Woman gets 14-year sentence for 2000 kidnapping

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By ED WHITE
Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — A Wisconsin woman captured after living under an alias for 16 years was sentenced Tuesday to 14 years in prison for kidnapping a Detroit-area college student in 2000.

FBI agents mining social media discovered Kim Johns last year in Marathon County, where she was living under the name Kim McGuire. She had escaped a halfway house in 2000 while awaiting trial in federal court in Detroit.

In March, Johns was convicted of kidnapping her former lover at gunpoint and taking her on an eight-day journey to Illinois and Iowa. Prosecutors said she was upset because the 19-year-old woman was ending their relationship.

“I’m sorry for what happened in this case,” Johns, 47, told U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward said the victim and her family first had to endure the kidnapping and then years of anxiety over whether Johns would return to possibly harm them while she was a fugitive.

Defense attorney Chris Kessel acknowledged that Johns “made some very poor choices.” He said she was a “lost soul” back in 2000 looking for “love and affection” but otherwise has been a good citizen.

The judge said Johns had many opportunities during the eight-day kidnapping to step forward and end it.

“The conduct was monstrous, certainly from the perspective of the victim,” Steeh said.