Casey Johnson Death: The tragedy, Feuds, And Scandals That Have Plagued An American Dynasty
It was a fortune founded on the healing of Americans. But, in the 123 years since Robert Wood Johnson and his brothers began making bandages, the family has suffered its own plague of feuds and scandals.
Long before 30-year-old Casey Johnson’s body was found in Los Angeles on Monday, the pharmaceutical dynasty’s wealth didn't inoculate it against tragedy.
Though Casey’s death is still under investigation, the passing of his drug-addled daughter is bound to call up excruciating memories for New York Jets owner Robert (Woody) Johnson 4th, 62.
In 1975, his 25-year-old brother, Keith, died in his Fort Lauderdale., Fla., apartment, apparently of a cocaine overdose. Police found his nude body with a belt wrapped around one arm. In a nearby closet, cops found hypodermic needles, a spoon and a plastic bag stuffed with white powder.
The following month, Woody’s 22-year-old brother, Billy, was thrown 60 feet when his motorcycle crashed in Santa Monica, Calif. The family’s fortune, built on first aid, couldn’t save him.
“Woody rarely speaks about his brothers,” says a family friend. “But you can’t help but feel that year shaped him. It forced him to be strong. It may also have made him more guarded about revealing too much emotion. He keeps his cards pretty close to his vest.”
Some think that the no-nonsense owner of an NFL team was too hard on Casey, who saw her allowance dry up when her father was said to have become fed up with her bills and pills.
“After the death of his brothers, I think he could have been more understanding of her,” says a family friend. “He gave her attention, but I don’t know if it was the right kind.”
Casey was the first of the three daughters of Woody and wife Sale. (The couple married in 1979 and divorced in 2001.)
“Casey was diagnosed with diabetes when she was 8,” says the friend. “Sale and Woody were determined to do everything to help her. They co-wrote a book about juvenile diabetes. They kind of turned her into a poster child for the disease.
“But I don’t think she wanted to be a poster child. She wanted to be a healthy, normal kid. But she always felt she was different. She was very sad and searching to be loved.”
Another friend argues that Casey “was trouble from the time she was young. Her sister Jaime suffered from lupus disease, but she was a great student. Her sister Daisy is practically an Olympic-level equestrian.
“Casey couldn’t hold down a job. She went to work in PR for a while. I remember a fund-raiser for Christopher Reeve’s charity where she was supposed to be
assisting guests, most of whom were in business attire. She showed up in a pink satin negligee with a feather boa. It was totally inappropriate, but she wanted to be the center of attention.
“You can’t say her parents neglected her,” continues the friend. “They didn’t divorce till she was 21. Sale helped her recover from a couple of diabetic comas. As a diabetic, Casey’s body couldn’t metabolize the drugs and alcohol she was using. They did everything they could to straighten her out. They sent her to one detox program after another — but she’d quit. They were trying to keep her alive.”
Sale also stepped into the breach when Casey adopted a baby girl, Ava, from Kazakhstan two years ago.
“Casey was probably the last person who should have been taking care of a baby,” says a family friend, pointing to reports of the bisexual Casey’s spats with girlfriends. (One gal pal, Courtenay Semel, allegedly set fire to Casey’s hair. Model Jasmine Lennerd had her arrested for allegedly stealing clothes and jewelry.)
While painful, the domestic strife was nothing new for Woody, who had grown up reading about his family in the tabloids.
His grandfather, Robert Wood Johnson 2nd, known as the General, had a bitter falling-out with Woody’s divorced father, firing him as president of Johnson & Johnson.
“The General stopped at nothing to take control of the company, and, like many famous men, he thought his own son was worthless,” family member Nicholas Rutgers told family biographer Barbara Goldsmith. “He used to tell my mother: ‘Bobby is nothing. Bobby will amount to nothing.’ ”
In the 1960s, Woody’s relative Mary Lea Johnson sued to get more money out of the family trust and went through a divorce, in which she accused her second husband, Victor D’Arc, of having “an open, notorious, continuous course of deviant homosexual intercourse” with the family chauffeur. She also claimed D’Arc had plotted to kill her. D’Arc denied the allegation.
Mary Lea ignited another court battle when she passed away, by leaving a fortune to Oscar-winning producer Marty Richards. Trustees of the family trust
disputed the bequest.
But wait, there’s more.
In a 1963 divorce proceeding, it came out that Woody’s great-uncle John Seward Johnson Jr. had allowed his wife to move her boyfriend into their home, and that she had even ordered her husband to pay for a trip the lovers took aboard the Queen Elizabeth.
Seward Johnson Jr., then in his 70s, took as his third wife his much-younger Polish maid, Basia. His furious children charged that she helped him rework his will on his deathbed, leaving her all his money. The children eventually re-claimed their inheritance, or at least what was left of it after the legal bills.
It appears to be a case of familial feuding that runs right up to today. Memories of those scandals had just started to dim for Woody when, in 2003, Casey declared war on his sister Elizabeth (Libet) Ross Johnson. Libet, who was married five times before she was 40 (once to singer Michael Bolton), had once been great pals with Casey. Together, aunt and niece traveled to Cambodia, where Libet had founded an orphanage. Casey said she wanted to bring home a Cambodian child.
But then Casey claimed in print that Libet had stolen her boyfriend John Dee (ex-husband of actress Lara Flynn Boyle).
“I think that was the final straw for Woody,” says a friend. “Casey was attacking his only sister. It was too much. He didn’t talk with Casey for a long time.”
In spite of their ongoing problems, a friend says, “I’m sure Woody is terribly tormented by her death. I’m sure he and Sale would do anything to bring Casey back.
“Casey always had Sale to look out for Ava. When Casey started spinning out of control, Sale flew to California to get Ava. That may have sent Casey further off the rails. She came back to New York in the fall, determined to get Ava back. Thank goodness, Sale didn’t let Ava go.”
Sale, who married former Minnesota Vikings star Ahmad Rashad in 2007, didn’t return calls for comment but, in 2008, she insisted the child wasn’t at risk.
“She only takes drugs for her diabetes,” she told the Daily News. “Ava is the happiest, spunkiest kid I’ve ever seen. If Casey were to have to go into the hospital, that would affect Ava, but it’s not affecting her mothering abilities. Ava’s favorite word is mommy. She kisses the photographs of Casey. Casey worships
the ground Ava walks on.”
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Sources: NY Daily News, NY Post, Google Maps
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