11

Did the Brothers Do It?

Assuming Dr. Erdmann was correct in his belief that the Johnson family died of unnatural causes, Albin Johnson stands out as the obvious murder suspect. Big Albin was broke and probably despondent. He had been booted from the farm. He was indicted by a grand jury. And, of course, he bolted and was never seen again.

But not everyone’s so sure that Albin Johnson was the guilty party.

Floyd Pinotti, a retired law enforcement officer who acquired the old Krantz property many years after the fire, presents an alternative theory: the idea that Albin’s brothers may have had something to do with the crime. If Pinotti’s theory is true, Albin was literally right under the searchers’ feet the entire time they were looking hither and yon for the farmer. He theorizes that Albin himself was murdered and buried in a field adjacent to the house. A former Chisago County sheriff with thirty years of experience in law enforcement, Pinotti was going on eighty-four years old when he talked about the Albin Johnson mystery in a 2018 interview. His voice was strong over the telephone, and it was clear that Mr. Pinotti’s mind was still sharp. Pinotti emphasizes that he may be reaching a bit. He doesn’t claim to have all the answers. And if evidence to the contrary presents itself, he’s more than willing to admit that he was wrong. “I don’t have a personal preference one way or another,” he said. “And it’s in the Good Lord’s hands.”

With all of those caveats in mind, Mr. Floyd Pinotti makes his case. Speaking like a seasoned defense attorney or prosecutor, he lays out the facts one by one. Among the facts as he knows them: Albin’s brothers were seen “discing” the field at 5:30 a.m. on April 11, 1933, just two hours after the fire; for days after the fire, Albin’s dog ran circles around a specific location in the field, seemingly in search of his master. (Presumably, Albin had more than one dog; a different pet died in the fire.) And neighbors who knew the Johnson brothers were afraid of the boys. “I don’t claim to be Sherlock Holmes, but to me, evidence is evidence,” Pinotti said. “I am of the belief that Albin was buried at the property, somewhere out there where the dog was running around, and that the murders were committed by somebody who wanted the property.”

Big Hank Johnson, of course, ended up with the property. Oddly enough, Pinotti himself never had a beef with Henry Johnson during all the years they lived near each other. In fact, Pinotti described Albin’s brother as “a great neighbor.” Pinotti added, “My children just loved him. We got along fine.”

Others had a different view of Albin Johnson’s kid brother. During the interview, Pinotti’s mind wandered back to an incident that happened more than fifty years earlier. As Pinotti remembers it, he had just purchased a new tractor and some neighbors were gathered when he arrived home with the vehicle. The neighbors were in a relaxed mood. They were making small talk. Everything was fine. And then, Big Hank showed up. “Henry and all the other neighbors had John Deeres. And I had a gas tractor that you could hear coming in those days. When I pulled in the yard, two or three neighbors were there. And everyone was talking—‘I don’t know, Floyd. That thing uses a lot of gas.’ And so forth….Then Henry pulled up. Those neighbors were gone in ten seconds. They were gone. It was like they vanished.”

This was more than thirty years after the fire. But people in and around Harris were still jumpy and nervous when Albin’s brother came calling. No doubt, Hank had a reputation, and people didn’t want to take any chances. “When you are dealing with people that you perceive to be…with very little conscience, there are so many ways to retaliate on you,” Pinotti said. “You can’t be awake twenty-four hours a day. You’ve got all this exposure with your farm and your crops and your animals and your buildings. Your children. There are so many ways to make your life miserable.” To the extent that people felt threatened, they couldn’t rely much on law enforcement in the 1930s, Pinotti said. “This was a time when protection from the police was very rare and hard to get,” he said. “You were on your own. The sheriff might come in a day or two or he might never come.”

What about the manhunt that extended to Canada? Stark, Wennerberg and company had no doubt that Johnson was alive and on the run. Pinotti speculates that the popular “Albin-escaped-to-Canada” theory was fueled by a desire to take the heat off the folks in Harris farm country so people could get on with their lives and breathe a little easier. Even if they had some misgivings about the brothers, folks in town “didn’t want the possibility for retaliation…either by Henry or Henry’s brothers,” Pinotti speculates. “It served their purpose to say he left and went up to Canada and couldn’t be found.”

Margie Thorp, a local resident, tells of a similar theory. Thorp’s stepfather, Grant Johnson, was born in 1926 and grew up near Harris. He lived on a farm close to the Johnson place along with his brother, Filmore, and his parents, Hilda (Hessland) Johnson and Per Olaf “Ole” Johnson. “I’m thinking the blaze must have been huge, because Grant told me that they could see it from their farm. Early on that morning, Ole and little Grant (who would’ve been 6 years old) drove to the Albin Johnson farm…when they saw flames and smoke,” Thorp recalled in an e-mail. “Grant said that the house was almost gone or just a pile of smoldering lumber.”

Thorp’s stepfather was stunned by what he saw early on the morning after the fire. “What stuck in his mind was that there was one of Albin’s brothers plowing a field at such an early hour—the brother didn’t appear to be fazed at all about the fact that the house had burned right next to him, nor did he stop to offer help,” Thorp wrote.

“Grant told me that everyone in the area was afraid of the brothers, and were sure that they had killed Albin’s family, set fire to the house, and then buried Albin out in the field [and] plowed him under.”

Grant Johnson was related to a family named Lofgren in the Harris area, Thorp noted. One of those relatives, Augusta Lofgren, was around at the time of the fire. Fortunately for historians, she kept a diary. Mrs. Lofgren mentioned the Johnson family tragedy in an entry she recorded not long after the fact. Alluding to the rumor that the victims had been beheaded, Mrs. Lofgren put her thoughts on paper in a surprisingly unemotional narrative. She sums up the story in just seventy words:

The Albin Johnson house burned in the middle of the night, with Mrs. Johnson and her 7 children inside. Their heads are buried in a nearby field. Mr. Johnson’s body appears to be missing and volunteers search for him. Foul play is suspected. There’s an inquest in Harris. On May 1 it’s reported he’s been seen in Montana. In the end, the evidence isn’t conclusive and no murderer is jailed.

From there, Mrs. Lofgren abruptly segued to a far more mundane topic: the news that potatoes were selling for twenty-five cents per hundred pounds.

Lindgren, the researcher with roots in Chisago County, doesn’t have much to say about the price of potatoes in 1933. But he has strong feelings about the Johnson case. Specifically, he doubts that the Johnson brothers were involved. The brothers supposedly were motivated by a desire to take over the farmland, but the facts aren’t consistent with that theory, he said. “I don’t think they would have burned down the house if they wanted to live there,” Lindgren said. As for the story about the dog looking for his master, “if there was a dog and his house burned down, he wouldn’t have anyplace else to go,” Lindgren said matter-of-factly.

Henry Johnson had a place to go after he took over the property. But in the end, Big Hank suffered one setback after another. Like his brother, Henry struggled to make a go of it on the farm, Pinotti said. Drought took a toll on his crops, and his luck with livestock wasn’t much better. Perhaps the property itself was cursed—insofar as it was used as farmland, at least. Those who study the history of the land will find similar stories of woe, including multiple foreclosures, Pinotti noted. Or maybe it was bad karma for whatever sins Henry Johnson may have committed as a much younger man way back when in the 1930s. “It was just one catastrophe, one bad showing after another,” Pinotti said. “I love Henry because he was a good neighbor, and I hope he is resting in heaven. But I think he paid his hell right here on earth.”