for three decades, said he tried running a cable
across the road to keep people out but Hasler kept removing it.
"He wanted to drive his pickup down there," he said. "He didn't want to walk the extra
way."
About a hundred yards downstream from where Lockman was standing, dried rose petals were
still visible where someone dropped them at the water's edge in memory of Johnson.
Patty
March 27, 2004
By CAROL BENFELL
THE Santa Rosa PRESS DEMOCRAT
It would be the last pleasant memory the young Guerneville mother would ever know.
Her ex had the kids for the weekend, and Michelle Johnson, 32, was hanging out at the
neighborhood bar shortly after midnight, waiting for her boyfriend and looking forward to
moving into her new apartment later that day.
March 14 promised a new beginning after a difficult year, in which she had separated from
her common-law husband of 10 years and gone to live with her mother, only to be forced out
of the family home the day before Christmas with nowhere to go.
On this night she had grown weary of waiting and was hungry, so she left the conversation
and soft lights of McT's Bull Pen bar at about 1:30 a.m. and started down well-lighted
First Street to the Safeway a block away.
Her distinctive leather jacket, her jewelry and large amounts of blood were found later
that morning along Highway 116, and her body was discovered five days later submerged in
the Russian River.
Her violent death has left family and friends groping for words and meaning, even as the
Sonoma County Sheriff's Department searches for evidence that might convict the man
charged with her murder, Luke C. Hasler, 34, of Guerneville.
"She was a good person. She was the nicest person I ever met in my life," Tim Mills,
Johnson's boyfriend, said as he stood outside the Bull Pen earlier this week, choking back
tears.
"She loved everybody and forgave everybody everything. She never held a grudge," said the
35-year-old, who came to get her at the bar that night, only to learn that she had already
left.
Johnson had lived with Robert DeMartini, 42, of Santa Rosa for 10 years since she was 21.
She was a stay-at-home mom, taking care of their son, Robert Jr., and helping to care for
DeMartini's two sons from a previous marriage.
But problems arose last year after the birth of their second child, Dawn, and the couple
separated in June.
Johnson took her two children and went to live with her mother, Dorothy Dong, 50, who owns
a spacious riverfront home and granny unit at Vacation Beach, about 11/2 miles southwest
of Guerneville.
Friends and family members say she was close to her twice-divorced mother but had a
difficult time with her mother's new husband, self-employed businessman Paul Shkurkin, 37,
who had married Dong the previous year and was only five years Michelle's senior.
Turbulent times followed.
Court records show that on Nov. 7, Dorothy Dong, with Johnson and Mills' help, obtained a
temporary restraining order against Shkurkin.
In a statement to the court, Dong wrote that her 200-pound husband had become addicted to
methamphetamines and had slammed her around and broken three ribs.
On Dec. 4, Shkurkin was arrested and jailed for possession of drugs and drug
paraphernalia. Court proceedings are pending. He since has been released and reunited with
Dong.
"Paul and I have had some serious problems," Dong acknowledged. But he was still in her
life.
Accounts differ as to why Johnson suddenly left Dong's home in the dead of winter.
Mills said he was at the Dong-Shkurkin residence the day before Christmas and heard Dong
tell Johnson to leave because Shkurkin wouldn't return to her if Johnson was still living
there.
"I was there," Mills said. "Her mother kicked her and the baby out in the cold the day
before Christmas. She said her husband wouldn't move back in unless she was gone."
Dong said that's not true. She said she asked her daughter to leave around New Year's Day
because she was having financial difficulties. She said she planned to move out of the
house and rent it, and it was hard to clean the place up with two little kids around.
"I told her, you've got your boyfriend, you do your own thing," Dong said. "She didn't
have to go that minute, but she was upset with me for asking her to leave."
DeMartini said the children spent Christmas with him after Johnson called and explained
her situation. She felt badly because she had no Christmas presents for the children. She
had no car and no job.
"She was depressed. She couldn't believe her mom kicked her out for Paul," DeMartini said.
She stayed through New Year's with Mills and his housemate in their two-bedroom home and
then began hunting for housing.
She bounced from place to place for the next 21/2 months, sometimes staying with Mills,
sometimes with friends and even for a short time in a hotel room provided by homeless
assistance.
She was able to buy an aging car in February and was surviving with the help of friends
and county welfare, DeMartini said, before Mills helped her find the apartment.
Johnson was picking up the last of her belongings from her mother's home on Saturday,
March 13, and planned to spend her first night in her new apartment. But first there would
be a celebratory stop at McT's Bull Pen, which lies along Highway 116 between her new
apartment and her mother's home.
She had a car, a place to live and hoped to again be with her children. Hours later it
would all come to a violent end.
"It's so unfair, so brutal, so evil," DeMartini said. "It's so mean I can't believe it was
random. I can't believe anybody would hate someone so much to do this."
Funeral arrangements have been made with Guerneville Redwood Chapel, 14045 Mill St., for a
viewing from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday. Services will be private.
News Researcher Michele Van Hoeck contributed to this story.
Patty
Hasler says he was taking her to the hospital but the hospital is in Santa Rosa which is
east, and
he was heading west towards the ocean. Also I read earlier that he had not been seen in
the
bar, but that the wife of one of the members of the band saw his truck in the parking lot
when
she went outside to take a smoke. So was he outside waiting for any victim or for
Michelle
Johnson.
Here's more about the connection between Hasler and Johnson's stepdad. And what a sad
life she had, posted that in another article. Her mother kicked her and her children out
of the
house on Xmas Eve because her stepdad said it was either her daughter or him. He's a
meth user and only five years older than her daughter.
From the Bay City News (BCN):
The affidavit also says Johnson "was seen near the Guerneville Safeway in a possible
verbal dispute with parties in a red pickup truck."
Another witness claimed to see Hasler leaving McT's Bullpen bar's parking lot at a high
rate of speed in his red truck at about 1:30 a.m. and driving up a one way street the
wrong way.
The affidavit notes that on March 15 detectives contacted Hasler and observed that his
truck was clean looking and had minor damage to the right front fender that is consistent
with an impact.
"Hasler admitted just washing his truck and it appeared to contain no obvious evidence,"
the affidavit states.
The affidavit also mentions rumors regarding a conspiracy that have been circulating
through the Russian River area since Johnson disappeared.
Neely's affidavit states, "The investigation indicated the possibility that Hasler may
have conspired with other suspect(s) prior to this incident to kidnap and murder the
victim.
"Hasler is acquainted with Paul Shkurkin, Johnson's stepfather. Shkurkin and Sean O'Conner
had previously made a sexually explicit videotape of the two men having sex with another
female. Johnson had possession of this videotape and had threatened to share the tape with
authorities if she was harmed in any way by him. Shkurkin had mentioned to others that
Johnson had become a problem due to her threats," the affidavit states.
Shkurkin, also known as Pavel V. Shkurkin, was arrested on March 15 on drug and probation
violation charges and booked into the Sonoma County Jail. He was released on his own
recognizance on Thursday. He is scheduled to change his plea on the charges on March 30.
After Shkurkin's bail hearing on Thursday, Shkurkin's wife and Johnson's mother Dorothy
Dong said the sheriff's department ruled out her husband as a suspect and apologized to
her. Shkurkin was unavailable to comment.
Sonoma County Chief Deputy District Attorney Larry Scoufos said this morning, "Based on
the current state of our case there is nothing for us to believe that anyone but Luke
Hasler is responsible for the death of Michelle Johnson."
