Grandmother gagged and killed by man released from Florida prison week earlier, cops say

A grandmother who didn’t show up to work one day was found dead, bound and gagged at the hands of a man who had been released from prison a week earlier, authorities said.

Law enforcement conducted a welfare check at the home of 57-year-old Sherry Clark on Nov. 10 after her father called with concern that she didn’t come in for work, Dale County Sheriff Mason Bynum said in a news conference broadcast by WTVY.

When investigators entered Clark’s home, they said they found her dead in her bedroom with “severe trauma” to her head and neck.

Based on “digital evidence,” investigators identified the suspect as 29-year-old James Albert Johnson Jr., who had been briefly staying with family next door to Clark, according to the sheriff.

Johnson was released from prison in Florida on Nov. 3 after being sentenced to four years behind bars on a burglary of an unoccupied dwelling charge in 2020, Department of Corrections records show.

He’s now been charged with murder, the Alabama sheriff said.

“Sherry was a kind, loving mother, sister, daughter and a grandmother who loved her family very much,” Shelly Linderman with the Wiregrass Angel House said in a statement on behalf of the family.

An autopsy is pending, and deputies declined to share a possible motive.

“By all accounts, Sherry Clark went to work every day and came home and kept to herself and didn’t bother anyone,” Bynum said.

She worked at Avis Car Rental at a nearby airport in Dothan, authorities said.

Dale County is about an 85-mile drive southeast from Montgomery.

This story was originally published November 13, 2024 at 1:09 PM with the headline "Grandmother gagged and killed by man released from Florida prison week earlier, cops say."