HOUSTON – The Millers say they didn't believe their great-grandson would ever follow through with his violent threats against them until it was too late.
They also now believe Lucian Johnston, 20, who they call Luke, intended to murder them.
Jonhston was arrested Monday after the Harris County Sheriff’s Office says he stabbed his great-grandparents, Madelyn and Orville Miller in the head and neck with a pocket knife Sunday during an argument in the car. Johnston’s 12-year-old half-brother, who was also in the car during the alleged attack, is being hailed a hero by law enforcement after they say he wrestled the knife away from Johnston and threw it out the window.
“While Luke was sitting there with Sasha (his half-brother)" at dinner, “he had repeated some things that indicated he was going to murder somebody. Us, in particular,” 92-year-old Madelyn told KPRC 2 in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
The Millers and their two great-grandsons left dinner to drop Johnston off at a friend’s home, where he’s been living for months.
“He threatened me while we were driving,” Madelyn said. “He touched my neck with the point of his knife but he didn’t push it in, and he says I’m going to kill you tonight.”
Minutes later, the Millers say Johnston reached up from the back seat and stabbed 76-year-old Orville in the neck.
“In the meantime, Luke started stabbing me in the head,” Madelyn said. “I was screaming like crazy.”
That’s when 12-year-old Sasha, who is half his size, put Johnston in a chokehold and disarmed him, she said.
Johnston jumped out of the car and ran away.
“Sasha kept yelling ‘Lock the doors! Lock the doors! Lock the doors!’” she said. “Of course, it happened so fast.”
It wasn't until they arrived at the emergency room that the Millers say they fully realized that Sasha had saved their lives.
Madelyn says she thinks “Orville and I would have been dead and maybe even [Sasha], too,” had the preteen not stepped in. “Because in times past [Jonston] had said he was going to murder the whole family.”
The Millers say Johnston has always been a “troubled child,” abandoned by his mother and then abused by her until she died of a drug overdose in 2018.
“We have tried to support him in every way. We tried to get him back in school, we tried to get his GED,” Madelyn said. “We took him everywhere we could think of to try to get help for him.”
In 2017, Johnston was arrested on a charge of assaulting Madelyn with a wheelchair.
In April 2019, the couple kicked him out of the house after they say he “went on a rage” and caused $1,000 in damage in the kitchen.
The Millers say they continued to try to get Johnston help and feed him dinner, which is what they were doing on Sunday before he ambushed them, they said.
“I told him if you don’t get an evaluation (from a doctor), you’re not coming back in our house ever,” she said. "I’m not putting up with this kind of stuff.
“When I told him that, that’s when he went into this rage,” Madelyn said.