A warm summer evening in Nashville, Tennessee, took a horrific turn on July 5, 1980, ending the life of Charles House, a 35-year-old man who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. His death was part of a violent robbery that claimed two other lives and left a community in shock. Charles was sitting as a passenger in a Supreme Taxi parked outside Bob Bell's Market, a convenience store on 12th Avenue South, when a man fleeing the store opened fire, killing him and the taxi's driver.
The perpetrator was Cecil C. Johnson Jr., then 24 years old, a man who had worked as a kitchen hand at Vanderbilt Hospital and was known to shop at the very market he decided to rob. Shortly before 10 p.m., Johnson entered the store armed with a gun. Inside, he held the owner, Bob Bell Sr., his 12-year-old son, Bobby Bell Jr., and another man, Lewis Smith, at gunpoint.
After forcing the young boy to empty the cash register, which contained about $200, Johnson began shooting with the intention of leaving no witnesses.
Tragically, Bobby Bell Jr. was shot and killed in front of his father. Bob Bell Sr. and Lewis Smith were also shot and wounded. As Johnson fled the market, he fired at the taxicab waiting outside. Charles House and the driver, 41-year-old James Moore, were both struck by the gunfire and died from their wounds. They were innocent bystanders, their lives cut short in a senseless act of violence as Johnson made his escape.
The investigation moved swiftly, partly due to word spreading on the street and, crucially, because Johnson's own father turned him in to the police. Johnson was arrested just two days after the murders. During the trial six months later, he was identified by the surviving victims, Bob Bell Sr. and Lewis Smith. A friend of Johnson's also testified that Johnson had spent most of the day with him before the crime. The evidence led to a conviction on three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of assault with intent to commit murder, and armed robbery.
In January 1981, Cecil C. Johnson Jr. was sentenced to death, becoming the first person sentenced under Tennessee's newly reinstated capital punishment laws. His violent streak did not end with his incarceration. In 1985, while on death row, Johnson was involved in the beating death of a fellow inmate, Laron Williams, reportedly over a dispute about using the prison telephone. For this, he was later convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
After nearly three decades of appeals, all legal avenues were exhausted. Governor Phil Bredesen denied clemency, and the courts rejected final requests for a stay. On December 2, 2009, Cecil C. Johnson Jr., aged 53, was executed by lethal injection at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The father of 12-year-old Bobby Bell and the brother of James Moore witnessed the execution, though the families of the victims, including Charles House's, declined to make public statements. The case is now closed, but the profound loss of three innocent lives, including that of Charles House, remains a tragic chapter in Nashville's history.
