Johnny Lewis

The year is 2012. Marvel Studios is well on its way to taking over cinema viewers
imaginations with the release of The Avengers. Christian Bale retires the Cowl in The Dark
Knight Rises. Channing Tatum drove women crazy, my wife included in Magic Mike. Jennifer
Lawrence became the highest grossing action heroine of all time starring in The Hunger Games.
She then starred opposite Bradley Cooper in an unlikely love story, complicated by loss and
mental illness in Silver Linings Playbook. The consequences of possible untreated mental
illness can be very serious. Today we look at the story of Johnny Lewis and his spiral
downwards. Im Justin Harvey and you're listening to Death and Hollywood

Johnny’s mother began taking her son on auditions when he was just six years old. He
was cast in his first role at seven, a bit part in an escalator safety video featuring a rapping
cartoon raccoon. He worked in commercials, including a Pizza Hut spot, and his bright smile
and solid acting chops scored him appearances on ​7th Heaven,​ ​Malcolm in the Middle​, and
Drake & Josh​. At 18, with money in his pocket, Lewis left his parents’ home in the Valley and
moved to Hollywood, where he lived with other actors in what was widely known in the
entertainment industry as the “Wilton Hilton.” “It was the frat row of young Hollywood.”

In the mid-2000s, Lewis began dating a fledgling pop singer named Katy Perry. A few
years before she would kiss a girl and take the world by storm. Scrawny but tough. His body
chiseled but not bulking. Blonde hair on piercing blue eyes with a joker like smile. The looks of
the next leading man. It all perfectly counterbalanced Perry’s teenybopper image. The romance
would be short-lived but potent—at least for Perry. Two songs off her ​Teenage Dream​ album,
“The One That Got Away” and “Circle the Drain,” are rumored to be partly about Lewis.

The actor’s choice of roles was eclectic. After ​The O.C.​ and other TV shows, Lewis
appeared in a one-off play and such indie fare as 2007’s ​Palo Alto, CA​, in which he played an
awkward teenager. He was loved by everybody. He merged with different groups really easily.
He fit in everywhere. Everywhere except the show that made him famous. In 2008 he’d land that
role playing an ex military man who lost a testicle while serving in Iraq affectionately known as
half-sac on the hit show Sons of Anarchy.

After just two seasons as Half-Sack Lewis became restless and asked to be written out
of the show. “Johnny wasn’t happy,” said series creator Sutter in a 2009 interview about Lewis’s
departure. “Creatively he really wanted out of his contract.”
An interview with his father would reveal that Johnny thought the show was getting too violent
and as an artist that wasn't the message he wanted to send.
 After leaving ​Sons​, Lewis would never return to television. Instead he appeared in a
couple of low-budget features and some short films, though he was more interested in living off
his ​Sons​ money while he finished writing his first novel, about a young musical genius making
his way in San Francisco.

In early 2009 Johnny would move into the Red Suite Writers Villa. The house at 3605
Lowry Road was luxurious yet homey, with exposed-wood beams and rustic antique furniture.
Spanish style tile floors matched the walls, which were painted a warm red, yellow, and cream.
The centerpiece of the house was a staircase inlaid with ceramic tiles leading to one of five
guest rooms, some with majestic views of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Catherine Davis, who was known by most of her tenants as just “Miss Cathy,” was a Texan who
had moved to California in 1950. She attended UCLA and worked in various publishing jobs
before marrying James H. Davis. By the 1980s, she was divorced, and her daughter, the writer
Margaret Leslie Davis, was grown up. So Miss Cathy took on a real estate career, using her
beautiful empty nest as a temporary base camp for her well-funded clients as they hunted for
houses.

Over time her home evolved into one of those idyllic, distinctly L.A. arrangements: an extended
bed-and-breakfast for up-and-coming performers, directors, and of course, writers. It was Davis,
a lively woman with short gray hair and a sparkling wit, who clinched the deal. Val Kilmer,
Parker Posey, Paula Poundstone, and Chris Parnell all lived at the villa when they were on the
rise, enjoying the company of the good-natured landlady. If a pitch or audition went poorly, Miss
Cathy would be there with open arms and homemade tamales. Her house was also an
emotional refuge for many celebrities. Thomas Jane moved into the villa after a tough breakup
with a live-in girlfriend in 2001.

Through word of mouth Davis’s reputation in the upscale Hollywood community grew.
When someone moved out there was always another star on the rise waiting to take their place
at the villa. The rent was steep, between $1,650 and $3,000 a month for one bedroom with a
sitting area and private bath. There were common areas, including a living room, a large
flagstone patio, and manicured grounds, as well as a shared kitchen. It was always filled with
successful people who were very ambitious.
 Thats same year Lewis learned that his new girlfriend, actress Diane Marshall-Green,
was pregnant. Even though not romantically involved the couple settled into into an Hollywood
apartment to raise their child together. On April 6, 2010, Marshall-Green gave birth to a girl,
Culla May. The arrangement, however, didn’t work, and Lewis moved out. He soon found
himself embroiled in what would be a long and painful custody battle, one that he would
eventually lose.

Then In late October 2011, Lewis loses control of his Triumph motorcycle near
Twentynine Palms. At the hospital the staff checked him for signs of a concussion, but he was
allowed to leave after tests came back negative. His father however, noticed that his son’s
behavior was becoming erratic and bizarre. Had the accident shaken something loose in his
brain? he wondered. The elder Lewis scheduled two more MRI appointments which Johnny
refused. His friends also reported his behavior changing after the accident.

Fast forward a bit to the morning of January 3, 2012, Lewis is lounging in the Northridge
condo he had bought for his parents, watching his mother cook them breakfast. Wearing
pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, He told his mom he was going to take a stroll through the
neighborhood. As he walked past a neighboring unit, he thought he heard cries of distress
coming from within and decided to break in. But the place was empty. Not long after, two men
arrived and asked him to leave the property. For some reason Lewis went after them with an
empty Perrier bottle, hitting them both in the head. A struggle started and the fight spilled out
onto the patio. Johnny bit one of the men on the arm while attempting to get away from the
scene. The two men overpowered him and detained him until the police arrived.

Lewis would claim he was acting in self-defense. Police were not sold and charged him
with trespassing, burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon, and he was sent to the Twin
Towers jail. Three days later his behavior landed him in the psychiatric ward as a 5150 This is
the code for involuntary confinement. He remained there for 72 hours.

After a total of eight days behind bars, his father bailed him out and Lewis returned to
his parents’ house in Northridge. He was a physical and mental wreck. His face was puffy, and
he sported two black eyes. He acted completely withdrawn not letting anyone near him for
multiple days.
 The next few weeks were a flurry of self-destructive activity, including slashing his wrists
in a suicide attempt. A network of family and friends kept a close eye on him. By the end of
January, Lewis seemed more stable, and his father decided to let him live on his own in Santa
Monica. Trouble quickly found Johnny though. On February 10 he was arrested for sucker
punching a man outside a yogurt shop. He was released on $20,000 bail. Days later he walked
fully clothed into the ocean in Santa Monica and had to be hospitalized for hypothermia. On
February 18th he was arrested again, this time for trying to break into a woman’s apartment in
Santa Monica claiming he thought it was a friends house. Again he was released on bail.

At his next court appearance. Lewis’s lawyer was working to allow Lewis to swap jail
time for a stay in a treatment center claiming Johnny was addicted to marijuana. On May 23,
2012, after two months in lockup, Lewis was transported to Ridge-view Ranch in the foothills of
Altadena. With an activities list that includes yoga, meditation, and art therapy, Ridgeview calls
itself a dual diagnosis facility, treating residents for psychosis and substance abuse. His family
believed his staying there was better than being in jail.

At Ridgeview Lewis’s claims of being “addicted to marijuana” didn’t fly with the trained
counselors and fellow addicts, so Lewis switched and pretended to be addicted to alcohol he
would say ‘that demon rum, man, it possessed me!’ At that point he said they started to believe
him.” Despite the far fetched diagnosis and treatment for a disease he didn’t believe he had,
Lewis’s mental state began to improve after a few months. In one of his journal entries, from
July 2012, Lewis wrote, “Felt more whole today…more complete, like parts of myself had been
stolen in my sleep and scattered all over the world and now they’ve begun to return…. I’m more
determined than ever now. I’ll face what I am. I’ll face what I was.”

What he was facing was serious time for the Northridge bottle assault. His lawyer sought
a plea deal. Lewis would spend an entire year at Ridgeview in lieu of jail. But Lewis confident
his case would be thrown out, ​It was self-defense!​ he claimed. He fired his lawyer, defiantly
acting as his own attorney, which Judge Cynthia Ulfig allowed. Lewis thought he would spend a
few days in jail, then resume his normal life. No more curfews and mandatory group sessions at
Ridge-view; he would be free.
 Instead he was sentenced to a year in jail and hauled back to Twin Towers. But because
of the county’s overcrowded jails, Lewis’s sentence was drastically reduced. He spent a total of
six weeks in jail before being released on September 21. The night he got out, he checked into
the Los Feliz Hotel in Atwater Village. The following Sunday his father helped him shop for new
clothes before driving him to the Valley to pick up his Triumph motorcycle. Lewis asked his
father to contact the Writers Villa to see if there was a space available. Since his son wasn’t
agreeable to returning to Ridgeview, his father believed the quiet and peaceful surroundings of
the villa would be the next best thing. I mean this is a place he was familiar with, it's quiet and
filled with good people. Cathy Davis agreed and made sure his old room would be ready and
waiting for him.

On Monday Lewis moved into his room on the second floor of the villa. On wednesday
September 26th 2012 he would knock on of the neighbors door.

“Hi, I’m John, your new neighbor.” If Dan Blackburn wasn’t completely stunned to see
the unkempt young man with intense blue eyes introducing himself at his doorstep, it was only
because the former newsman had just spent a good 15 minutes tracking his movements from
his living room window. Wearing nothing but jeans and red shoes, Blackburn’s visitor had been
pacing up and down the pavement of the corner of the Los Feliz Hills. He was lean and
muscular with shaggy blond hair. His bare torso was slick with sweat.

“Nice to meet you, John,” Blackburn replied, trying to figure out the man's motives. The
two men stood across from each other in Blackburn’s doorway before John who Blackburn
would later learn was the actor Johnny Lewis suddenly walked away and Blackburn returned to
his morning routine.

About 30 minutes after meeting Lewis at his door, Blackburn heard his wife, Gloria,
nervously calling for him. He rushed outside to find Lewis on top of a housepainter that was
painting the first floor of the Blackburn house, pummeling him with his fists. The worker’s face
was covered in blood. Specks of it were landing on the actor’s body. Blackburn rushed over and
pulled Lewis off the painter, grabbing him by the shoulder and yelling at him to stop. In one
movement Lewis jumped to his feet and struck Blackburn right to the face knocking the 70 year
old man to the ground. Lewis’s expression was flat and he seemed to have superhuman
strength. He didn’t even flinch when Blackburn stood up and threw a punch to his temple.
Blackburn then swung a chair from the deck onto Lewis, which stunned him enough that
Blackburn, his wife, and the painter were able to escape into the house. As they tried to shut the
front door, Lewis stuck his arm through the opening, as if in a scene from your favorite slasher
movie. The three put all their weight into the door, slamming it repeatedly against Johnny's arm
until he finally slithers away. The group barricade themselves inside and called the police.

From a window Blackburn saw Lewis leap over the 3 foot high fence around the deck and then
jump to the wooden fence surrounding the Writers’ Villa next door, his feet never seeming to
touch the ground. He scaled the fence and disappeared into the villa. “He was like a low-key
Spider-Man,” says Blackburn.

As the police pulled up to the Writers’ Villa, they spot Johnny Lewis in the middle of the
driveway, lying faceup and appearing lifeless. Looking at the villa, they saw the patio and roof,
which rose about 15 feet above the ground. They noted that Lewis’s left eye socket was caved
in. His skull was smashed just to the left of center. It appeared as though he had plunged from
either the second floor or the roof and died instantly.

Inside, the scene was even more gruesome. Walking upstairs from the first floor, which
was pristine, investigators stepped over broken glass before entering a large bedroom in the
southwest corner. They would discover this to be Lewis’s room. There they found a rusty
hammer with traces of blood on it. Following the path of destruction to the attached bathroom,
they discover the body of a dead cat in the shower covered in blood and its skull bashed in.

Across the hall from Lewis’s room they find the master bedroom, Cathy Davis’s room.
They see blood on her bed frame, wall, table, and chair. On the floor next to the bed they find
her body. The blunt-force trauma to her head “fractured her entire skull and obliterated the left
side of her face, leaving her brain exposed,” wrote Coroner’s Office medical examiner Kelli
Blanchard in her report. “Brain and tissue matter seen on the floor around her. Her face is
covered in blood. Her nose is split down the middle and her upper jaw is split open.” There were
also four small puncture wounds on her left cheek, presumably from a mechanical pencil found
beside the body. The official report, released two months later, revealed that Davis had been
killed by blunt-force trauma to the head.
 Investigators believe that just minutes after he had introduced himself to Blackburn,
Johnny went back to the villa and confronted Davis in her room. No one knows what fueled his
rage, but one rumor floated among Davis’s friends was that he had gone to the fuse box and
turned off the electricity the night before the attack. Davis had confronted him and given him a
stern talking to and warned to never do that again. Whatever the reason if there is one the
results were unimaginable. Lewis is believed to have punched Davis several times, then tried to
strangle her with his bare hands. It was unclear from the injuries whether he had used the
hammer found in his room on Davis, but the force of his beatings were so severe that the
detectives believe Lewis may have stomped on Davis’s skull. He then killed her cat and left it in
the shower.

Moments later, the detectives believe, Lewis went outside where he was observed
attacking the housepainter by the Blackburns. After that confrontation. He then ascended to
either the upper patio or the roof. It’s not possible to tell whether he jumped or slipped. His
death was officially ruled an accident, not a suicide.

As the news broke, a theory quickly emerged on the Internet: Lewis had been on “bath
salts,” the use of bath salts had made headlines in that spring. The snortable and injectable
powder was reportedly the catalyst for a handful of grisly attacks around the country, including
one by the notorious 31-year-old Florida “cannibal,” who was shot by police while biting and
eating the face of another man in the middle of a busy street. The ​New York Daily News​ also
threw out the possibility of another designer drug called “Smiles”—a psychedelic ingested as a
pill, powder, or mixed with chocolate that had been linked to a series of suicides and overdoses.

Johnny's friends and family disputed these rumors. While some Hollywood stars are
known for taking drugs in excess Johnny was known more for being intoxicating vs being
intoxicated. The family and the public would get some answers and possibly even more
questions with Lewis’s toxicology report. The report which came back two months after the
incident, indicated that there were no drugs or alcohol in his system. No bath salts, meth, or
cocaine—or his prescribed antipsychotic medication.

The toxicology report was a disappointment to many who thought this had to be the
reason for Johnny's actions. If it wasn’t drugs, what drove Johnny Lewis to murder?
 Those who were once close to Lewis expressed their grief. ​Us Weekly​ reported that Katy
Perry was “devastated,” and that her best friend, actress Shannon Woodward, tweeted: “Johnny
Lewis, I love you deeply and madly and always. My heart is broken in a million little pieces.” She
then added: “Johnny Lewis was one of my best friends. He was very, very ill. His actions were a
despicable result of that. It was not who he was.”

Among the 140-character condolences, one connection flatly admitted he wasn’t

surprised by Lewis’s homicidal frenzy: his former boss, Kurt Sutter. His tweet read, “I wish I
could say that I was shocked by the events last night, but I was not.”

But like any actor who manages to get some screen time, Johnny Lewis will remain
forever. Take his performance in ​Criminal Minds​, which you can find on YouTube. In a ratty gray
T-shirt, with his hair disheveled and sporting a wispy beard creeping across his square cut
jawline, the 25-year-old is playing a serial killer who’s just been caught. FBI special agent Rossi
wants some answers: Why? He asks Lewis’s character, Why do you feel compelled to kill?

“Why? I have no idea why,” says Lewis with an ashen grimace. “I see a guy walking
down the street with a stupid look on his face, and I just want to bash him over the head with a
bottle. To me, that’s normal. It’s weird to me that no one else feels that way. It’s all I think about.
I can’t stop.”

I don't know why Johnny Lewis committed this unthinkable act but maybe life truly
imitates art.

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