Chubbuck man jailed after brutal attack and rape that left woman hospitalized

Editor’s note: This story contains details of a graphic nature. Reader discretion is advised.

POCATELLO — A man police say beat, raped and twice choked a woman into unconsciousness faces multiple felonies.

Burdette Taylor Johnson, 41, of Chubbuck, is charged with rape when resistance is futile, forcible penetration by use of a foreign object, domestic battery and attempted strangulation, court records show.

Chubbuck Police officers responded to reports of a sexual assault on April 3, according to an affidavit of probable cause. They went to the Portneuf Medical Center, where they spoke with the victim, who was being treated in one of the hospital’s emergency rooms and getting a CT scan.

The victim told officers she began receiving messages from one of Johnson’s family members several days before the attack threatening her with violence for “snitching.” The affidavit does not indicate what, if any, incident the victim had informed police over, but the victim did report the threatening messages to police.

The victim said the family member told her she would “regret” telling police.

Johnson, whom the victim knew before the attack, “snapped” the following day, she told police, and did “ugly things.” The victim told officers that she and Johnson were “hanging out” and everything seemed fine, then he “flipped and beat her up,” the affidavit says.

She said she sustained “several injuries” during the attack. Officers asked the victim if she was willing to remove some of the makeup they believed she was using to cover some of the injuries, which she did.

Among the injuries sustained, the victim told the officers that her back, head and base of her neck were all in a great deal of pain. She said her face was swollen from Johnson “punching her like a man.”

Officers also describe in police reports bruising on her jaw and neck, which she said was from Johnson “choking her to unconsciousness” as he raped her. Johnson choked her, the victim said, because she was screaming for help.

She said that while Johnson was sexually assaulting her, he was still punching and elbowing her. Johnson attempted to bite her nipple off during the attack, she added. All the while, Johnson was whispering in her ear, “Don’t you want it?” she said.

When he was done, Johnson choked the victim unconscious for a second time, the affidavit says. When she woke up, he was gone. She went to the bathroom to clean herself and found that Johnson had drawn an eye on the bathroom wall.

She believed it was to meant to say he was watching her.

The victim underwent a SANE — sexual assault nurse examiner — kit and had DNA collected from her body.

After speaking with the victim, officers went to her home and found hair on the floor in the bedroom and stains on the mattress cover, which technicians collected as evidence.

Officers then went to the motel where Johnson was known to be living at the time but were unable to locate him.

The affidavit does not indicate how Johnson was found and arrested, but he was boooked into Bannock County Jail, where he is being held on a $100,000 bond.

Though Johnson has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty.

If he is found guilty, Johnson would face up to life in prison.

He is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing before Magistrate Judge Carol Tippi Jarman on April 22.