BRUTAL: Blood stains the LA driveway yesterday where “Sons of Anarchy” actor Johnny Lewis, who dated Katy Perry in 2005, killed his landlady before plummeting from the roof.
BRUTAL: Blood stains the LA driveway yesterday where “Sons of Anarchy” actor Johnny Lewis, who dated Katy Perry in 2005 (right), killed his landlady before plummeting from the roof. (
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Trapped in a downward spiral, “Sons of Anarchy” actor Johnny Lewis, the ex-beau of pop princess Katy Perry, beat his elderly landlady to death in a drug-fueled rage then fatally fell from the lavish hillside mansion they shared, Los Angeles cops said yesterday.
Police are investigating what sent Lewis — known to millions as the aspiring biker-gang member Kip “Half-Sack” Epps on the FX series “Sons of Anarchy” — on the rampage that killed his 81-year-old landlord, Catherine Davis.
“Sons of Anarchy” creator Kurt Sutter said the once-promising actor had been on a “destructive path” for some time and the violent end was predictable.
Lewis, 28, who had just been sprung from jail on burglary and assault convictions six days earlier, was renting a room from Davis in the chic Los Feliz neighborhood where his former co-star “Twilight” actress Kristen Stewart also lives.
The four-story home, where Davis operated a real-estate business, had been ransacked as if it had been hastily searched, according to LAPD Commander Andrew Smith.
A dismembered dead cat was also found amid the broken glass.
At one point during the melee, Lewis was manically swinging a 2×4 board, law-enforcement sources told TMZ.
The first 911 calls came in around 10:40 a.m. Wednesday of a screaming woman and several men fighting. Lewis may have fought with Davis then scaled the wall of the next-door house, where he tussled with the homeowner and a house painter on the other side. He then fled back to Davis’ house.
By the time cops arrived, they found Lewis’ lifeless body on the driveway near a privacy wall that separated the properties.
“He could have tripped or fallen, or he could have jumped,” Smith said.
He displayed “super-human” strength and was oblivious to being punched, the painter told the Los Angeles Times.
Cops are investigating if he was on PCP, crystal meth or a new designer drug known as “Smiles,” according to the paper.
Connie Gurich, who said her daughter Diane had a baby with Lewis, told The Post she was “shocked” by the tragedy.
Lewis, who also acted in “The O.C.,” had pleaded no contest to assault with a deadly weapon and attempted burglary stemming from an Aug. 8 arrest.
He was sentenced to a year in jail along with drug counseling but was released Sept. 21.
“I wish I could say that I was shocked by the events last night, but I was not,” Sutter wrote on his Web site. “I am deeply sorry that an innocent life had to be thrown into his destructive path.”Sutter said in a 2009 interview he had Lewis’ character killed after two seasons because the actor wanted out.
Lewis had courted pop singer Perry in 2005 before she hit it big.
“She had to separate from him,” a source told Us magazine “He was in trouble then, and she couldn’t help him.”
Lewis was the inspiration for Perry’s song “The One That Got Away,” a source said.
In 2010 Lewis appeared with Kristin Stewart in the movie “The Runaways.”