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)
WHEELER ARMY AIRFIELD, Hawaii — The Hawaii-based soldier who killed his pregnant wife and disposed of her body in an incinerator last summer on Oahu was sentenced Thursday to 23 years in prison, the maximum possible under the terms of a deal in which he pleaded guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter.
During the sentencing at the Wheeler Army Airfield courthouse, Judge Rebecca Farrell said she imposed the maximum sentence on Pfc. Dewayne Johnson II, 29, due to “particularly aggravating facts” in the case.
He had also pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and providing false official statements.
Johnson admitted in court Tuesday that he killed 19-year-old Mischa Johnson, who was six months pregnant, during a heated argument on July 12. He struck her head with a machete in the bedroom of the home they shared on Schofield Barracks in central Oahu.
Over the next few days, he purchased a chainsaw, cut off her arms, legs and head, stashed them separately in garbage bags and tossed them into a dumpster used by his unit on the base.
That dumpster is emptied directly into the island’s solid waste incinerator.
Her body has not been found.
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)
Johnson concocted a complex scheme intended to fool his wife’s family and friends into believing she was alive as he dismembered her body and destroyed evidence.
On Aug. 1, he reported her missing, telling law enforcement that she was depressed and possibly suicidal. Army units at Schofield conducted numerous searches on and around the base — searches led at times by Johnson.
During closing statements Wednesday, Johnson’s defense team argued that the minimum sentence of 18 years was sufficient to rehabilitate him and render him no longer a threat to society.
Farrell, however, said the maximum was warranted for a number or reasons.
Mischa Johnson was particularly vulnerable as a pregnant woman who lived on a military base and depended on her husband for her well-being, she said.
Johnson’s desecration of his wife’s body was particularly gruesome, an act that not only deprived her family of her life, but also robbed them of her remains for a funeral or a final resting place, Farrell said.
Johnson’s lies also adversely affected training, readiness and trust among the soldiers and units that spent long hours over many days in futile searches, she said.
Johnson, a cavalry scout assigned to the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, will serve his sentence at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
He will receive a dishonorable discharge as part of the plea deal.
“While no amount of confinement will ever be able to truly ease the pain of the loss of Ms. Johnson and her unborn child for her family and friends, it is my hope that Pfc. Johnson’s admissions of guilt and the information he provided as part of the plea agreement can provide some element of closure and finality for the family and all stakeholders,” Lt. Col. Nicholas Hurd, the lead prosecutor, said in a news release Thursday.
