Kierra Roberta Jeanette Johnson was an “ever-changing chameleon,” her mother Ree Johnson said while sitting in her parents’ living room in Upper Darby.
She cycled through different hair colors — pink, blue, purple and white — and different styles, from a mohawk to dreadlocks. One day Ree and Kierra met up at the dollar store and Ree barely recognized her daughter because she had shaved her eyebrows off.
“I said, ‘You look like a character from Star Trek,’” Ree recalled with a laugh. “Everything is rebirth, so that’s why she changed so much.”
Kierra, who was called “Ki” or “Kira,” went through her biggest transformation in high school. She had an internship with the National Park Service Academy and spent about a month camping, backpacking and working on trails at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
Kierra came back completely changed, Ree said. She had a new sense of self-confidence, she had become a vegetarian and had gained a new awareness of environmental conservation.
“She opened up a whole new world to me,” Ree said. “I can’t say enough about how it was to was to see the world through her eyes. I was in awe of her.”
Kierra went on to study art in college, and her love of nature influenced her work. But at the time in her life when she was learning so much about the world and her role in it, Kierra was found strangled in Cobbs Creek on Nov. 3, 2017. She was 21.
About five months later, police arrested a 22-year-old man in connection with Kierra’s murder. At the time, he was on probation as a result of a felony assault conviction in California.
“She saw the best in people,” Ree said. “She was an extraordinary human being.”
Kierra was born at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia on April 28, 1996 to Ree and Ruston Johnson. She had two older brothers, Raymond and Phillip Jett.
She spent the first few years of her life in Olney before the family moved to North Carolina when Kierra was 3. They returned to Philly when she was about 8 and lived in South Philly.
Ree found that Kierra was more advanced than the other students and she was bored in school, so she home schooled her for a few years.
Ree watched her daughter blossom. Kierra studied Japanese and fell in love with anime, and when she was about 12, her artistic talent emerged.
After three years of homeschooling, Kierra decided she wanted to be around other kids, so Ree enrolled in Universal Charter School in 7th grade. Every day she’d take her to school at Broad and Catherine and pick her up.
As close as they were, Ree had to learn to let go, like when Kierra decided to learn how to skateboard.
“I would have a slight heart attack until she texted me that she’d arrived at her destination,” she said. “It’s so hard to prepare to let go, but it’s better to be involved then to have your child run away from you.”
Kierra enrolled in Charter High School for Architecture and Design so she could focus more on art. She was particularly interested in illustration, animation and film.
When Kierra returned from her internship with the National Park Service Academy, she came out to Ree.
“She gave me this hypothetical situation,” Ree said. “She said. ‘If you had a gay child, would you throw them out like so may of my friends’ parents are doing?’ I just looked at her and said, ‘Kierra, I already know what you’re trying to tell me and there is no reason on earth for you to think that I would ever, ever disown you or not love you. You are perfect,’” Ree said.
“She said, ‘I’m glad you’re my mom,’” Ree said. “And I said, ‘I’m glad you’re my daughter.’”
They had special rituals, like going outside in the rain and dancing and acting silly. They also had regular mommy-daughter dates where they’d try new restaurants. Kierra had an internship at WHYY while in high school and interviewed the owner of a Greek restaurant. Kierra was excited to have Ree try the food, but they didn’t have a reservation. They name-dropped and got a table.
“I spent way too much money that night, but that’s okay!” Ree said with a smile. “She was like, you’re going to try this and try this and try this. When were walking home that night and she let me hold her hand.”
The bond that Kierra and Ree shared was strong, and everyone recognized it.
Kierra’s grandmother, Jeannette Anthony, said: “The love between them was untouchable and devout. She loved her mommy. She’s missed terribly.”
After graduating from high school in 2014, Kierra decided to attend The University of the Arts, and Ree told her: “There’s nothing that I won’t do to help. I’ll make sure you’re enrolled.” So, Ree sold her car and her house and moved in with her son and daughter-in-law.
Immediately after signing the documents to sell her house, she went directly to campus and paid for Kierra’s first semester. She doesn’t see what she did as a sacrifice — she sees it as something she was supposed to do as a mother.
“What am I sacrificing? I truly don’t understand what that means,” she said. “I’m sacrificing now because I don’t have her.”
An important moment in Kierra’s life was when she sold two of her drawings at a street bazaar. She was bursting with confidence, and Ree was very proud of her daughter.
Kierra eventually decided to transfer to Hussian School of Art, which has a lower tuition.
Around the time of her death, Kierra and Ree were talking about taking a year off to live together in a new place, possibly Canada.
When Kierra was alive, Ree would wake up every night around 3 a.m. and go into Kierra’s room. She’d take off her glasses, close her laptop, and kiss her good night. Ree still wakes up every night at the same time.
Ree is hoping to get legislation passed called the Kierra Johnson Stay Put Law, which would require people who are on parole to finish their sentence in the state where they were convicted so this doesn’t happen to another family.
“She was a sweet, docile, tender-hearted sweetheart,” said Kierra’s grandmother, Jeannette. “She was highly intelligent and very humble. She took the gifts that God gave her and she used them. It’s so sad that her life was cut short because God had great things in store for her.”
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A self-written profile for the National Park Service Academy program:
Growing up being an inner city kid, art is what kept me on the right track since I felt I didn’t have much access to nature, but my environment has always fueled my illustrations which center around topics of race, body image, class and feminism. During my time in Grand Teton, I experienced a completely new environment that I had never experienced before SCA and since then have wanted to be more involved in the National Park Service and assisting with the conservation of land and history.
Being an artist and growing up in lower class home with a single parent I have learned to use the resources I have to create bigger and better things and so I do not feel the need to separate my passion for art and my passion for conservation. Rather, I wish to integrate the two things if there is any way possible, as I feel it is a necessity to preserve the arts, history and nature for future generations to come because all three of these things have played a huge role in forming the person I am today and have done the same for many others.
-Kierra Johnson
