Community-Minded Woman, Killed - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Community-Minded Woman, Killed

The four people murdered in New Town leave behind three other family members - Martha Johnson's husband Harley, and two siblings to the three children who were killed.

And neighbors say it's how the seven of them came to be living together that's one example of the kind of person Martha Johnson was.

Jim Olson reports.

(Dale Uran, New Town Resident) "It's about the worst tragedy I've seen around New Town. It's too bad she was a wonderful person."

Dale Uran lives just down the street from the Johnson home - where Sunday's murders hit the small town hard.

(Dale Uran, New Town Resident) "It sure shook up the town."

Nina Uran says that Martha and Harley Johnson - newly retired - did a great thing in taking in their five grandchildren when their parents could not care for them.

(Nina Uran, New Town Resident) "It was a big job to take on five children. They did it and they were wonderful kids..."

Nina says Martha was always helping others in the community

(Nina Uran, New Town Resident) "She was very active in affairs in New Town. I know she was active in American Legion and our church, she was president of the church council at Bethel Lutheran Church."

She says that community spirit will be greatly missed - as will the three young grandchildren whose lives were so prematurely snuffed out.

(Nina Uran, New Town Resident) "It's sad."

Sadness on a terrible scale in this small town. In New Town, Jim Olson, KX News.

Martha Johnson and her grandchildren are not enrolled members of the Three Affiliated Tribes, although the suspect in the case was a member and that's why the FBI has taken the lead in the investigation.