The Dehumanizing Factor

About the Book

My book starts with a courtroom drama with Johanna Gail Johnson on trial for first-degree murder. She is found innocent of those charges but guilty of premeditation and ordered to serve five years in a minimum security prison. Johanna sits through a lengthy trial. Her life gets completely exposed as she hears testimony from those who did not hear her pleas for help. “Her story was too bizarre to be true. We thought her complaints were just normal problems between husband and wife.” In prison, she works in the main cafeteria and becomes friends with Mona Lisa, who says the kitchen is her domain. All the characters in prison have fictional names like Mona Lisa. Johanna becomes Shotgun. Their fictional names sometimes represent their looks but, more often, the crime they committed. Through the counseling with the chaplain, Johanna realizes what set her up to become a victim.

About the Author

I am a Texan transplanted Fresno California. I started my adult as a Bank Bookkeeper, somehow I ventured into the medical field. After retirement I joined a writing group. I started off with short stories that I sold to True Love Magazines, Woman’s World amd the Fresno Bee Newspaper. I love the characters that come right out of my head when I write. I wrote, A LITTLE OLE’ BOLL WEEVIL JUST LOOKIN’ FOR A HOME, and BECAUSE YOU LOVE ME, both are fictional characters. The Boll Weevil story is me at age four, riding all over the USA with my drunk “ Daddy,” while we looked for a home for me. I am one-quarter Indian so one of the places he teied to place me after my mother died was the Indian reservation in Chacota, Oklahoma. The Indians gave me a new perspective on life.