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Markland Found Dead Last March In Arnolds Valley
By Joseph Haney
Leland David Johnson, 44, entered a guilty plea to a charge of murder in the first degree in Rockbridge County Circuit Court on Monday in connection to the death of Stormie Markland last March.
A pre-sentence report was ordered, and a sentencing hearing will be held on June 18 at 9:30 a.m. The first-degree murder charge carries a penalty of 20 years to life in prison.
At the hearing Monday morning, Rockbridge County Commonwealth’s Attorney Jared Moon presented a summary of the case and included evidence that would have been presented against
, page 4 Johnson had the case gone to trial.
Markland, he said, was living on McKenny Lane just off of Arnolds Valley Road in Natural Bridge Station, along with her father, two sisters, her brother-in-law and her 7-yearold son. Johnson is the father of Markland’s son, and Moon noted that the two of them had “an on-again, off-again relationship but were not together at the time of the offense.”
On Wednesday, March 15, Johnson called Markland and asked if he could pick up their son for the weekend. When asked why, Johnson replied, “Because this would be the last time I will see my son.” That conversation was held on speaker phone and Breezy Markland, one of Stormie’s sisters, overheard the conversation.
Johnson picked up his son for the weekend as planned and brought him back home just before 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 19. Johnson instructed his son to “ask his mother to come speak with him and not to come back out of the house.”
Markland went outside and spoke with Johnson, then told her father that they were “going to get some beer and money, and she would be right back.” They then departed in Johnson’s light blue 1993 GMC single-cab pickup truck.
Markland did not return home that evening, and efforts to contact her and Johnson went unanswered through the night and into the next morning.
Just before noon on March 20, Johnson answered his phone and denied knowing where Markland was, saying that he’d dropped her off at the Country Store in Natural Bridge and that she’d said she would walk the mile and a half back home. Moon noted that Markland had “had significant issues with her hips for many years and walking long distances was very difficult.”
Markland’s family filed a missing person’s report later that night and the Virginia State Police began their investigation into her disappearance. They obtained security video from the Natural Bridge Country Store that showed Markland and Johnson arriving together at 7:01 p.m. on March 19 in Johnson’s truck. The pair entered the store and Markland got a 40-ounce Bud Iced beer and Johnson also got a drink. Markland paid for the drinks and they left together in Johnson’s truck at 7:07 p.m., heading south on Arnold’s Valley Road.
Moon made note of the clothing that Markland and Johnson were wearing in the video. Markland was wearing a blue jacket, gray sweatpants with black and white stripes and pink lettering on one the legs, and black shoes with white trim. Johnson was wearing a camouflaged jacket that “he was known to wear on a regular basis.”
When investigators from the Virginia State Police spoke to Johnson on March 21, he said that he didn’t know where Markland was. He said that he had taken her to the country store but that she had gone inside alone and he had waited in his truck. He also told investigators that he dropped her off at McKenny Lane and she was going to walk the rest of the way home.
When asked if he had a gun on him, Johnson “became visibly agitated and defensive,” eventually acknowledging that he did own guns, but did not have one on him at the time.
Investigators kept Johnson under surveillance overnight on the 21st as he slept in his truck in the parking lot of a local hotel. The next morning, they approached the truck and spoke with Johnson, at which point Johnson gave consent to a search of the vehicle. In the back of the truck, investigators found “a duffel bag containing various snack items, including several small oranges known as ‘Cuties.’” Investigators did not find a gun or the camouflaged jacket seen on the security video.
A 911 call around 1 p.m. in the afternoon of March 22 reported a dead body off Hoppers Creek Road, a “windy, gravel road going up Thunder Ridge Mountain.”
The body, which was later identified as Markland’s, was found “at the base of a tree, 10 to 15 feet off the side of the road.” Several red stains that “were consistent with blood” were found in the gravel at the side of the road, and drag marks through the leaves showed “a path directly leading up to the body.”
The clothing on the body, which was consistent with what Markland was seen wearing in the security video, also showed signs of having been dragged, with the sweatpants being pulled down “just below her hips” and the jacket appearing to have been “pulled up from the shoulders, exposing her mid-section.”
A 40-ounce Bud Ice beer bottle was found approximately 30 yards from the body and forensic analysis of the bottle revealed five fingerprints, which were matched to Markland’s. Orange peels, which “appeared a little weathered but were relatively fresh” were also found at the scene, approximately 50 yards from the body. No shell casings were found at the scene.
An autopsy determined that Markland had been killed by two gunshot wounds. The first entered her upper neck, just below the right side of her jaw and exited on the left side of the back of her neck. That bullet penetrated her upper airway, which contained “an abundant amount of aspirated blood,” which indicated that “she continued to breathe for a period after sustaining this injury.” The entrance wound from the second shot was found to the right side of the back of her head and did not have a corresponding exit wound. In the opinion of the medical examiner, Moon noted, both shots were “near contact to close range gunshot wounds.”
In addition to the security video showing Johnson’s truck leaving the Natural Bridge Country Store, several other security video and witness testimony helped show the route between the store and the location where the body was found.
Security video taken at 861 Arnolds Valley Road shows a truck matching the description of Johnson’s driving south on Arnolds Valley Road at 7:10 p.m. and video from a church located at 1148 Arnolds Valley Road and 15 Baptist Circle shows the truck passing “between one and two minutes thereafter.” Those same cameras all show the truck driving north “approximately 23 minutes later.”
Additionally, Sage Setterfield, who was cleaning a cabin located at 47 Burks Lane, about a quarter of a mile from the location where the body was found, would have testified to seeing the truck pass “somewhere between 7 and 7:30 p.m. heading down the mountain on Hoppers Creek Road.” Moon said that the truck stuck out in her mind because “she happened to like the color of the truck and she doesn’t usually see many vehicles traveling up and down that road.”
Later in the day on March 22, Johnson was brought to the Rockbridge County Sheriff’s Office for questioning where he maintained that he’d dropped Markland off at McKenny Lane and didn’t have anything to do with her death.
When confronted with the video evidence of his truck heading south on Arnolds Valley Road, he again insisted that he had dropped Markland off, but eventually Johnson relented and stated “So what? We went for a joy ride. We went up the mountain. We had a talk.”
When asked what they talked about, Johnson “said that it didn’t matter and ended the conversation.”
A search warrant was executed on Johnson’s phone, and in his web history, searches for “shooting investigations” and “Virginia Police shooting investigations” were entered around 2 p.m. on March 22, which was “less than an hour after the initial 911 call reporting a dead body and about the same time that law enforcement were still arriving at the scene.”
On March 24, a search warrant was executed at the residence of Johnson’s mother, where Johnson would stay from time to time in a furnished room in a barn located behind the house.
Inside the room, a bag containing a box for a Taurus .38 caliber snub nosed revolver was found, and Johnson’s mother acknowledged that she had seen Johnson take the bag into the barn. The gun was not inside the box, but the box did contain an owner’s manual which had a photo of the gun on the outside of it.
Two witnesses – Steven Coerver, Markland’s brotherin- law who lived in the same residence with her, and Gregory Hartbarger, an acquaintance of Johnson’s – picked a photo of a .38 caliber snub nosed revolver out of a lineup of handguns, identifying it as one that they had seen in Johnson’s possession.
Additionally Hartbarger would have testified to receiving a call from Johnson on the night of Markland’s disappearance between 9 and 10 p.m. asking for a jumpstart on his truck, and to comments that Johnson made to him afterwards.
Johnson told Hartbarger, “I think I did something bad,” and went on to day that he had “fired two shots and didn’t know if he’d hit an animal or a person.”
Hartbarger would have also testified that Johnson had showed him the gun that night, a fully loaded six-chamber revolver, and two empty shell casings he pulled from his pocket. Hartbarger also noticed “something red” on Johnson’s boot and the bottom of his right leg. -Following the plea hearing, Moon told The News-Gazette that Markland’s family “is very pleased with the guilty plea” and will have the opportunity to testify at the sentencing hearing on June 18 to “express how the recent murder has affected them and their lives.”
He also expressed thanks to the Virginia State Police and the Rockbridge County Sheriff’s Office for the “many hours put into investigating this case,” and thanked the citizens of Rockbridge County “who cooperated with the investigation and provided investigators with information, and a few who came forward.
“Without the efforts and willingness to assist law enforcement, we would not have a guilty plea today,” he said. “I think this shows what a great county we live in.”
