BISMARCK -- A 30-year-old Bismarck woman told police she woke up in her home in the 400 block of North 16th Street early Friday morning to a man armed with a knife standing over her, telling her to be quiet "or he was going to kill her," according to the Bismarck Police Department.
The suspect in the case, David Johnson, was charged in South Central District Court in Burleigh County on Monday with felonious restraint, burglary, aggravated assault, terrorizing and misdemeanor theft of property. The burglary charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of four years, while the felonious restraint charge has a minimum sentence of two years.
Johnson could receive up to 25 years, if found guilty of all charges.
The woman reported that, when she awoke to Johnson threatening her with a knife, she began to yell and fought with Johnson over the knife, and, ultimately, took it away from him, according to the complaint signed by Garner Jones, an officer with the Bismarck Police Department.
Then the intruder began to strangle the woman, according to Jones.
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A downstairs neighbor heard the struggle and called police at 4:30 a.m. Friday.
Jones and another officer, Michael Paulson, arrived at the home, where Jones reported seeing Johnson and the woman through a window. Johnson was "escorting" the woman to the back of the house, Jones wrote.
As Paulson knocked on the front door, Jones moved to the back. "(Johnson) came running out the front bedroom towards the back door where I was standing. I drew my sidearm and gave verbal commands to get on the ground, which he complied with," Jones wrote.
As Paulson secured Johnson, who also possessed a necklace and DVD burner belonging to the woman, according to Jones, who further reported that, upon entering the home, he saw the woman sitting on the bed with her hands tied behind her back.
"I used my knife to cut the restraints, which I later discovered was a bra," Jones wrote.
The woman was visibly upset and bleeding from the wrists. She also had red marks on her throat consistent with strangulation marks, according to Jones.
The woman said she lost consciousness from being strangled, at which point, Johnson allegedly tied her up.
"She believed that she was going to be sexually assaulted and, ultimately, killed," Jones wrote.
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Johnson allegedly gained entry to the locked home by using a knife to cut through a window screen then forcing open the window.
At his Monday hearing, Johnson told Judge James Hill that "there were circumstances that led up to me being there" and that he "never intended" for the woman to come to harm.
Hill ordered Johnson to be held on a $250,000 cash-only bond. Johnson is in custody at Burleigh County Detention Center.
Johnson is a registered sex offender, with convictions for sexual assault, in 1996, and gross sexual imposition, 1999, from Ransom and Sargent counties in Southeast District Court.
