FASHIONABLE CANAL VICTIM MINGLED WITH THE MIGHTY

Miami Herald, The (FL) - January 30, 1986

Author/Byline: EDNA BUCHANAN Herald Staff Writer

Edition: FINAL
Section: LOCAL
Page: 4D
Readability: 6-8 grade level (Lexile: 1020)
Middle-aged, well-manicured and fashionably dressed, she was once involved with powerful men. She lived well, in an oceanfront
penthouse in Miami Beach.
She died mysteriously, found last week in an Everglades canal, her head missing -- apparently torn off by a hungry alligator or crocodile.
The clue to what killed Margaret Jean Carlson Johnston, 47, may have vanished forever with the creature that mauled her body after her
death.
The attack on that specific part of her body "raises the question of what was there," Dade County Associate Medical Examiner Dr. Roger
Mittleman said Wednesday. "It is often the case that an animal will go after an injured area. If the head was injured, it would not be
unreasonable for the animal to attack that spot."
Born in Sydney, Australia, Johnston said she was a self- employed interior designer.
In the 1970s, however, she was on the Laborers Union payroll. In the spring of 1976, she was subpoenaed to appear before a federal
grand jury investigating labor racketeering. She also had to answer federal authorities for failing to appear as a prosecution witness at the
1975 trial of Laborers president Bernard Rubin.
During the trial Rubin admitted using union funds to buy a plane ticket to Boston in his wife's name. His wife never used it. Margaret
Johnston used it instead.
Rubin, convicted of 103 counts of embezzlement, income tax invasion and racketeering, served a prison term and was subsequently
released.
Johnston lived in a penthouse at The Oliver House, 5333 Collins Ave. She seldom went to the pool or mingled with the other tenants.
An employee says she was last seen Jan. 10.
Boaters spotted her body in a canal along Krome Avenue, six miles north of Southwest Eighth Street Wednesday, Jan. 22.
She remained unidentified for days.
After a story in The Herald, an acquaintance of Margaret Johnston called the morgue. He described an old burn scar on her right arm.
The right arm on the unidentified body bore such a scar. Fingerprints confirmed the identification.
"She was a real sweet lady," says attorney Keith Haymes.
Haymes represented Johnston last year in "a little misunderstanding" that took place while she was shopping. Johnston had picked up
two swim suits -- one of them a bikini -- at the Neiman Marcus store at the Galleria in Broward County.
Store officials said she never paid for them. They had her arrested on shoplifting charges. "It was just absent-minded, not shoplifting,"
Haymes said.
"She always maintained her innocence," he said. The negotiated guilty plea, "was more or less a plea of convenience." On June 5, 1985,
a judge withheld an adjudication of guilt and sentenced Johnston to 18 months probation. She did not live long enough to complete the
sentence.
The manner of Johnston's death -- murder, suicide or accident -- is still a mystery.
Her car is still missing, according to police, who say family members are en route here from Australia to claim the remains.
Index terms: IDENTIFIED MURDER? MYSTERY MD
Record: 8601080800
Copyright: Copyright (c) 1986 The Miami Herald