Mischa Johnson was six months pregnant on Aug. 1, 2024, when her husband reported her missing from their home on Schofield Barracks in central Oahu. (Honolulu Police Department)

WHEELER ARMY AIRFIELD, Hawaii — Army Pfc. Dewayne A. Johnson II said in a Hawaii courtroom Wednesday that he hated himself “every day” for killing his wife and unborn child in a rage last summer.

“There are no words strong enough to express the pain I feel for what I did,” Johnson said as he read from a written statement in the Wheeler Army Airfield courthouse during the second day of a court-martial in which he has pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the deaths of Mischa Johnson and the fetus she carried.

The sentencing phase began Wednesday, and Judge Rebecca Farrell is scheduled on Thursday morning to impose a sentence of 18 to 23 years based on a plea agreement.

“I loved Mischa and my unborn child more than anything,” Johnson said, sobbing at times. “There’s nothing I can say, nothing I can do, to take away what I did.”

Johnson’s words of remorse, however, were undercut by the prosecution’s next witness, an Army Criminal Investigation Division agent, who testified that Johnson continued to seek women through a dating app — even as he concocted a complex scheme to fool family and friends into thinking his wife was alive as he dismembered her body and destroyed evidence.

Johnson admitted in court Tuesday that he had killed her on July 12 with a blow to the head with a machete in the bedroom of the home they shared on Schofield Barracks. He then spent the next 19 days posing as Mischa in text messages and social media posts as he disposed of evidence.

On Aug. 1, he called 911 and reported her missing as of that day.

U.S. Army Pfc. Dewayne Johnson sits with his teammates during an exercise at Helemano Military Reservation, Hawaii, in November 2023. (Joshua Linfoot/U.S. Army)

Special Agent Chelsea Banks also testified that CID had obtained a video of Johnson having sex with a woman during those 19 days in the very bedroom in which he had killed his wife.

Johnson has also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and providing false official statements.

A charge for possession of child pornography and the production and distribution of child pornography was dropped under the plea deal.

Close family members testified or read written statements describing Mischa Johnson’s persona and how her loss has affected them.

“She followed me around, like little sisters are supposed to do,” older sister Marianna Tapiz said of their childhood. “She was someone you could call if you were having a bad day.”

Mischa made everything better, Tapiz said.

“Now there will always be an empty seat at our family gatherings,” she said.

A prosecutor asked Tapiz how she felt when she heard that Johnson had dismembered her sister with a chainsaw, bagged up the pieces and threw them in a dumpster used by his unit on Schofield Barracks.

She paused before looking at Johnson seated by his attorneys.

“I don’t know how you can tell us you loved her after doing a thing like that,” she said.

To audible gasps in the spectator’s gallery, the prosecutor placed a photo of the incinerator into which the dumpster was emptied and her remains destroyed.

Frances Tapiz, Mischa’s mother, described her as loving, caring and helpful.

“Mom, do you need something?” she recalled her daughter frequently asking. “Mom, are you OK?”

“I am in pain; I am hurting,” she said in court. “I miss Mischa.”

Her death has been like “losing a piece of yourself that only she could bring to life,” Tapiz said as she broke into loud sobs.

“The harsh reality is that time isn’t always a healer,” she said.

Johnson’s father and three brothers testified via phone from Maryland, each saying they would support his return to society when he completed his sentence.

“I know he has potential to be a better person,” Devon Johnson said of his older brother.

“I seen the difference,” he said. “He’s making steps to be a better person.”