'So Many Unanswered Questions': Killers Who Forced Florida Teen into Van and Violently Murdered Him Still at Large Almost 12 Years Later

A Florida teenager was kidnapped by men in a van while riding his bike before being burned to the point his face was unrecognizable. Over a decade later, his killers are still at large.

On Aug. 15, 2012, Joshua Johnson, then 18, was riding his bike in the area of Mable Butler Avenue and Wilts Street in Orlando when he was forced into a dark-colored van by at least two unidentified Black men on Aug. 15, 2012, according to police.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that the situation escalated from there. Johnson's body was burned, rendering his face unrecognizable.

Police found the teenager's body around 6 p.m. Aug. 6, 2021, in the bathroom of a uninhabited home on Mertimoor Cirlce in Pine Hills. The men set the bathroom on fire, likely in attempt to hide the evidence, police Det. Chris Haas told the Orlando Sentinel in 2015.

According to police, Johnson's clothing was in tatters.

"His last moments must have been the most terrifying of his life," said Haas, a longtime veteran with the department who has investigated around 100 homicides. "Josh knew he was going to die. He knew his death was imminent. He had to have been terrified for that whole period."

Johnson was riding his bike while dragging another in the afternoon of Aug. 15, when the incident happened. The 18-year-old was heading back home from downtown, where he enrolled at Orlando Tech to get his GED and learned how to make music videos, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

Johnson was just around the corner from his grandmother's home, where he lived.

"I have to take it one day at a time," Patricia Davis, Johnson's grandmother, told ClickOrlando.com in 2013. "A lot of days don't be good days, but when Wednesday comes it's not a good day for me."

Some young boys who witnessed the incident went to Johnson's home and told his family about what happened. There were reportedly at least two men who got out of the vehicle and began fighting Johnson before throwing him in the back of the van.

"They said, 'Somebody jacked [Josh],'" Davis told the Orlando Sentinel in 2015. "I didn't believe it at first."

The family called police, but they were unable to find Johnson until he was dead the next day.

Haas told the Orlando Sentinel that police don't know of a motive for the abduction and killing, though he has theories. Haas said Johnson might have taken something from one of the killers since he allegedly was known to steal things.

"I have so many unanswered questions," Davis said in 2015. "I don't why he was taken. If he was already dead, why did they take him into a house and burn him? He was already dead."

Haas told the Orlando Sentinel that the killers likely knew Johnson.

Still, there have been no arrests in connection to the case, leaving the family searching for answers.

"He wouldn't want us to give up on him," Whitney Davis, Johnson's sister, has told ClickOrlando.com. "I think about him all the time and he's always on my mind. Every time I look at my son, it reminds me of my brother."