Man Allegedly Kidnapped Daughter, Flew Rented Plane Into In-Law's Home

Those looking for answers in the Monday morning crash of Cessna 150 into a Bedford, IN home say they have little reason to doubt Eric Johnson kidnapped his eight-year-old daughter, Emily, and deliberately flew the rented plane into his former mother-in-law's home.

"I've got her, and you're not going to get her," Johnson, 47, said in a phone call to his ex-wife Beth just before the crash, according to Beth Johnson's mother Vivian Pace. Pace added her daughter could hear the child in the background saying "Mommy, come get me, come get me."

"That was the only way he could hurt Beth," Pace said. "That was the only way he could get to her."

The NTSB hasn't issued its Preliminary Report on the accident yet, and officials say they are also looking at the possibility some kind of mechanical failure could have led to the crash. The airport from which the plane departed, Virgil Grissom Municipal (BFR), is uncontrolled; investigators wouldn't comment if Johnson said anything over the radio before the crash.

The Associated Press reports Beth Johnson filed a missing persons report on her daughter Monday morning, when she failed to show up at school after a weekend vacation in Cancun with her father. By that time, the plane had already crashed.

Officials have found no notes or anything else indicating Johnson meant to crash the plane... but the fact the home belonged to his former mother-in-law certainly raises eyebrows.

"All of those things together lead us in the direction that this was done intentionally," said State Police Sgt. Dave Bursten.

Eric Johnson earned his pilot's license last November, the same month the couple's divorce was finalized after 12 years of marriage. Earlier in the year, according to court documents, Beth had filed a restraining order against her husband.

Pace maintains Johnson once threatened his wife at gunpoint to reconsider the divorce, but police say they have no record of such an incident.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov