KY man allegedly killed girlfriend to protect meth ring. Death penalty sought.
Federal prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty for a Whitley County man if jurors convict him of murdering a witness in order to protect methamphetamine trafficking.
Daniel Scott Nantz, 30, is charged with killing his pregnant girlfriend, Geri D. Johnson, to prevent her from giving information to authorities.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr directed prosecutors to seek a death sentence for Nantz, according to a court filing. Seeking the death penalty in federal court requires the approval of the nation’s top prosecutor.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna Reed filed formal notice of intent to seek a death sentence for Nantz last week.
No one has been sentenced to death in federal court in Kentucky since capital punishment was reinstated at the federal level in 1988, according to Robert Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
Prosecutors have filed notice of intent to seek a death sentence in a handful of cases, including one involving the murder of an inmate at the federal prison in Martin County and another involving a fatal bank robbery in Louisville, but the defendants ultimately were not sentenced to death.
Johnson had implicated Nantz in meth trafficking, according to testimony from Todd E. Tremaine, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Fireams and Explosives, who had interviewed her in the fall of 2018.
Johnson, 29, was allegedly involved with Nantz and others in distributing meth.
But a witness had told authorities Nantz suspected Johnson planned to turn herself in on March 17, 2019, Tremaine testified.
The day before, she was shot in the neck and right shoulder. Nantz dropped her off at the Baptist Health hospital in Corbin and left, police said at the time.
Johnson was seven months pregnant, with Nantz purportedly the baby’s father.
Doctors were unable to revive Johnson. A medical examiner said she likely died as a result of choking on her blood, Tremaine testified.
Doctors delivered the baby, a girl named Amelia Jo, but she died three days later at the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital.
Nantz told police Johnson shot herself, but Tremaine testified he didn’t believe she could have shot herself in the back of the shoulder.
Federal prosecutors cited a number of factors they plan to use to justify a death sentence if Nantz is convicted, including that he put substantial planning into the crime; committed the crime in an “especially heinous, cruel and depraved manner;” and killed or attempted to kill more than one person in a single criminal event — Johnson and Amelia Jo.
Prosecutors also cite a lack of remorse, saying Nantz prevented Johnson from getting treatment for some period by “using the time before driving her to the hospital in an effort to conceal his crime.”
Nantz has pleaded not guilty. It will likely be months before he goes to trial.
There have been only three federal executions since 1988, according the Death Penalty Information Center.
One of those was Timothy McVeigh, the ex-U.S. Army soldier who detonated a massive homemade bomb in a rental truck in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, killing 168 people.
McVeigh waived his appeals and was executed by lethal injection in June 2001.
This story was originally published May 11, 2020 at 12:09 PM.
