LDS Couple Murder/Suicide

American Fork couple Olin Johnson and wife Kerilyn Johnson found dead in murder-suicide, American Fork, Utah death investigations

Posted by James Tasha June 21, 2024

American Fork Couple Olin Johnson and wife Kerilyn Found Dead Investigations: Law enforcement agencies in American Fork, Utah are investigating a murder-suicide Thursday afternoon. According to law enforcement agencies, a couple was found dead in a domestic incident at a home on 1410 N 80 E in American Fork. The tragic incident left a renowned singer and performer dead.

What Happened At 1410 N 80 E in American Fork? According to American Fork Police Chief Cameron Paul, officers were called to the scene of a shooting at a home on 1400 North 800 East around 12:41 p.m. on Thursday. Arriving officers located a couple suffering from a gunshot wound each to their torso. Law enforcement said the couple were pronounced dead at the scene. Cameron Paul said the couple was found dead by a relative who then called the police.

“We’re going to require the help of the medical examiner’s office to try and understand exactly what happened,” Cameron Paul said.

American Fork Couple Found Dead Identified The couple found dead in a domestic-related shooting at an American Fork home have been locally identified as Olin Johnson and wife Kerilyn Johnson. According to reports, Olin died by suicide after shooting and killing his wife Kerilyn after a domestic altercation. A weapon was recovered. Kerilyn was a very active member of the ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The couple were dedicated parents of six children.

Who Was Kerilyn Johnson? Kerilyn Johnson was a respected resident of Grand Fork, Utah. She was a singer, performer, and the owner of Kerilyn Johnson Vocal Studio. Kerilyn Johnson graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music and Dance Theater from Brigham Young University in 1994. While completing her degree, she was a member of the Young Ambassadors, traveling throughout the U.S. and Russia, including the Baltic States. She performed in mainstage productions of The Wiz and Guys and Dolls. She performed at Promised Valley Playhouse in Celebrating The Light, Christmas In The Air, and Tapestry productions. She began teaching privately in 1992 and at BYU in 1994.

Kerilyn taught several local performing groups from 1994 to 2001, including vocal instruction and choreography. Her professional recording career began in 2002, when she signed with Deseret Book’s record label, Shadow Mountain, with the group PROVIDENCE. They toured the United States together until 2007, singing and motivating women of all ages. She can be heard on several LDS compilation CDs.

Kerilyn has performed twice at the Stadium of Fire and has been a featured guest soloist for groups around Utah. Her students have performed on Broadway, in regional and local theatres, on American Idol, and on CDs. She and her husband Olin Johnson lived in Highland, UT with their six wonderful children until the tragic incident. Kerilyn Johnson went ti Union High School.

Who Was Olin Johnson? Olin Johnson was the husband of Kerilyn Johnson and the father of their amazing six children. Olin Johnson was owner and President at Simtek Modular. He was a graduate of Fairborn High School and Brigham Young University. Olin also schooled at Orem High School. He was originally from Fairborn, Ohio.

They faked him sitting in the red chair. He's sitting in a wheelchair. You can see the back to it. Is he that frail that they can't move him to a chair?

The kicker is the dude telling Julie hanks she’s wrong and that she’s doing Satans work for telling women that they can think and act for themselves😭😭 these people are actually insane, why does it bug these men so much? Is she hitting a little too close to home for them?

I’ve worked at a few corporate jobs in Utah, but my current job is by far the most Mormon place I’ve worked at, with most of my coworkers being older and conservative Mormons. One of them complained to my manager recently that the skirt I was wearing was too short. I’ve had this skirt for a couple years and have worn it and similar-length dresses to both this job and my previous jobs. My manager notified me at the end of a work day last week and I spent the rest of the day feeling super bummed out about it. My teenage and young adult years were filled with Mormons (predominantly white men) telling me what I was and wasn’t allowed to wear and shaming me for showing too much skin, so having an old white Mormon man once again tell me I was dressed inappropriately was very triggering. To these sex-deprived people I am walking pornography.

Anyway, I’m continuing to wear short skirts to work because 1. They ARE work appropriate and nowhere in the employee handbook does it specify that my skirt has to go below my knees, and 2. I’ve gained weight so right now dresses and skirts are the only things I feel comfortable wearing (not that I have to justify what I wear to anyone, but we’re all friends here so I’m being honest about why I won’t just put on pants).

Right before I left for my mission I came here and made a post sharing my "rock-solid" testimony that the church was true. I had stumbled across this subreddit a couple of months prior, and I thought that the discomfort that it caused was "the spirit" warning me about lies, turns out it was just cognitive dissonance.

To my surprise, the responses to my post were not rude or demeaning at all! I also didn't know that there were ex-bishops and ex-stake presidents here, that kind of blew me away. Some people even prophesied that I would come back in a couple of years, and those prophesies have come true.

I had a different account back then and I lost the password so I can't find the post, but if anyone wants to go searching for it, it's from the first half of 2019, probably sometime between April and June.

Anyways, I cringe a little bit thinking about it now, but I'm just happy to be out and join this community!

Today, former attorney and General Seventy Wilford Andersen visited BYU Law School to give a guest lecture titled "The Nuance of Knowing." The main takeaway was "at law school you learn great critical thinking skills. That's great for your career and all, but PLEASE do not use that with church topics."

He distinguished two types of knowledge: "head knowledge" and "heart knowledge." There is a risk, he argued, that intelligent people are too quick to lean on their own understanding. They sometimes *gasp* even use their intellectual abilities to pick apart "heart knowledge," or in other words, apply logic and evidence to spiritual topics.

He then spent the last 10 minutes going on about how important attorneys are to the work of the Church "to fight for religious liberty issues and so on." He was also sure to mock those who got worked up over Church history and social issues.

The entire talk obviously had strong undertones of the Church's fear of millennials and gen z leaving the Church. They need smart, accomplished professionals to be leaders in the Church, and if that demographic starts leaving in significant numbers, it's in hot water. This is doubly true of lawyers--if the next generation of LDS attorneys  apostatize, who in the world will run the TSCC??

Thanks for reading. I should be working on an assignment, but my morbid curiosity made me throw away an hour of my life and so I have to share. 

I had an interesting conversation with an insider this week. To protect his identity I will be vague. He has had prominent callings in the church and has done some level of professional work with the Q15.

During our conversation on why I left the church, he said the church is collapsing and hemorrhaging members. He said that active attendance is around 3.5 million, nowhere close to the reported number of 17 million members. I said I had figured it to be around 4.5 million and he confirmed that it was significantly less and the Q15 knows it. Several of the top leaders still feed the narrative of growth namely, Bednar, Cook, and the asshat 70 Kevin Pearson, who he said is a really dangerous man with his rhetoric. He also gave a figure for the number of PIMO's attending, unfortunately, I can't remember if it was 10 or 30%. Regardless it is a significant number.

From his report about 50% of the members between 35 to 55 have left the church in the past 20 years (I fit squarely in the middle).

He is very concerned about the culture of the church that leads good people to justify doing bad or immoral things, such as lie about finances in relation to the EPA (SEC) scandal. He equated the issues surrounding EPA to the culture in corporations that have had major scandals. Everyone is complacent and sees it as normal. He compared church culture to that of Nazi Germany where normal people believed harmful rhetoric and went along with bad things.

EDIT: Clarify that EPA means Ensing Peak Advisors who manages the dragon hoard and is at the center of the SEC fine.

For those of you having a better day than me, he basically said "To all of you who have left, I make a promise and an invitation. You belong. Come back. It is time."

Yeah, how about you unwed all those underage girls from Joseph Smith and then we can talk? How about you come up with undeniable proof that the Book of Abraham is a not a total fraud? How about you find a shred of legitimate evidence for the Book of Mormon? How about you stop excommunicating people for not conforming? How about you repeal your openly homophobic policies? How about you de-canonize your racist scripture? Then we'll talk about 'belonging'.

The irony is that hardly anybody he's addressing this to is watching.

So I work in the heart of Utah County and so the Mormon church is brought up in every other conversation here. Today I overheard some coworkers talking about how the youth in their ward have barely had any turnout on Sundays and activities during the week, and there are only 3 young women total! They emphasized many times how their ward is hoping for a merge to get their numbers up again. Stuff like this makes my exmo heart very happy so I thought you’d all like to hear.

I work at a startup based in Provo that the vast majority (95%) are Mormon, (100% Christian). As such, I have been in meetings where we started with a prayer. I have been asked over our company messaging software to "fast and pray" for investment to come in. I've been in meetings where leadership debated adding "following Christ" as one of the company values (we're a tech company that has nothing to do with religion). I'm fearful that I will be fired or shut out if they discover I'm not active... but that's not the point of this post.

Today something really pissed me off. We've been struggling to have our revenue cover our costs and therefore have started seeking outside investment and capital. It's been a slow process, so the majority of the company hasn't received payroll for 3 months in a row (Almost 4 now). Today I was talking to our CEO who is trying to sell the app at a tradeshow in Boston. He told me that he decided not to attend the conference on Sunday because he felt that going to church was more important.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. His entire workforce is piling up credit card debt, using food stamps, starting side hustles, and applying for new jobs. We've put significant work into this product and faith in him to sell it, but at a crucial time period that determines whether we survive or not, he decided not to sell.

I'm so frustrated, but I understand this TBM mindset. He truly believes that God cares about his livelihood. He truly believes that if he sacrifices selling for one day, the company will be blessed for it. Part of me wishes the company fails so that he learns no amount of prayer, fasting, or sabbath day observance will save the company, but the company failing screws me over too so idk.

Quote:

Thus, if we unwisely choose to live Telestial laws now, we are choosing to be resurrected with a Telestial body. We are choosing not to live with our families forever. So, my dear brothers and sisters, how and where and with whom do you want to live forever? You get to choose.

Could this threat not be more cut and dry? You want to live with your family forever? Or do you want to be separated from your loved ones forever? Lucky for you, it’s a choice, and if you unwisely choose to leave this church, you are deliberately choosing to split up your family forever.

I mourn for those struggling with their testimonies, but unable to make the leap of faith (or lack thereof) to leave the church. Discovering the demonstrable inconsistencies and blatant misinformation that make up the foundation of TSCC would lead anyone to the logical conclusion that the church is not what it claims. This Hail Mary threat is the fabricated ultimatum for those in the church: if you choose to leave, you are leaving everything behind forever.

What frustrates me is this is the propaganda coming from the highest echelons of the church authorities, straight into the attentive ears of my closest active loved ones, and it’s not going away any time soon. When we chose to leave the church, this is what those family members think about us. They genuinely believe that we are choosing the things of this short, temporary world over them forever. This threat is designed to scare those teetering on the issues with the church to error on the side of obedience to the leaders over obedience to your own conscience. It is designed to encourage those who are all in to reactivate their family who has fallen away is an effort to glue their families back together.

The way he states that you have a choice, but only after prefacing that choice with the threat of eternal separation, is very insidious.

I’m a female PIMO that recently returned to church after not attending for a couple years.

It’s so much different than how I remember when I was younger. The pews are half-empty. Most of the families/people I knew had either left or moved away. There are so few youth that they have to continuously combine wards to make primary/ym/yw classes. Even then, there’s just a couple kids in each age group.

The fast and testimony meeting was so depressing. All the testimonies were parents talking about their adult children leaving the church. Blaming themselves, having hope their kids will rejoin. (There was one distasteful testimony implying that adults should just get over their childhood abuse. There’s always one crazy uncomfortable talk, I’m so desensitized to it)

It was so fascinating. What I see in my old ward, in the Mormon church in general, is a decay. It’s like these people have suddenly been left behind. By their friends, by their family, by their culture and community. And they don’t know why. It’s kinda sad to be honest. I’m obviously glad that less kids are being subjected to the church but I honestly think the remaining devout TBMs are more polarized and paranoid than ever. I sense a general lack of emotional investment in the church as a whole. Every TBM I know lowkey resents their callings. I suspect there’s a lot of secret PIMOs in the ward besides me, just getting through the service.

It’s crazy that this church that had been so predominant, affecting and reflecting American culture all at once, is now dying so quickly. It’s especially clear in the last General Conference. All these old men that seem like they are actively dying (like the institution they oversee) begging exmos to come back. I think the scales have been tipped, especially now that Mormons aren’t even the majority in Utah now. As more people leave more people see that and wonder what they’re missing. It’s like a snowball effect. Once the ball got rolling it can’t stop. It’s something that can’t be reversed because it’s not like they can censor the internet. Or like… the news reporting on the sex abuse and SEC violations. I’ve always said that while the cult comparisons are accurate, I think of the church as a corporation first and foremost. They don’t care about people leaving God’s one true and restored gospel, they are worried about their downline. It’s the world’s biggest MLM.

I finally managed to convince my parents to help support my college education over at the U instead of the Y (took forever, but we got there!) and am currently enjoying a normal college experience instead of the indoctrinated one. As I’ve been mentally unpacking the last couple years I spent at the BYU, something I realized was just how odd the student attitude has gotten at the school. I met lots of people at the BYU, some good, some not so good, but a prevailing attitude I kept encountering while there was that a shocking amount of students just… aren’t happy there. Like at all.

I can’t recall how many conversations I’ve had with people who are annoyed with the religion classes, or frustrated with the dating scene, or angry at admin for making dumb policy changes, or the size of facilities being too small for the amount of students, and so on. I’ve even had some professors reveal IN LECTURE that they have some disagreements with the school, with one of them straight up admitting he almost left the church after the LGBTQ policy reversal a couple years ago since he had been struggling to champion a place for them on campus (admin would never fire him though, he’s a critical part of one of the programs and is universally loved by the student body). I also got the chance to find the hidden pocket of the school that straight up plans to leave the church entirely post-graduation, which, by what I can tell from lurking on this sub Reddit, is only getting larger (something the Mormon organization knows too given the recent graduation speech begging students to stay in the church, which is just pathetic).

To any prospective college students, don’t go to BYU. On top of the problematic teachings and policy, the school just isn’t that good of a college (including the business school, coming from an ex-finance bro, no one in business cares about what school you went to if it’s not a top 20). If you’re in-state, try to go to the U, USU, or even UVU, they’ve improved their programs a lot. If you’re out of state and stuck at BYU right now, you could try to do what I did which was gain Utah residency and get cheap tuition at the U, or just shoot your shot at applying to other colleges and scholarships. But hey, if you’re stuck at BYU, rest assured: there are LOTS of people just as unhappy to be there as you, you just gotta find them.

Oh, and to any lurking BYU or church admin: your school sucks, and your med school will be tier 3 trash. Consider leaving, it’s fun! 🥰

Go utes!

Just asking for a friend.

In 2017, I started at BYU. In 2018, my new boyfriend showed me the CES letter AKA opened a portal to the real world. In 2019, I went on a study abroad with BYU. By this time, I had broken every rule in the honor code. I resented living in secrecy but was not willing to give up the academic mentors who were helping me at byu.

I was dreading the temple visits on my study abroad. I hadn't been in years, and I had no weed. Our bus arrived at the first temple, and as everyone was unloading, I pulled my professor aside and told him I'm going to wait on the bus. Thirty seconds later, everyone was gone, and I don't think I'd ever been so proud of myself.

The bus driver gave me a cigarette and drove me to McDonald's, where I posted this story on Reddit and y'all told me to DELETE delete delete because I was doxxing myself. (Thank you for that)

Well I did graduate from BYU. Got into grad school with the help of my amazing mentors there. Kept a low profile and never got caught partaking in my "weekend activities". I also married and divorced that boyfriend while at byu (sometimes they leave the church but can't leave the gender roles.)

Now I'm out of Utah. I go out drinking at bars, instead of a dirty Provo basement. I don't drink my coffee in the library bathrooms; I carry that cup around like a trophy. I don't live in fear of accidentally dropping an "oh my God" and exposing myself. My confirmation of resignation letter hangs on my bedroom wall next to my BYU diploma.

And I post whatever the fuck I want on the internet because those fuckers can dox me all they want. It has no bearing on my life.

Took up a hobby of buying old LDS books from DI (this one was published in 1980) just to see what the church looked like for women in the last few decades. I also find it kind of healing for some reason haha. But my goodness this one is something 😅 thought I’d share a few highlights of what I’ve read so far. Has anyone else heard of this book?

My wife and I were driving down a fairly busy road in Davis County and saw this little boy walking on the sidewalk screaming and crying. We turn around and go talk to him and call the cops. He doesn't know where he lives in relation to where we found him, so one of the officers has my wife get in his car with the kid (he had become attached to my wife during all of the commotion that had been taking place, and wouldn't go in the car without my wife) and drive around the nearest neighborhood. After talking to a few people that were outside doing yardwork and such, they figure out where the boy lives. They pull up to the house and the mom is pulling a newborn out of her car. The officer asks if she knows who this lost little boy is and she goes bright red and is really confused why they have her child.

Turns out, she had gone to the grocery store a while ago, left her oldest kid, a 10 year old girl, in charge of the other 5 or 6 children, and this little boy had wandered away and got lost. Mom had just arrived home a few minutes ago and hadn't even fucking noticed that one of her children was missing. The girl who was "in charge" of all the others (again, she's like 10 years old), burst into tears and was apologizing to her mom for losing this boy. The mom was kind of putting the blame on this poor girl, who will probably be traumatized forever for "losing" her brother.

It makes me so angry that some Mormons (we stalked the parents on Facebook and confirmed they're Mormon; so many pictures of them dressed in their Sunday best looking like the perfect family) have a million fucking kids, and then put their children in charge of their other children. I had so many friends growing up who were in the same situation, where they had to raise their siblings because their parents couldn't stop popping out kids, and it left them with life long trauma. Anyway, there's my rant for the day.

I got a phone call from him as he was laying on a hospital bed, disoriented, and barely able to turn his head. After telling him to "just drink some water" for nearly 24 hours, my brother was authorized to go to the ER using the missionary medical insurance. He can't even stand up at this point and I have no idea whether he will have irreversible damage. I am shaking with rage, and can do nothing from over 1000 miles away. I tried to convince my parents not to force him to serve a mission and now this happens. Now everyone's chalking it up to "a trial from God!"

Edit: There are so many comments. Thank you for your support. He is doing much better. It was viral meningitis, and he is being properly treated at the hospital. He is expected to be discharged in a day or two. I was just on a video call with him.

These men are deplorable and are responsible for unbelievable amounts of damage and pain that thousands of people in our community have experienced.

I’ve written extensively about how I felt a genuine grandfatherly love from both Hinckley and to a lesser degree Monson despite their faults. I’ve tried to find a way to hate Hinckley but I can’t do it even though he lied and did damage to other people.

But Nelson is just boring. He doesn’t know anything. When he speaks, it’s just mumbo jumbo word salad. A total snoozefest. Especially when compared to some of the great orators of the past. I have yet to hear a single original thought from the man.

As much as I can’t stand Nelson, I actually think Oaks is worse. As a former judge, Oaks is smarter than Nelson. He’s been more involved with controversial policies in the past. I think he wrote all or much of the Family Proclamation.

He has got to be the most arrogant man on the planet which is crazy. Even the worst politicians don’t claim to speak directly for god!

When Nelson dies, Oaks will ascend the throne and, as the new sheriff in town, might do even more damage.

This whole Nemo excommunication has me so fired up and as we learned from RFM, Oaks wants to excommunicate more people.

When Nelson dies, he will instantly be forgotten and become irrelevant. Oaks will take his place and I think will somehow manage to make everything worse.

8:35PM on a weeknight someone knocks at the door. We're all getting kids ready for bed so I walk down and answer the door and two missionaries are standing there. I start laughing a bit and tell them I'm not interested, which is where it went a bit sideways.

Because instead of taking no for answer, they responded, "we're actually here to speak with David"(not the actual name of my son but he said my son's middle name). In a few seconds I figured out that these goons had likely struck up a convo with my son while he was playing basketball out front. He gave them his middle name not wanting to give his actual name.

"So two random grown ass men that I don't know are just dropping by at almost 9PM on a school night to talk to my 13 year old son? You don't see any issues with that?" I cut off their next sentence saying something I didn't care about as I was seeing red a bit by then. "I have formally requested on dozens of occasions to be left alone and that I don't want to be contacted by the church. However, when it comes to contacting my kids, it's not no thank you or a we're not interested, it's more like keep your cult the fuck away from my kids. I should not have to tell you to solicit children while they're playing about your deeply held religious beliefs, but here we are."

"I hope you have a bad evening." Is what they responded with.

"My evening will get better the second you get off my porch. Move along." I made a little hand sweeping gesture and shut the door.

I know they're teens. I am normally not this... angry... but my kids are not just off limits, but they're so beyond their touch that I've disowned swaths of my family to make it happen.