Man pleads guilty to murder of pregnant girlfriend on the four year anniversary of her death
A Corbin man pleaded guilty Thursday to killing his pregnant girlfriend in an effort to stop her from telling federal authorities about a methamphetamine trafficking operation he was involved in.
On Thursday afternoon, Daniel Scott Nantz accepted a plea agreement for a charge of murdering a federal witness, four years to the day after he killed her.
Nantz initially faced additional charges of kidnapping, conspiracy to distribute meth, possessing a gun in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime and possessing a gun as a person convicted of domestic violence. The four charges were dismissed as part of the plea deal.
Nantz, 32, faces a mandatory life sentence.
Nantz’s defense drafted the plea agreement offer and made it to the government, U.S. Assistant District Attorney Jenna Reed said in court. No plea offers were given to the defendant by the prosecution, who was prepared to take the case to trial in May.
Nantz was indicted in March 2019 and again in July 2019. The second indictment added a murder charge for the death of his girlfriend, Geri D. Johnson, a 29-year-old Williamsburg resident, according to court records. She was pregnant when Nantz shot her in the neck and right shoulder.
On March 16, 2019, Nantz dropped Johnson off at a Corbin hospital and left, according to previous court testimony. He told 911 dispatchers Johnson had tried to kill herself.
Johnson was pronounced dead at the hospital. Doctors were able to deliver her baby girl, Amelia Jo, who died three days later at University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital.
Authorities arrested Nantz the same day on a charge of conspiring to sell meth in Whitley County and elsewhere, indicating he had been under investigation before the homicide.
Johnson was a co-conspirator in the meth-trafficking, a federal indictment charged.
She had implicated Nantz in meth trafficking, according to testimony from Todd E. Tremaine, a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The agency investigated the case with Kentucky State Police.
Two days before shooting Johnson, Nantz sent her a text saying “Your (sic) very dangerous for me. Very very dangerous,” according to a release from U.S. Attorney Carlton S. Shier IV.
Nantz shot and killed Johnson to keep her from speaking with law enforcement.
The federal government filed a notice of intent in May 2020 to seek the death penalty for Nantz, according to court records.
A prosecutor withdrew the notice on Dec. 1, 2022, after the Eastern District of Kentucky was ordered to withdraw the notice.
Attorneys for Nantz had attacked the death penalty on a number of grounds, including that it violates the U.S. Constitution and that it is applied disproportionately to people charged with murdering white women.
Nantz is scheduled to be sentenced at 10:30 a.m. July 17.
This story was originally published March 16, 2023 at 4:19 PM.
