Sex offender with DUI history suspected in crash that killed a husband, caregiver

Carolyn Adams-Woodall lost her husband and caregiver around 8 p.m. Monday night.

Nicholas Woodall, 34, was driving a red Mitsubishi on the bridge in the 600 block of West Harry when an oncoming Buick shot into his lane and hit him head-on.

Despite the determined efforts of emergency workers to revive him, Woodall died at the scene.

The Woodalls had been together almost 10 years. Adams-Woodall, 38, said Friday that she has breast cancer and that her husband had been helping to take care of her.

She found out Friday that the driver who crossed the center line and slammed into her husband is a registered sex offender with a history of driving under the influence and abusing alcohol.

“What is it going to take to get this man off the street?” she said.

“It just seems like one thing after another,” she said, citing the criminal record of 52-year-old Richard Lee Johnson, the man who crashed into her husband, according to incident reports.

Johnson, who was injured, remained in fair condition at a hospital Friday.

A warrant filed in court Wednesday says that Johnson is to be arrested and held on a $100,000 bond now that he is suspected of vehicular homicide in what authorities have said was an alcohol-related crash.

Johnson appears to have violated probation conditions by committing a hit-and-run and, minutes later, the vehicular homicide that killed Woodall, the warrant said.

“As soon as he’s well enough, they will pick him up and put him in jail,” Sedgwick County Department of Corrections Director Glenda Martens said Friday.

The Wichita Police Department announced late Friday on its Facebook page and Twitter that Johnson had been arrested for a probation violation.

“Once investigators have all the necessary information, the case will be presented to the District Attorneys office as quickly as possible,” according to the Facebook post.

Because probation officials determined that Johnson posed a high risk, he was put on a high level of supervision as of Feb. 10, Martens said.

Johnson has a valid driver’s license, she said.

‘Been drinking alcohol’

For years, Johnson has been a registered sex offender and more recently has been under probation for another sexually motivated crime, court records show.

At the West Harry crash scene Monday night, he admitted to two witnesses that he “had been drinking alcohol,” the warrant said. Among his probation requirements is that he not drink alcohol.

Without referring to Johnson by name, police have said that a 1991 Buick Regal driven by a 52-year-old man crossed the center line and smashed head-on into the car driven by Woodall. Police officials have said they won’t comment more on the case until next week.

The fatal crash occurred shortly after a hit-and-run at Broadway and Harry that caused minor damage to another vehicle. The driver of that car was hit from behind by an older blue car that left the scene. The fatal crash occurred a half mile west of the hit-and-run location.

Previous DUIs

Johnson has previous convictions for driving under the influence, including one in Arkansas City in 2009 and one in Wichita in 1997, court records show.

And this week’s arrest warrant isn’t the first time that Johnson has been in trouble over alcohol while on probation, according to court records. On April 11, he acknowledged that he had consumed alcohol. He received 48 hours in jail as a sanction.

In a plea agreement in July 2015, he promised to get substance abuse treatment and long-term after-care, to attend at least three Alcoholic Anonymous meetings a week, to submit to random drug and alcohol testing, to wear a monitor for his first six months on probation, to complete sex offender treatment and to “comply with any prescribed medications.”

Sex-related crimes

The state sex offender registry lists Johnson as living in the 1800 block of South Glenn and having a blue 1991 Buick Regal. The Buick matches the description and license plate of the car that was involved in the hit-and-run and that crashed into Woodall’s car, according to police and witness accounts.

Johnson was put on the sex offender registry for a 1998 felony conviction for aggravated burglary-sexually motivated. The burglary occurred in September 1997 in Wichita. Johnson was sentenced in 1998 and served time in prison, and his sentence ended in December 2009.

In 2014, prosecutors charged him with another sexually motivated crime while he remained on the sex-offender registry. He was arrested in Wichita on suspicion of using a cellphone camera to take pictures under a woman’s skirt while she was shopping in a Wal-Mart store, records said.

The cellphone camera incident occurred in an aisle at the Wal-Mart store at 501 E. Pawnee, police said. When a 54-year-old woman reached over to get an item, a man allegedly sneaked up from behind to take a snapshot, police said.

Johnson was arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of breach of privacy and use of concealed recording equipment. He spent the next year in jail.

In May 2015, Johnson pleaded guilty to a felony — “breach of privacy-installing camera or photographic equipment or device of another person,” records show. He received probation.

The loss

On Friday, Adams-Woodall said her husband liked going to family picnics and playing poker. Woodall was a Mississippi native and moved to Wichita about 10 years ago.

Although he had a disability, diabetes and weight problems, he helped friends and family by giving them rides and taking them to appointments, Adams-Woodall said.

He was on his way to see some of her relatives in east Wichita when the other car slammed into him, she said.

This story was originally published August 19, 2016 at 7:06 AM with the headline "Sex offender with DUI history suspected in crash that killed a husband, caregiver."