News

NEWS ‘Shattered’

A pre-sentencing report sheds new light on the triple murder that devastated the Loleta and Bear River communities

By Thadeus Greenson

thad@northcoastjournal.com

If 19-year-old Mauricio Johnson feels remorse for having gunned down a newly engaged couple and a 16-year-old girl in their home on the Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria Reservation last year and then working to flee the county as they lay bleeding, he didn’t express it during a pre-sentencing interview with his probation officer.

In the interview, a summary of which is included in Johnson’s pre-sentencing report, Johnson said he fatally shot Nikki Dion Metcalf and his fiancé Margarett Lee Moon after they first attacked him but “had no explanation” as to why he then shot Moon’s 16-year-old daughter, Shelly, before fleeing the residence before dawn Feb. 10, 2021.

“Defendant stated he had no excuse for the shootings and the whole incident could have been handled differently,” states the probation report, which includes no mention of Johnson expressing any contrition for his actions nor empathy for his victims and their family members.

The report — which was made public following Johnson’s being sentenced Feb. 16 to serve 150 years to life in prison and will remain unsealed for 60 days as required by state law — includes a summary of the investigation, an interview with Johnson, other witness statements and autopsy results, as well as impact statements from relatives of the victims. Because Johnson pleaded guilty to three murder charges and didn’t stand trial in the case, the probation report offers the public its most complete record to date of the crime and its terrible toll.

On Feb. 9, 2021, around 8 p.m., Metcalf picked up two of Shelly’s cousins — Margarett Moon’s niece’s daughters, both juveniles — in Eureka, picking up pizza and sodas from Winco, before taking them back to the family home on Carroll Road in Loleta, where the cousins hung out in Shelly’s room watching movies and listening to music until late into the night, after Margarett Moon and Metcalf had gone to bed.

According to the report, Johnson — whose mom was a second cousin of Margarett Moon’s and he told the probation officer he considered the girls his cousins — showed up at Shelly’s window with a bottle of brandy and cocaine. Johnson told his probation officer he’d been on a four- or five-day run of doing cocaine by the time he arrived there that night. One of the cousins told investigators she woke up sometime later that night with Johnson, who was then 18, “grabbing the back of her neck and trying to kiss her” and that Johnson later was “getting aggressive” with her sister, “grabbing her throat and pinning her down to the bed.” Shelly’s younger sister, then 13, also told investigators Johnson had been interested in her sister but she had “turned him down multiple times.”

Around 3:30 a.m., Shelly’s younger sister and her 11-year-old brother were awoken by a commotion in the house, according to investigators. Margarett Moon and Metcalf had woken up and found Shelly and one of her cousin’s had been drinking and Margarett Moon was upset, breaking the bottle of brandy and shouting out the kids. Margarett Moon ultimately called her niece and asked her to come get her girls, which she did, picking them up shortly before 4 a.m. According to the report, Johnson was hiding in Shelly’s room at the time, her parents unaware of his presence in the home.

What happened next is not entirely clear. Shelly’s brother reported seeing Johnson run from her room while pulling up his pants and at some point Metcalf confronted him.

Johnson told his probation officer that Metcalf came back into Shelly’s room “several minutes” after Margarett Moon broke the brandy bottle. He denied reports that he was sexually assaulting Shelly Moon or had been sexually involved with any of the girls in the house that night in any way — “they’re my cousins,” he told the probation officer, adding, “there are all sorts of stories going around but that stuff never happened.” But what exactly he was doing when Metcalf entered the room, Johnson reportedly wouldn’t say.

“While defendant would not say what he was doing at the time Mr. Metcalf reentered the room, it was apparently enough for Mr. Metcalf to begin beating defendant, according to defendant,” the report states, adding that Johnson then drew a 9 mm handgun out of his backpack and shot Metcalf in the head. “According to defendant, Ms. Moon had come to the room about the same time he shot Mr. Metcalf. She proceeded to rush