A group of high school student High school.
Students Elizabethan High School students started a project to research.
A string of unsolved murders.
Their research led to the identification of the killer. Investigators now have an answer to a thirty four year old question.
Once you start getting a few tips, or a few leads or.
Few identifications, then the cold case isn't so cold anymore.
There's a pretty good chance he's still alive.
Everything that the students predicted through their profile turned out to be accurate.
Redhead Killer profile mail Caucasian, five nine six, two hundred and seventy pounds, unstable home, absent father, and a domineering mother, right handed, IQ above one hundred, most likely heterosexual.
There is no profile of this killer except for the ones the students created.
Just because some of these women no longer have people to speak for them does not mean that they deserve to not.
Be so anymore.
What if this guy's still alive? Like, what if becomes after us?
I consider you're gonna kill me?
He's a year.
This is Murder one oh one, Season one, episode nine, Studying Up. I'm Jeff Sheen, a television and podcast producer at KAT Studios with Stephanielyidecker, Courtney Armstrong, and Andrew Arno. In twenty twenty, I came across a story about a group of high school students who set out to investigate a series of unsolved murders in their community. It was an incredible story that here at KAT Studios we felt needed to be explored further.
All Right, So this morning, me and Marley are just sitting here in my car.
It is seven fifty two, six fifty two.
It is six fifty two in the morning, and we're just sitting here talking about different stuff. And we're about to go in here and meet with mister Campbell, and we're actually gonna get to present to a former FBI behavior analysis, which is really cool, and talk about the case.
So we're just really looking forward to that.
It's kind of crazy because we went to a bunch of football games together and thinking about Elizabeth Lamont, one of the potential victims of Jerry Leon Johns. She actually went missing from a football game, and we went to numerous football games together and not really how to care in the world, but it just happens as quickly as that.
So it's really crazy to think about the connection we have with these girls because we are young females and majority of these women were young women, and we're very close with in age and lifestyle. Even you know, this could be any of us or any of our friends, and that is.
Really crazy to think about.
So we really feel connected with this case, these cases, and we really feel like these women deserve justice because this could easily be.
One of us.
Yeah, and it's sometimes you don't really think about, like when you're in the moment at the football game, you're not really worried about stuff like that, and I'm sure the women were either, But this happens and it takes you off card.
Hello there, Hello.
Alex Campbell.
It's good to meet you.
Thank you for coming by.
Did your haircut get better since the last time I saw you?
Maybe, I think.
You said?
And we have like the Captain's table, right.
The honored guests, Joey Strickler and Ryan Curtis introduced themselves.
I'm Joey Strickler.
I retired from Sulvan County Sheriff's Office two years ago and I was the Captain Noble Criminal Investigations. My last biggest case that I had over there was I'm sure y'all have heard of at the Evelyn Boswell murder case. And just to tell a little bit my background as
far as in prepared me for what I did. I have a bachelor's degree from Etssue Criminal Justice, and I spent my whole career of thirty years, thirty plus years at the Sheriff's office and done I guess a little bit of everything that was over there, from patrolling to criminal investigations to of course in the staff and command end of it. But one thing about it that interested me when the TBI actually called me to call you, was that when they were telling me you were doing this.
I have worked on a couple of cold case homicides. They only had two in Solvan County, and so I worked those two cases, and I know the pitfalls and the things that you ran into and the issues and things like that. I can honestly say that I think I know who's.
Done both of them.
Never be able to prove it but because of certain reasons. But anyway, that's that's basically where I came from. I just the law enforcement background and with the Solvan County Shriff's Office, and I was supporting great opportunities to go to some really special high school. I've went to the FBI National Academy, which is a ten weeks school in Quanticoe, Virginia, and that's where I studied profiling and things like that.
So that's just a little bit bit about me. One of my cases that I really took heart to was a nineteen eighty four murder. I was a high school senior in nineteen eighty four. The thing that got me about that is if things would have been done differently in nineteen eighty four by the standards we have now, that case we've been sought back then.
They got a big ball game tonight, don't you.
It's a homes coat and y'all met them last time?
Was it close.
Basketball season? Yes?
Yeah, So both of these girls playing basketball. They're both really good. Also, great students find people. So, in case I didn't mention it, we don't have this as a class this year, So they do this work on their own and we meet at seven am before cool, which for a teenager coming an hour early, it is quite a quite a any credit for that, So they don't get any credit.
They just, uh, well, there's nothing better than taking from someone that's daddy.
There's nothing better.
Than working on homicides and coming to a conclusion.
Oh yeah, it's beshing better than that.
Yeah yeah, I getting sad me just farn't something days.
Even if it's.
Yeah yeah, if I was standing over here out of your way and let y'all dig your think.
I'm a junior, I'm sixteen, and I played basketball. We probably since we were in third grade. I wouldn't say she probably is my best friends. Probably she is my best friends. I've always kind of found an interest in this stuff. I mean, my mom like watched stuff about it together a lot. And it's kind of crazy because all of you'll consider a sery cat like everything I do.
But I really really really enjoy like learning about this kind of stud I was gonna like dive again and how you want perspective.
On ake seconds. Yeah, well, we've been in Princeville for ever. It's really funny because I've always been.
Kind of, like, I.
Guess, like the more outgoing of the two of us, and I've always been interested in me just little weird things.
And true crime has definitely been a big interest in mine since I was in like sixth grade probably, and I would always listen to True Crown podcasts like we'd be warming up for a basketball game.
I'd have a True Crown podcasts, so I know, but it's like, are you okay.
I'm like, yes, I'm I'm okay, and she would always get like it's so annoyed me.
She's like turn, not off. Turn, and then one day she's just like, no, keep playing. I'm like, I know so, but that's something.
We've kind of buz been able to find a lot of interest in the last few years.
Und yes that that's been like such a driver.
Yes, it's kind of yes, and it's really like it it re leading to YouTube and you're just like, you don't wanna listen to music anymore.
You just wanna listen to a True Ground podcast. It's relaxing. I had to stop. I used to listen to them to go to bend.
Stop.
I started getting terrors. I would wake up. They'd be like a shadow of my room.
I got, yeah, I can't do this, but yeah, I'm said he a junior also played basketball that takes up.
Really all of our time.
So it's basically school basketball. First. They're looking at them not committed. Correct, Yes, clarify it.
So me and Morley have kind of been doing some research this week between the known victims of Jerry Leon Johns and potential victims. So I've been working on Tracy Stu Walker, and Morley's been working on the DeSoto County Jane Doe. Basically, what we've done is we just went through and we've made a victim profile for his two known victims, and then we're just kind of doing a comparent contrast between Tracy Stu Walker and the Psoto County
Jane Doe. Lynn was the survivor of Jay Leon Johns and Tina Farmer, who is a confirmed victim of Jay Leon Johnson.
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment. Murder one on one, Riley and Marley walked mister Strickler and mister Curtis through their profile and explained why they believed Jerry Johns was the Bible Belt strangler.
None of them were buried or covered up.
All of them were just left on the side of the road. And I found a mistake there that Linda, that last one, I actually have no binding, but she was actually found I do know that, so I made a small mistake there. Every one of them were found off of a major interstate just right off except for one and she was found about seven miles from an interstate, but she was found seven miles from another victim that was right on the interstate and matched everything else.
But she was just off of a road. But it was a major interstate.
It was aside.
But any any questions, other questions looking at the the strangulation by ligature seems to be important and we're gonna.
Look more at that.
So this is kind of where things take a turn.
Police protested items found from Tina Farmer murder and found Jerry Johnes' body flutes on it. So Jay Lean Jones, this is obviously the man that we think committed these murders. And Tina Farmer she was killed and they had not identified her killer until new DNA evidence, like you said, had come out in twenty nineteen, and Johns had died in prison while serving time for the attemptive murder of Linda, which.
Was two months after Farmer was murdered.
So she was obviously his survived victim, the only survived victim that we know of, and they were able to arrest him because he stole her car. He thought he had killed her. Dumpter and then stole her car, and she happened to live. He was arrested on March six, nineteen eighty five, for the attemptive murder of Linda. She
was a redheaded exotic dancer and prostitute in Knoxville. Interesting fact also, Jerry Leon John's trucking company was based out right the right side of Knoxville, and it was actually started illegally, and so we don't have a lot of records from where where he was trucking, which can be hard for determining was he in the area at this time when this person was killed. All this stuff, but all of his records his trucking company was very very legal.
So he bound and gagged her before taking her to the side of the interstate and choking her to what he thought was death, and then he dumped her. She was able to gather herself got out on the interstate. She was actually blind for three days after he had choked her because he choked her so hard, and she stumbled across the interstate naked, blind and was able to be taken by the police and they were able to find him via her car, but he saw her.
And then this is who Jerry Leon Jones is.
He was born in Tennessee, but him and his family moved around between Rockford, Illinois, East Tennessee in the Houston, Texas area.
So obviously that's a.
Lot of ground anyway, let alone being a trucker. He's thirty seven years old at this time. He has trucking company. It's called Rebel Trucking. Uh. He had a very extensive criminal record since he was fifteen years old. Started out his little stuff and obviously escalated. He was sentenced to.
Seventy four years for the kidnapping and attempted murder. This is poor document's.
Treasure troph These documents showed the specific bindings and.
Ligatures that he used on her, and these help us build a timeline for where he was, what he was doing at the time. It provides us with TBI interview notes which are.
Very very helpful, and we kind of get to see what kind of person he was getting inside to his psyche. And also, you know, when we're looking at different crimes, we think trying to look for a trigger.
Maybe.
So him and his wife were half sister, half sister, and half brother and they got married. Obviously, people are telling him, you know, you can't do this, like, if you have a child, it's gonna be messed up. Even though that tastes generations, people are, your child's gonna be messed up if you have a kid. They end up having a son, the son gets cancer at three years old and ends up passing away, and everybody's telling Jerry, you know this is your fault.
This is because you did this, because you got married to your half sister, your child.
God, and obviously any grieving parent, this is not something they want to hear in a mentally unstable man. It's untelling the kind of anger that he built up in his resentment. And obviously he has an anger towards women in these crumbs. And the relationship with his mother, as I understand, was very very strange, different and his half sister, his wife was red headed and his mother was.
Also red headed.
Said the marriage dissolved here or so after the death of the child, she actually moved back to Illinois.
And when she left in nineteen eighty four, we get six murders in about nine months.
Yeah, where he's driving not just with no boss, but now with nobody at home, and basically he and he and his brother who's traveling around and a bunch of dead women.
Child exactly the same way where he's traveled for about nine months.
Three.
One thing that normally when someone is strangled with a ligature, whether it's a rope, whether it's like that, appears to be maybe a T shirt, the T shirt if you're you're defendant here is right handed. They tend to tie a knot in a right handed fashion, or a.
Left handed person will tie one in a left handed fashion. So that's one thing to.
Look at him, and so he said he.
Was right handed.
Riley spoke about Tracy Sue Walker.
Tracy Sue Walker, she was the main victim that I focused on. She was just identified in August of twenty twenty two, very very recently, and she was dubbed baby Girl Jane Doe for until she was identified because she was so young. They estimate shoes between fourteen to sixteen whenever she was murdered, but they found out that she
was too so right on it. But she disappeared from Typicadoo County, which is in Indiana, as she read there, and her body was recovered in Campbell County, Tennessee, which is almost nine hours away. So she disappeared from a mall. She was last seen with a friend at Typicane County mall and she was a kind of troubled child. Her mom had reported her as running away tip twice uh before that, so they thought that maybe she'd just run away. Well not one hundred percent sure, but her body was
found nine hours away in Camble County. The most interesting part another victim, Tina Farmer, who we know was killed by Jerry Leon Johns when Disa disappeared from Indianapolis, Indiana, which is.
About an hour from Typicanoe County.
But their bodies were found less than seven miles apart in Campbell County.
So how did two girls disappear from about the same area.
Nine hours away and their bodies are recovered within miles of each other?
Early similar and they were all found on trucking roots between his homes, his family homes, trucking hubs, all significant areas that would be related back to him. And although he spent many years in prison, all of the victims were killed when he was not in custody.
I agree he's probably good for those two for sure, just because of the location of the where they're missing from. And then the location of where their bodies were found. I would agree. So I mean you're headed in the right direction. I think your profiles of your victims are well done. And I've always said you have to be able to try to identify identify the victims and to do a timeline on the victims first, which is what you're doing that will lead you to your potential suspects or subjects.
So in summary, he puts himself at every secondary crime scene. But once again he didn't do it, but he was there. He was convicted onto the crumbs with direct evidence in the DNA, and his timeline shows the only time that he was not in jail is when the murders happened. The murders that fit this m O and signature stop right after his arrest.
It's an incredible profile. Eight is this very gets that.
How confident would you be if you had all that information and you went to a grand jury, that you could get a true.
Brand, this solid.
I'm thoroughly impressed. Thank you, Thank you, guys.
I've done a great job.
To say the least. You know, although I was binding that there's a real good chance that they should be able to.
Get some kind of touch DNA from that and nowadays for sure.
Now any wonderful, great job, Thank you, thank you for listening.
Let's stop here for another quick break murder one on one. The following week, the club back back up.
Well, good morning, ladies. How are y'all doing doing good?
How are you?
Well?
It's early and I'm a little bit tired, but not bad for a Monday. What'd y'all do this weekend?
I didn't really do very much on Saturday. Well, on Sunday I went to church and restaur practice.
Didn't you have a big ball game Friday night?
Well, Friday didn't comes the weekend.
Yeah, after three Friday counts, I had the ball game.
Go we won.
Yeah, that's good. And then Riley, you might have had something extra special on Friday.
Yeah, I won homecoming for the junior class, so that was kind of cool.
I'm just glad I didn't fall or pass out. But yeah, I had a really busy weekend.
So that homecoming was on Friday, and then Saturday, me and my mom went to a Covenant College in Georgia for a recruitment visit to watch them play and talked to their coaches and everything. So that was pretty cool. And I took up pretty much the whole day Saturday, and then yesterday I went to church and went to basketball practice and then went back to church.
It was a very impact views it was.
And so we were presenting to a former assistant district attorney now a defense attorney and retired homicide detective, and so I would just love to get your all kind of thoughts and reflections on how.
Do you think it went.
I think it went really well. I was very nervous going into it, I will say that, but it was really cool. It was cool to get someone else's like perspective on all the work that we've been doing and working so hard on because like it's just kind of us three sometimes and it's good to get like an outside viewpoint on everything, like hoping that they'd like it and think it was good work. And they did, so.
Yeah, okay, and then uh, role, what about you?
Yeah, I have to agree with Marland, And I'm really nervous going in, but then to see like people who've been there, done that and seeing a lot of different cases stuff to just validate what we've been seeing and what we've been where we've put our time and effort and energy and to see them kind of like pat us on the back, which we don't do it for that, but.
It's really nice and really reassuring to have that. So I really enjoyed it.
I wasn't nervous going in because I know that you guys have done some stellar work, but I was curious to see, Like you said, I'm a teacher, you're some students. What do professionals in the field really think about the work?
YEP, a homicide detective.
It's his job to gather evidence and put together evidence for the DA and to see what he thought about our evidence. And also I thought it was interesting to hear from the former assistant district attorney about what he thought about the evidence, Could it actually go to a grand jury?
Was it sufficient? How we cover all the bases?
And you guys remember anything about maybe some of the stuff they'd said about the work you'd done.
I think that the former assistant district attorney said how there had been cases in court that had won with significantly less evidence than what we had.
Yeah, I thought that was pretty crazy, because I mean, like sometimes it can get discouraging because there is like little information. It's like, oh, we have this Jane do we have no clue how she lives, Like it kind of feel like we're grasping straws and stuff, but just to see like the information we do have is so valid and could potentially pull up in court, and there's
trials that have been held with significantly less evidence. Like Morley said, that was really reassuring to the work that we've been doing and really just shows like we're doing something that actually has substance, Like it's not just for our own enjoyment or for our own passion that we have, like this could actually mean something to some jury or
some court. I thought it was just really reassuring, and like Riley said, like everything we're doing has a purpose and it shows that like this could really help somebody in I know that if it was like member or something. And I saw these people doing that and these people are saying this about their work, it made me feel like really good.
Okay, so now we have a problem. It's a good problem, but it's a problem.
Yeah.
And we had the same problem five years ago when the students did the work and they created the profile and the profiler said this is excellent.
I wouldn't disagree with anything. Well, what goods a profile if it doesn't get out to where people.
Can use it.
Yeah, you know, So that's why we decided to have the press conference.
Well, if we just let it stop here, then it doesn't go forward to help anybody.
I don't want to just give up on this or like think we've taken it as far as we can go, because these women still don't have justice, and there's still so many of them that aren't identified, and so many I think can be identified. So I'm really not sure what the next step should be, but I definitely know that this isn't where we should end.
About you, Marlen, I still want to be able to like help the families and give them closer.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've been thinking about that too, and we did try to invite the TBI. Most of every one of these cases just about has been taken over by the TBI.
If they were in the state of Tennessee, they have been.
There's a couple that are just outside of the state that have not been, And to be honest, I've had very limited success in getting in contact with the people who are responsible for those cases. So we invited the TBI to come and listen to the presentation that you did on Friday. However, they said that every single agent they had was too busy and would be busy the rest of the year.
And it's January, so and I understand they are busy. Crime ever sleeps right, yeah, gradways up, just no good.
But I think that my question for myself was if detectives feel like this is good enough to go to the DA, and the DA feels like it's good enough to go to a grand jury, and since the person we feel that did this is dead and all you can do is take it to a grand jury, get the true bill, and then consider the case closed, the question for me is why aren't DA's doing this or why aren't law enforcement agencies turning this over to the
DA's so they can and go forward. And I think the only people we have left to present to would be the media.
And there's several reasons why.
Number one, last time we got a body identified, excuse me, three bodies identified, and one of those cases was solved within a year or two.
So maybe we'll get the same luck.
Because when you put this out there, you're gonna get tips, you're gonna have people calling in, you're gonna have true crime sluice, looking on the internet, looking at missing people, looking.
At the Desto County Jane do.
And maybe we can get a few more identifications through the media because it will get picked up on the media and it'll get.
Out to people.
Number Two, maybe other people can ask different agencies what they're doing with the cases. Sometimes they're just triaging cases. The most important ones, ones that have a lead, the newest ones, ones that parents are calling.
We work on those first. The ones that.
Are forty years old and they're cold and we have no information and nobody's calling.
You know, it just has to be the last one we worked.
So what do y'all think about taking this to the media and letting the media get the word out for us.
I think that's definitely a good idea, probably our next best step as far as furthering this and seeing what we can do, because other than that, I don't think that there's.
A better alternative.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. So I know how to call a press conference. I've done it before one time five years ago, worked pretty well.
What do you think about getting a hold of TV and news media from each of the areas where these women were found or went missing from?
We only know where two went missing from. We could maybe contact.
That media and then tell them we're going to have it and then just let them show up.
The ones that can't make it, we can email them.
The last time, five years ago, one of the local news agencies actually live streamed it.
Oh wow.
So they could watch the live stream, they could get a media kit of the information, and then they could do whatever they wanted with it.
So if they want to ask their local.
Law enforcement or their local DA's, or if they just want to get the word out there and let people in the public see it and go to work on it on their own time, then I think that would be maybe something we could do. I guess the big question is when do we want to schedule it? Homecoming queen and basketball games and college tours, the all busy people. So let's think about a time we can do it, and then let's set it. Maybe give ourselves about two weeks.
I think what we need to do is go back through the information see if we want to reformat anything, because it's different presenting to the group.
We present it till on Friday and the media group.
Yeah, Also, they probably need to put together a media packet which we can have them sign up for when they come in, and then we can email it to them after it's over. We could maybe have some hard copies available to them, maybe that to hear something. But that'll give us a couple of weeks to do that work, and of course give them some time to plan on being here if they can be here.
No, feeling good, feeling good.
I'm excited them.
Feeling good and excited. How many games you'll have left?
Oh gosh, we're are halfway through conference.
Play regular season games. There's probably five or six left, Okay, and then we have districts and regionals and all that.
Takes like a month, even though it's less games.
Oh wait, you're saying you're gonna go all the way, go a month into the planning. That's what I like. I like the positivity.
Hopefully this week we get bumped to third in the state because the team that was ranked ahead of us got beats.
Okay, exciting.
Yeah, it's a little overwhelming.
Yeah that's right, y'all.
Just hang in there, though, it's going to get more overwhelming when the world realizes.
I think that the quality of the work you.
Guys have, this would be cool to it's it is really cool seeing like the people are recognizing, like you said, because a lot of times it's just been uice three in here, you know, and then other people from the outside of like, wow, this is actually really good work. And I think people are really surprised too when it's high school students. And yeah, it's just been rewarding to see what kint was. This was all for a purpose, you know.
Yeah. All right, Well, I hope y'all have a great day.
Get back with me, either see me in the hall or send me an email and let me know about that day, all right, And I'll call a friend of mine and we'll see what he thinks about that day and if he has any insight on maybe what we should do or how we should do it, and we'll go from there.
Alrighty awesome, ladies, y'all have a great day, okay too.
All right, more on that next time. Murder one oh one is executive produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Alex Kimpbell, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnold and me Jeff Shane. Additional producing by Connor Powell and Gabriel Castillo. Editing by Jeff Twa and David Cooper Wasser, music by Vanicor Music Murder one oh one is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.