Johnson's Family, Friends Bid Final Farewell

By Erica Williams

March 16 -- As the investigation into the apparent abduction and murder of Kristine Louise Johnson continues, family members and friends gathered on a rain-drenched Saturday afternoon for a final remembrance of the Santa Monica woman whose life was cut short just days before her 22nd birthday.

Johnson's mother Terry Wark, who appeared visibly shaken at a candlelight vigil celebrating her daughter's birthday February 27, seemed composed and serene during the hour-long service at a downtown Santa Monica church.

She personally greeted and comforted mourners as they arrived at St. Augustine by the Sea Episcopal Church on Fourth Street on what was a record day of rainfall in the Southland.

"It's beyond my understanding," Wark said of her daughter's death during the service, which was being held at the same time as one in Saugatuck, Michigan, where Johnson grew up.

She described their close relationship as "a dance orchestrated by love and understanding" that began even before Johnson's birth: "Kristi's movements caressed my womb."

Wark recalled one of their last times together as she and her daughter strolled "hand-in-hand through the streets of San Francisco" during Johnson's last visit home.

"It's a comfort to me to be surrounded by all of those whose lives she touched," Wark told about 100 mourners who attended. "Her life dance now goes on into eternal life," she concluded in her remarks.

Wark also read remarks Johnson's 23-year-old brother Derek made at her funeral service Wednesday in Los Gatos, Calif. where she was born. (Ironically, as Johnson's family and friends were preparing to bury her, in Utah Elizabeth Smart's family and most of the country was celebrating her miraculous safe recovery.)

Derek began by saying that it was a challenge to be a young woman in the world today but that "Kristi was able to live her life with beauty and with grace."

"You make me feel like a better person," Wark read from Derek's remarks. "You made me the person I am today. I so looked forward to growing old with you."

At Johnson's birthday vigil last month her grandmother Kathryn said Derek was taking his sister's then disappearance "very hard."

"He was devastated," she said. "He said, 'How could this happen to my little sister?' That broke me up," said Kathryn, who did not attend Saturday's memorial service. Derek is a private in the Air Force and is based in North Carolina, his grandmother said.

Jeff Wark, Terry's husband, said he had only known Johnson about a year-and-a-half. He'd married her mother in July 2001.

"What a privilege to know such a beautiful, pure, honest and unselfish spirit," he said. He read a poem, entitled "Little Angel," that he said came to him one night while he was grieving.

"Little angel in the sky, in the sky, little angel," it began, "...abruptly taken from this world's manger before we could say goodbye... Remember, Kristi will never be a stranger. Alive in our hearts, Kristi's spirit will never die."

"It's brutal, it's unbearable," Jeff said after the service about how Johnson's family is coping with her death. "We're keeping real close."

During the service, one of Johnson's friends, who only identified himself as Todd, asked her family if he could say a few words. After taking some moments to collect himself, he tearfully said that when he first met Johnson two years ago he had just recently moved from Texas. He was not in good shape, he said, and Johnson helped him out with vitamins, salads and fruit and sometimes made dinner for him.

"She really cared whether I lived or died," he wept, "she really cared."

Johnson disappeared February 15 after telling a roommate she was on her way to meet with a photographer in Beverly Hills about auditioning for publicity photos for a movie. Johnson never returned from the meeting and police, friends and family soon began a desperate search for her.

The search came to an end March 3, when her partially clothed body was found, one hand bound, in a ravine about 100 feet down a steep hillside thick with brush in the Hollywood Hills. She was wearing a specific article of clothing that a man police describe as a "subject of interest" asked her and another female he apparently approached in January to wear to their purported photo shoots.

Police still have not identified the man, but media outlets, citing unnamed sources, have identified Victor Paleologus as the subject. A career criminal with a history of luring women in a similar manner, Paleologus is presently being held at Men's Central Jail on unrelated charges.

Santa Monica Police Chief James T. Butts Jr. also attended Johnson's memorial service. He said afterwards that forensic analysis of evidence collected from Johnson's 1996 Mazda Miata (abandoned one day after she disappeared at a hotel on the Westside), the site where her body was recovered and ten other locations searched around Los Angeles was still not complete.

He said it could be at least another two weeks before all the results are in.

"This is potentially a special circumstances case," Butts said. "We are going to be cautious, careful and prudent," the chief said about the seemingly slow pace of the investigation.

The Los Angeles County sheriff's coroner still has not determined what caused Johnson's death.