Man gets life in prison for killing Sun-Times employee, family

Sun-Times:

A 25-year-old South Side man was sentenced to life in prison this afternoon for murdering a former Sun-Times employee and three of his family members.

Cook County Judge Michael Brown admonished Jason F. Johnson for refusing to acknowledge his role in the January 2003 execution-style murders and told him he “failed as friend” since he was the victims’ neighbor and did nothing to stop his alleged partner Immanuel Phillips.

“I haven’t heard anything about your responsibility in this matter,” Brown told Johnson after the convicted killer refused to make a statement.

Killed in what prosecutors described as a mass “slaughter” were 48-year-old Prescott Perry, along with Perry’s 18-year-old daughter, Sarah, her boyfriend, 21-year-old Ronald Ryals, and the young couple’s 2-year-old son, Ronald Jr.

Johnson, of the 50 block of West 71st Street, and Phillips engaged in the bloody rampage as they followed through on their plans to steal an Uzi semiautomatic weapon from Perry’s Chatham bungalow, according to assistant state’s attorney Laura Morask.

Phillips, 18, fired the first bullets, injuring Perry when the two barged into the home after knocking on the door, in the 8000 block of South Michigan, prosecutors said.

The two men then proceeded to fatally shoot the other three victims as they slept upstairs before Phillips dragged Perry up the stairs and shot him twice in the head, prosecutors said.

Phillips killed himself a month after the discovery of the bodies.

This story grabbed the headlines over 6 years ago!

PREVIOUSLY: South Side man guilty of executing family in '03