John Paul Shobe

Harold Dean Johnson’s son saw his father fall from a gunshot to the back of the head while the pair were attempting to stop a robbery at Domino’s on Stonehenge Avenue on Aug. 26.

Bowling Green Police Department Detective Michael Myrick testified in a preliminary hearing Friday that Johnson and his son, Harold Dean Johnson Jr., were watching television in their home on Wiltshire Street near Domino’s around midnight Aug. 26. The elder Johnson was on the phone with his girlfriend, an employee at the store, and heard the robbery taking place. Johnson Jr. told police that his father said the store was being robbed, and they left to go help the employees.

Johnson Jr. “said his father just got up and took off running out the front door, so he proceeded to follow his father toward Domino’s,” Myrick said in court testimony.

The elder Johnson was shot once and died on the scene.

Within hours, police arrested John Paul Shobe, 20, 2116 Rock Creek Road. Apt. 1. Shobe was charged with giving officers a false name, alcohol intoxication and second-degree fleeing and evading on foot, according to a release from BGPD and online records of the Warren County Regional Jail. Police obtained a search warrant for Shobe’s apartment and recovered evidence to add charges of murder and first-degree robbery, according to the release.

Warren District Judge Brent Potter found probable cause Friday to send the case against Shobe to an upcoming grand jury.

Myrick testified that when the Johnsons arrived at the store, Johnson Jr. monitored the front of the store while the elder Johnson took the back. Johnson’s son heard his father yell “Dean,” the name Johnson Jr. goes by. When Johnson’s son looked, he saw his father standing near the back of the building on the opposite end of Domino’s. Johnson’s son told police he heard a shot then saw his father fall to the ground.

Before the Johnsons arrived, the elder Johnson’s girlfriend was taking a smoke break behind the business and was on the phone with Johnson when a black male wearing dark clothing and a head covering approached her with a handgun and forced her back inside. The woman crawled under a table, and the suspect took her phone, demanding cash from the store safe as he pointed the gun at other employees, according to court testimony.

Domino’s surveillance footage showed the suspect later take Johnson’s girlfriend into the store office where money was laid out on the desk, according to Myrick’s testimony. After taking the money in a blue bank bag, the suspect left through the back of the store. Surveillance footage outside the store did not show the shooting.

Myrick said Johnson’s son called police to report that his father had been shot. Two Domino’s employees also called police to say that a suspect had robbed the store and left through the back. 

After the elder Johnson was shot, Johnson Jr. said he saw the suspect, with the gun at his side, run down Stonehenge Avenue, Myrick said.

Another employee told police that he had just gotten off work and was walking home when he heard yelling and what sounded like a firecracker. When the employee looked back toward the store, he saw the suspect running away.

Shortly after Myrick arrived on the scene about an hour after the robbery, where other officers were already conducting interviews and canvassing the area, Officer Jake Forrester called out on the radio that he was in pursuit of a black male headed toward Rock Creek Drive. A citizen near the pursuit heard Forrester yelling for the man, who was Shobe, to stop. The citizen extended his arm and Shobe ran into it and fell. At that point, Forrester arrested Shobe, according to Myrick’s testimony. Shobe gave Forrester a false Social Security number and false address, saying he lived at 2117 Rock Creek Drive. The Social Security number belonged to a female, and the address Shobe gave police does not exist.

When officers backtracked the area where the foot pursuit had taken place, they found women’s glasses, CDs and money. Shobe told police he had dropped a small amount of money, and officers found the amount to be about $200.

Police also found the edge of a corner plastic baggie that is used in the packaging of illegal drugs. The white Samsung phone that the suspect took from Johnson’s girlfriend during the robbery was found behind 2119 Rock Creek Drive, which is across the street from Shobe’s residence, Myrick said.

A K-9 unit tracked from the scene of the robbery and murder behind Stonehenge Avenue and toward Western Green Avenue. The K-9 lost the scent near the intersection of Western Green Avenue and Rock Creek Drive.

When police searched Shobe’s apartment later that day, they found clothes that seemed to match the clothes the suspect was wearing, such as a gray sweatshirt, gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt that appears to be similar to what the suspect had wrapped around his head. Additionally, police found cash inside a red Christmas stocking on a shelf and concealed by a board. The amount was $20 short of the amount stolen from Domino’s. Police also recovered a six-shot Ruger Blackhawk revolver with a long barrel, similar to the gun shown on the store surveillance footage, Myrick said. One round inside the revolver had been fired. The gun was between the mattress and box springs in Shobe’s apartment.

The blue bank bag that the suspect took was not recovered.

Police spoke with a female friend of Shobe, who said Shobe is unemployed and sells drugs. She said Shobe had been acting strangely in the days before the Domino’s robbery and bragged about having a gun and talked about robbing a drug dealer, Myrick said.

The autopsy of Johnson’s body yielded jacketing and fragments from the revolver round in Johnson’s head.

The white Samsung phone was swabbed for DNA and fingerprints were taken from various surfaces in the store.

The clothes and firearm recovered from Shobe’s apartment have been sent to the Kentucky State Police Laboratory for analysis, Myrick said.

During the preliminary hearing, Shobe’s friends and family sat behind him in the courtroom. On the opposite side of the aisle sat BGPD authorities and several Domino’s workers, who occasionally grabbed one another’s hands over the back of the seat.

Shobe is in the Warren County Regional Jail. His bond on the murder charge is set at $1 million, according to online jail records.

— Monica Spees covers police and crime news. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/BGDNcrime or visit bgdailynews.com.