On April 12, 2011, at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls, 63-year-old corrections officer Ronald Johnson was attacked and murdered by two inmates who were in the midst of a prison escape.

The two prisoners, Eric Robert and Rodney Berget, were charged with murdering Johnson and were sentenced to death by the courts of South Dakota.

[1] On the morning of April 12, 2011, the date of his 63rd birthday, corrections officer Ronald Johnson, who had been on the job for 23 years and was close to retiring, was working in the Pheasantland Industries, a print shop building located within the prison compound of South Dakota State Penitentiary, where inmates work on upholstery, signs, furniture, and other projects.

Nordman provided the two men with the weapons they needed to facilitate their escape, specifically the pipe used to batter Johnson to death and the plastic wrap used to cover his head.

Posing as a corrections officer, Robert pushed the cart out of the shop and headed toward the west gate of the prison compound.

Jodi Hall, a female corrections officer, noticed that Robert had not swiped his identification card and asked him to identify himself.

At age 25, in 1987, while serving a jail term for grand theft and prison escape, Berget and five other inmates broke out of the South Dakota State Penitentiary.

Roger was ultimately executed at age 39 on June 8, 2000, while Smith's death sentence was commuted to life without parole after an appeal in 1992.

Several witnesses were called to testify about Berget's tragic childhood and dark past, and the defense implored the court to not impose the death sentence but opt for life imprisonment on humanitarian grounds.

[14] Nordman, who pleaded guilty but insane to two charges of rape and abuse of a minor in July 1990, was sentenced to life in prison.

Robert shared his last meal of ice cream with his lawyer and fasted for 40 hours for religious reasons prior to his execution.

In his last words, Robert stated that he forgave the warden Douglas Weber for executing him before a single dose of pentobarbital was administered to him.

He was pronounced dead at 10:24 p.m.[18][19] Johnson's widow attended the execution and told reporters in a statement that she wanted people to remember "how kind, how wonderful and caring" her husband was.

Berget reportedly explained that he would not face the prospect of spending at least 30 years in jail under a life sentence and hoped to be executed soon.

[37] On October 29, 2018, 56-year-old Rodney Berget was put to death via lethal injection at South Dakota State Penitentiary, six years after the execution of his accomplice Eric Robert.

[40] For his last meal, Berget ordered pancakes, waffles, maple syrup and butter, breakfast sausages, scrambled eggs, french fries, Pepsi, and Cherry Nibs licorice.

[41][42] Before receiving a single dose of pentobarbital, Berget reportedly made a joking remark, "Sorry for the delay, I got caught in traffic."

Toni Schafer, Johnson's daughter, stated that Berget "chose to be evil" and should pay the price for murdering her father.

In the end, the bill to repeal capital punishment was narrowly rejected by a majority vote of 7–6, allowing South Dakota to retain the death penalty, and it indirectly enabled Berget to be executed four years later for murdering Johnson.

[48] In 2014, Lynette filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the South Dakota Department of Corrections, citing that the state prison officials' negligence of duty was part of the reason that led to the murder of her husband.

[50] In October 2018, during the final week leading up to the execution of Berget, Lynette Johnson told a newspaper that she continued to struggle with sadness over the murder of her husband.

Lynette commented that while the family might not fully find closure with the execution of Berget, she was at peace with the knowledge that he would not harm another corrections officer or anyone else in society.

[51] In December 2018, two months after Berget was put to death, Lynette filed a lawsuit to have her late husband's belongings and corrections officer uniform returned to her.

The court ruled that the uniform was state property and belonged to the South Dakota Department of Corrections and did not return it to Lynette.