CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014 It’s been a little more than a month since Cape Coral Police said 28-year-old Devin Johnson stabbed his mom in their home 100 times. Now his sister, Renee Caney, is speaking only with Fox 4’s Bella Line about Devin’s history with mental health. <\/p>\n
Bella Line spoke with Caney outside of the Lee County Courthouse about what she hopes happens in her brother’s case:<\/p>\n
Sister of accused Cape Coral killer calls for mental health reform after their mother’s murder<\/p>\n
Renee Caney discovered her mother’s body in September and said the traumatic scene will stay with her forever.<\/p>\n
“You don’t want to believe that your brother did something of that magnitude,” Caney said. “I was the daughter that found her, and I’ll never unsee what I saw that day. For how violent it was, how could you do that to your own mother?”<\/p>\n
A cross now sits at the front door of Rosemary Johnson’s home as a memorial to the woman Caney describes as “sweet and loving and caring.”<\/p>\n
Caney said her brother wasn’t always troubled and describes him as “sweet and innocent” growing up, before he “spiraled” in recent years.<\/p>\n
Court documents reveal the family had been dealing with escalating issues. In March, records show that Rosemary filed a petition for a restraining order against her son, writing “I am staying at my daughters because I don’t feel safe around him.”<\/p>\n
The paperwork also said Devin Johnson has schizophrenia and was receiving treatment at SalusCare. Caney told detectives her brother had previously been Baker Acted.<\/p>\n
“We have a huge crisis in this country with mental illness, and there’s just something needs to be done about it,” Caney said.<\/p>\n
Despite the tragedy, Caney said she hopes her brother will receive mental health treatment rather than a potential life sentence in prison, which is he facing. <\/p>\n
“He’s not going to get the help that he needs in a prison,” she said. “He’ll get the help that he needs in a mental facility.”<\/p>\n
Johnson is expected back in court on Dec. 2.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. \u2014 It’s been a little more than a month since Cape Coral Police said 28-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[3862,209,263,211,210,265,7438,11504,264,17633,17634,1933,8517],"class_list":["post-22825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-bella-line","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-florida","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-crime","tag-devin-johnson","tag-exclusive","tag-fox-4","tag-jacaranda","tag-lee-county-florida","tag-murder","tag-rosemary-johnson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}