KENNETT, Mo. – Dunklin County Prosecuting Attorney Nicholas Jain announces that Benny Lynn Johnson, 59, of Milan, Tennessee was convicted by a Stoddard County Jury on October 20th of the felonies of driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident. The jury recommended the maximum possible sentence on each of three charges of driving while intoxicated causing a death and two charges of leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident.
This case stems from the deaths of Tiffini Santana, 32, Phoenix Santana, 10, and Jackson Venneman, 2, all of Butler, Missouri who were killed on July 4, 2017 when Johnson struck them with his truck. The evidence presented during the three-day trial was that after attending a fireworks show in Malden, they were stranded with a flat tire on Route MM near the Dunklin County and Stoddard County line. The three were getting into a vehicle to leave the area when Johnson’s truck sideswiped that car and struck and killed them. Johnson was driving more than 80 miles an hour according to data from his vehicle’s airbag module. He then left the scene before later failing to negotiate a curve and becoming stuck in a field.
Jain presented evidence from a witness who was behind Johnson’s vehicle who stopped in an attempt to render aid to the victims and called 911. Responding law enforcement witnesses, as well as two surviving victims of the crash, also testified. The Missouri State Highway Patrol performed a crash reconstruction and vehicle parts from Johnson’s truck were found at the crime scene. Laboratory analysis revealed his blood alcohol content to be in excess of the legal limit hours after the crash. At the time of the crash, the Highway Patrol Crime Lab estimated his blood alcohol content to be two and a half to four times the legal limit of .08 percent.
After the jury found Johnson guilty of three counts of driving while intoxicated causing a death and two counts of leaving the scene of an accident, the jury heard victim impact testimony from family members of the victims. Prosecutor Jain asked the jury to choose the maximum possible sentence for Johnson who was also found guilty in 2015 of driving while intoxicated. The jury returned a sentencing recommendation of 10 years in the Missouri Department of
Corrections on each of the three DWIs and 4 years each on the two charges of leaving the scene of an accident, as well as a fine, which is the maximum possible sentence under the law.
The jury trial was presided over by The Honorable Joe Z. Satterfield. Judge Satterfield set a sentencing hearing for December 1, 2021 at 10 a.m. following a sentencing assessment report by the Division of Probation and Parole.
Jain thanks the Missouri State Highway Patrol, and all the additional agencies who responded to this crash, for their work in this case.