Bullitt County Coroner Dave Billings said Johnson — a Republican state representative and self-proclaimed “Pope” of his Louisville church — died of “a penetrating gunshot wound to the head.”
The authorities found Johnson’s body Wednesday night after responding to a report about a concerning statement on his Facebook page. Officials had tracked the lawmaker’s phone to his location, near a bridge in Mount Washington, Ky., in a spot called the River Bottoms.
Johnson had suffered a single gunshot wound to his head, said Billings, the coroner. The Bullitt County Sheriff’s Office said a gun was recovered at the scene.
Billings officially ruled the 57-year-old’s death a suicide. Johnson’s body will now be released to his family for a funeral, the coroner told The Washington Post on Thursday morning. “I’m going to talk to his wife right now,” Billings said.
At his church Tuesday, Johnson had denied the molestation allegations and rejected calls to resign from Kentucky’s House of Representatives.
The following afternoon, he posted a message on Facebook again denying the accusations, saying they were “false . . . and only GOD knows the truth, nothing is the way they make it out to be.”
In the chilling, since-deleted post, Johnson added: “I cannot handle it any longer . . . BUT HEAVEN IS MY HOME.”
Hours later, he was found dead.