Daniel L. Rees sentenced for murdering Rachael Johnson

“Don’t even look at me, you son of a b—h,” Lawrence Johnson told Daniel L. Rees, who murdered Johnson’s daughter, Rachael M. Johnson. (Screenshots: WOIO)

A father lunged at the man who brutally murdered his daughter more than 30 years ago. As far as the law is concerned, the case finished when the defendant, Daniel L. Rees, 60, pleaded guilty to aggravated murder for killing Rachael M. Johnson, 23. But the victim’s death leaves a void that no court hearing can fill.

“They say, ‘Closure,’” her father, Lawrence Johnson, said in the sentencing hearing covered by Cleveland-area outlet WOIO. “What the hell is closure?”

He snapped at Rees in court, as the defendant, wearing prison orange, sat watching.

“Don’t even look at me, you son of a b—h,” Johnson said, lunging at Rees.

“It’s not worth it,” said a woman clutching the father’s arm. “It’s not worth it.”

Police in Akron, Ohio, who used genetic genealogy to track down the killer, said that Rachael Johnson suffered blunt force trauma.

Rees sexually assaulted her, stabbed her multiple times, and set her on fire after dumping her the street. A passerby found her on March 30, 1991.

“The last words I ever spoke to my daughter was, ‘I love you, Rachel,’ and the last words she ever spoke to me was, ‘I love you too, Dad,’” Lawrence Johnson said.

Rachael Johnson’s daughter, Katelin Puzakulic, was three when the murder happened.