Terrorism Victim. An American living and working in Saudi Arabia, he was kidnapped and murdered by members of the al Qaeda terrorist group. A native of Stafford Township, New Jersey, Johnson worked for the Lockheed Martin Corporation in Saudi Arabia as a helicopter engineer, upgrading Saudi military purchased AH-64A Apache Attack Helicopters. He had lived in Saudi Arabia for more than ten years, spoke Arabic, and loved the Saudi culture. Because of this, he did not live in a protected foreign expatriate enclave, but lived among the Saudi people. He often sent home quotations of Arabic verses, translated into English, for his family to read. He was married to a Thai woman, Thanom, and had two children, a son and a daughter; all three lived in New Jersey. Johnson was kidnapped on June 11, 2004, by an Islamic group led by Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin. The group would claim to be a part of the al Qaeda terrorist group. On June 15, he was seen on an Islamic website, in which his kidnappers demanded the release of all terrorists then being held in Saudi custody and that all Westerners were to leave the Arabian Peninsula. Both the American government and the Saudi government refused the kidnappers demands, but opened up channels for negotiations to the kidnappers to discuss other possibilities. On June 18, Johnson was seen again on a new video posted to the Islamic website. This time, Johnson was blindfolded and sitting next to an armed masked guard. Johnson was required to read some statements, after which three militants held him down while another beheaded him on the video. Later that same day, Al-Muqrin and three other militants were killed by Saudi police while trying to dispose of Johnson's body, minus its head. Killed with Al-Muqrin were Rakan Alsaykhan and the brothers, Bandar and Faisal Aldakheel; all four men were wanted by Saudi authorities. The Saudi government later announced that five Saudi policemen died in the gunbattle with the militants. Johnson's head was found three days later in a refrigerator in a villa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The complete body was returned to his family in New Jersey for proper burial.