A memorial service for Corporal Terry Johnson of the Sebastian County Sheriff’s Office will be held at 1 p.m., Saturday, March 9 at Community Bible Church on Dallas Street in Fort Smith.
The service will include full law enforcement honors, according to Investigator Philip Pevehouse. Johnson’s funeral arrangements are being handled by the Edwards Funeral Home.
He leaves behind his wife, Carla, his mother, father, brothers and sisters, Pevehouse said.
Johnson, a patrol corporal who had been with the Sebastian County Sheriff’s Office since 1996, died at approximately 12:42 p.m. in the intensive care unit at Mercy Hospital in Fort Smith, the Sheriff’s Office said in a release Saturday. The accident happened at approximately 4:20 a.m., March 2 on Highway 96 near a pizza restaurant in Lavaca.
A witness called 911 to say he had heard a loud crash and saw Johnson’s patrol car on its side in a ditch. First responders had to use the “jaws of life” to remove Johnson from the vehicle.
Johnson’s death stunned the close-knit Sebastian County Sheriff’s Office, as well as fellow law enforcement officers.
He was born and raised in LeFlore County just outside of Spiro.
