It’s been almost a year to the day since former U.S. Department of Defense official Cathy Johnston was struck on her bicycle and killed. In the months since, her family and attorneys want legal answers after a relationship between the offender and the lead prosecutor in the case came to light.
Cathy Johnston, a former deputy intelligence officer at the United States Indo-Pacific Command, was hit and killed at roughly 11:30 a.m. on Sept. 16, 2025, while riding a bicycle in Harbor Beach, Mich. She was 60.
The man who hit her, Duane Lamont, was found by authorities to be impaired on prescription drugs while operating the vehicle that ultimately killed Johnston.
The Sanilac County Sheriff’s Office investigated and suggested a charge of Operating Under the Influence of Drugs, or O.U.I.D, causing death. But the prosecutor in the case, Mark Davidson, instead issued a single misdemeanor charge of “moving violation causing death.” It was later discovered that Davidson and Lamont had a relationship.
It’s an unusual situation considering that neither side denies that Lamont was the individual who hit and killed Johnston. The question is why the charge was dropped down to a lesser offense, and how that fell through the legal system.
Today, more than a year after Johnston’s death, her family and friends want justice and closure.
“My kids are looking for closure,” West Johnston, Cathy’s husband, told Military.com. “I can’t give it to them right now. I have a lot of flag officers in DOD regularly coming asking me, ‘Wes, what’s the status? What’s going on?’ I have a handwritten message from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
“And I don’t have answers for them. Now, some of them are starting to write their own letters because they know how important Cathy was to their mission. I’m just looking for confidence that the local charging decisions and process will be fair. And what we’ve learned calls that into question.”
What Happened on Sept. 16, 2025
Wes explained the sequence of events that occurred last summer.
The family was at their cottage in Michigan’s “thumb” region, which has been in the area for more than 100 years and on Lake Huron. Both Wes and Cathy, both cyclists, decided to do a ride they had done “dozens and dozens of times before.”
“She decided to do a one-way ride from Harbor Beach to Lexington, which is about 32 miles,” Wes said. “She loved her ride. She was an accomplished rider, triathlon, swimming, the whole boat.”
Cathy departed first and was to be followed roughly 30 minutes later by Wes’ old college buddy, while Wes planned to drive his truck and meet everybody in Lexington.
“And then my first text was from my buddy, who said, ‘Hey, the road is closed. They’re not letting me go. I have to detour around. There’s some sort of accident,'” he said. “And I was like, “OK. And then maybe five minutes later, I got a phone call from the Sanilac County Police.”
Wes said authorities somehow had Cathy’s phone in their possession and contacted him, relaying that his wife had been in a serious accident and was being medevaced to a trauma center. He was then re-routed to a different medical center, where it was recommended he visit her there.
While on his way, Wes learned that his wife had died.
“It was devastating because I knew that she was doing what we had done dozens and dozens of times before,” he said. “Nothing new about it. It was 11:30 in the morning, 72 degrees. Not a cloud in the sky. Perfect visibility. Everything about the day was perfect.
“But she was struck from behind. You immediately go to what you’re losing when you learn about this. For me, it’s a wife of 40 years. My kids—there are so many things that are difficult. One of them is [that] my granddaughter was born two days before Kathy died, so she never met her.”
There was also the career aspect and what the country lost, he added. The career intelligence officer and expert in Asia and Pacific theater helped sustain positions of strength worldwide, informing the most senior U.S. military officials and lawmakers with vital information to keep the U.S. above the fray.
As Ret. Marine Lt. Gen. Steve Sklenka wrote in a September 2026 letter to local officials regarding Cathy’s case and shared with Military.com, Cathy was described by her colleagues as a “one-of-a-kind” individual who positively impacted countless others in the defense and intelligence communities—including Sklenka, who served more than 40 years.
“There’s a massive family impact that you would well expect, being a wife, a mother, a grandmother,” Wes said. “But she was knee-deep in matters of national security. She was the go-to person on China.
“I was telling a story earlier at Indo-Pacific Command…there was a congressional delegation that went out to the Indo-Pacific when China was heating up in the straits with Taiwan, and it was Cathy who gave the briefing to all the congressmen. We lost a family member, but our country lost an asset.”
How the Legal Case Unraveled, Drew Scrutiny
Andry Dragovic, legal counsel for the Johnston estate, was contacted due to his background in criminal law, in addition to doing civil litigation, wrongful death and catastrophic cases, etc.
A wrongful death lawsuit was filed on June 26 in U.S. District Court in Michigan’s Eastern District.
Dragovic told Military.com that Cathy’s case “is kind of a unique situation” while adding that the accident should never have happened. He noted how Cathy, on the day she died, was riding on a fully paved, clearly marked, flat, unobstructed two-way highway in broad daylight. She was also wearing a bright pink shirt and a helmet.
Uncovered data found that Lamont was also on his phone in the moments leading up the crash.
“The accident reconstruction shows her tire marks were parallel with the road, meaning she’s riding forward, turning or crossing,” Dragovic said. “The impact destroyed her bike, threw her nearly 200 feet, and the reconstruction shows that the driver never hit the brakes until after he hit her.
“In fact, he claimed he never saw her until after he hit her, which is obviously concerning. She passed hours later as a result of blunt force trauma.”
Dragovic said that it was actually local sheriff’s office personnel who alerted the Johnston family to what appeared to be a personal relationship between Davidson and Lamont. Upon looking into the suspicions further, including documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, questions led to more answers.
“What we found was evidence of at least, at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest. … We found out that the two are friends through both of Davidson’s professional and personal Facebook pages,” Dragovic said. “This relationship extended well beyond Davidson’s election to office, right before he became a prosecutor. There’s instances where they’re commenting on each other’s posts, likes, etc.”
The family also heard from unnamed individuals in the prosecutor’s office that Davidson had been seen in the hallways of the courthouse speaking with Lamont, presenting even “more red flags.”
Internal communications from inside the sheriff’s office also implied that Davidson confirmed the existence of a conflict yet rejected referring the matter to a different or higher legal office.
What Happens Next
Paul Robertson, a trial attorney from Massachusetts for some 35 years, is the Johnston family’s co-counsel and has known Wes and Cathy for many years.
“The only thing that we’re asking for is the AG to look into this case and just make sure that the process was appropriate, that the action was appropriately investigated, and that there was no finger on the scale with respect to the time that the charging decision was made,” Robertson told Military.com.
A page from a recent children’s book that Wes Johnston published, which contains a QR code to Cathy singing. (Johnston Family)
On Aug. 25, Dragovic wrote an eight-page letter to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office, rehashing the crux of the legal case following Cathy’s death and questioning concerns regarding “prosecutorial bias.”
The findings remain a top priority for Wes and his family. Mainly, they all want to make sure the process was conducted “fairly.”
Decades after he and Cathy met as freshmen at Princeton University and married three years later, the days remain long. Pain affects certain people in different ways.
“Yesterday was really tough, to be honest,” Wes told Military.com, referencing the one-year anniversary of his wife’s passing. “The first year is potentially the most difficult.
“There are two things going on every year. I’m reminded of the birth of my granddaughter, which we celebrate, and the death of my wife, which we mourn, and the fact that they never met each other. It’s a sad reminder every year. This year was tough. I’m not going to lie, it was really hard.”
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