Parents Shot, 5-Year-Old Calls 911

ByABC News via logo
March 31, 2005, 8:40 AM

March 31, 2005 — -- A young child was rescued from her house by Florida deputies early Monday morning, after calling 911 and telling the dispatcher her parents had been shot by an attacker.

"My mommy and daddy there is blood coming out of my dad's mouth and he fell off the bed," the girl said on the 911 tape.

"I don't know quite how to characterize what you hear in that 5-year-old's voice," Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson told "Good Morning America." "Her composure is extraordinary given what she had just seen. She was an amazing little girl. The information she gave us and the manner she gave it to us, we wish we could get that out of adults."

The girl told the operator her age and that she had a dog named Liza. The dispatcher calmly spoke to her while sending authorities to her home. Her mother, Julie Hernlen, 31, was dead when they arrived, and her father, Aeneas Hernlen, 29, was taken to the hospital and died the next day.

The attacker, David Edward Johnson, 33, believed the couple were responsible for his arrest in November on charges of growing marijuana and possession of steroids, according to the sheriff's office. Officials said the couple were not involved in his arrest, but had requested an injunction against their would-be attacker in January.

Johnson committed suicide at his home later Monday.

The attack occurred in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot waking the young girl.