Bobby Jean Johnson was given up for adoption at birth and later molested while she was in foster care. She ran away from that horrible situation and tried to survive as a sex worker on the streets of New Orleans. In nineteen seventy seven, an antiquities dealer named Arthur Sampson was found dead at his Saint Charles Avenue shop. He had been shot once in the stomach with a thirty
two caliber bullet and stabbed over one hundred times. The store was ransacked and safe was missing about two thousand dollars. A month after the murder, Bobby Jean was writing in what she did not know at the time was a stolen car with two men. When they were pulled over by the police for a traffic violation. One of the men stashed a knife and a thirty two caliber revolver
in Bobby Jean's purse. At eighteen years old, Bobby Jean Johnson was brought in for a violent interrogation that would change the course of her already tragic and vulnerable life. This is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction today. I have a guest who is one of the most extraordinary people with one of the most insane stories that I've ever heard. And she's also just a beautiful, beautiful person. So,
Bobby Jean Johnson, Welcome to Wrongful Conviction. As I always say, I'm sorry you're here, but I'm glad you're here and everyone will find out why. And with her is Kat Forrester, who is the communications director for the Unists Project of New Orleans, also known as IPNO. And Kat, welcome to Wrongful Conviction.
Thanks so much, happy to be here.
So Bobby Jean was freed from prison twenty eighteen after serving forty one years in prison for a crime she didn't commit. And this case has so many of the hallmarks of the causes of wrongfulctions that you know, it's almost a clean sweep, so to speak. I mean, there was misconduct, there was a false confession that you were tortured into making, incompetent defense, it's not even that's not even strong enough of a word. And we're going to
get into that all of that. But we're talking about the murder of Arthur Sampson, right, and this is an extremely violent crime. This was a white man who was an antiquities dealer in New Orleans who was shot and stabbed a hundred times. I mean, that's a vicious, vicious crime. And just to paint a picture for people who are listening, how tall are you?
I'm five feet tall.
You're five feet tall, and you're not a big one.
I wasn't that big at the time. I was like ninety eight pounds, like and I will size zero pains. I could google my clothes out the children's section.
So the whole thing makes no sense just on a purely physical level. And mister Sampson, I mean, nobody deserves to die like he did. But he was a sort of a dicey character anyway. Right, he was known for bringing sex workers to his home, which is one of the reasons why the logical suspect would have been this woman who was a sex worker, who was the last person to see him alive.
Yeah, she was the last person he was seen with by anyone.
Right, So usually, you know, we all watch those crime shows on TV, you know, you go down that path at least take a look, you know, but that's not what happened. What year was this by me?
In nineteen seventy seven?
You were an eighteen year old girl.
Yeah, at the time.
So what was going on? You were living in New Orleans at the time.
Yeah, and I was like on drugs and stuff.
Right.
So one night we was riding in a call. It was me and two other dudes were riding a call in the cops. The police stoptors for a traffic violation.
Were you were you driving?
No? I wasn't driving right. And at the time when the police stopped us, one of the dudes that was in the call with me thro the knife in a gun in my person. So wouldn't book because I know I didn't have no knife and gun in my purse. So when the police pulled all my stuff out my person, he said, oh, we got a knife and a gun. I said, that is not for me. But they took us to Homoicide Division and they put us in different rooms and kept questions and I wasn't questions and I
kept telling him I don't know nothing about it. I don't even know what his place is at. And I heard his man and so one of the dudes, the dude they put the gun in it, and I didn't make a statement. Is said, when y'all stopped this, I put that knife in that gun and Bibi. Jeez, that's not whos I did that, and he made a statement. They just ignored a statement.
I mean, Kat, do you think they knew at the time that they had the wrong person, but they just wanted to clean up the case and that was what was really going on. Yeah, I think so.
I mean, I think they had a pretty viable suspect and they didn't follow any of the leads in that other suspects case. And I think that so often, particularly you know, back in the seventies, eighties, nineties in New Orleans, particularly with black folks. I think that they, you know, the cops got tunnel vision and you know, when they found somebody and it seemed easy enough to pin it on that person, you know, even if all the evidence
in the world pointed to someone else. So often they just got tunnel vision and focused on one person and you know, force their theory of the case to fit to that person.
So they knew, they knew that this guy had come forward who admitted that he had a classy guy. By the way the cops coming, he's putting his knife and he's gun in your purse. I mean, that's a hell of a thing. And when you were arrested, and if you're okay even talking about it, I mean, what I've read about the interrogation that you went through this is like something out of a you know, a bad movie, or out of the torture that you read about in a foreign country or abu grabe, you know, or something
like that. But I mean, you went to the police station and what happened.
And then they put us in separate rooms. And they kept throwing pictures in front me and they say, this is him him. I said, well, I've never.
Seen that man before, the dead guy.
Ye had a dead man all the samson and then one in my face. He said, no, let's take her to the other room. So when they took me to the other room, they still was asking me. So when I kept saying I don't know. I can't tell you nothing. I don't know, he said, oh, you're gonna know, and he called me a black bee and he put my hand, got me to the back behind his like wooden chair,
and put a plastic bag over my head. The chair fell backwards and they started kicking me in my ribs and all over and hit me, and he kept saying, black b Yeah, you're gonna tell us because we know you know, we know you know, he said, because let me tell you, he said, ain't number of police officers in this in the station right here, and we could kill you and your family would never know nothing about you.
So I'm scattered at that, and so he said, come on, we're going back in there by the time, he said, and you're gonna put it on and if you don't, you'll get some more. And I was scattered that I was crying and everything. I had five police officers standing up behind me and one sitting down who had the tape recorder and he said, now you ready, I said, I I don't know now he said. He turned the tape off and he said, you're gonna repeat what I say.
He turned the tape of corder.
Yeah, and sold mad. So I was so scared. I did everything they was telling me to put on. But it was a lie. I did it because I was scared.
Well, yeah, you had a very good reason to be scared.
I mean, that was hurting everywhere, and even after the JF fell back with they was kicking me in my ribs and everything.
It was horrible, and Jason, I just wanted to say that, like the world had not been kind to Bobby Jean before this all happened. You know, she had had a really tough up upbringing, and it makes so much sense that she would do anything to kind of survive, right this, this brutal police interrogation and beating.
Thank you, Bobby Geen.
Yeah, I just feel like the world had not been kind to her, had not offered her a lot of hope.
And I, you know, I think.
Because I was I was given away when my mama had me and I had to go home like that.
It was like I was scaring the whole world of my shoulders. So I just got out there and I just wanted somebody to love me, and I just wanted to be accepting itself. So whatever it took for me to do that, I did it.
And she was she was a young a young girl, as you keep kind of pointing out, you know, who was doing the best she could with what she had.
And then and then this thing happened to her, right.
Yeah, then this thing happened. This is you know, there's been too many of these cases where we've learned that the officers have threatened to kill the person unless they confess. Johnny and caapier is one thing of viyegas in Texas. There's too many of these. And you know, Johnny says to me, he was on the podcast and he said, ask me, why would I confess? And he was eighteen, like you were, and he says, why wouldn't I confess? He goes, I wanted to live? You know what I want?
I just want I want to be if I was.
A young girl eighteen. You're really more of a child than a woman. I mean at that point, you know, I mean, we know that the adolescent brain doesn't fully develop until you're twenty five. And here you are not just a young girl, but a little girl, right, ninety eight pounds, like you said, in a room full of big, tough guys who you would want to think are going to protect you, right, And in fact they're threatening in
a very real way. Right. It's not like it doesn't sound like an empty threat when they're putting a plastic bag over her and beating you and kicking you. I mean, so I don't think there's any question. And I think it's so important that you're here, and I really appreciate you. I know it's difficult for you. I can see how difficult it is. But it's so important for the public to understand that these false confessions happen for a variety
of reasons. Not everybody's tortured, but a lot of people are psychologically coerced, or they're or they're you know, confused. So yeah, in your situation, I don't think anyone would probably behave any differently than you did. But then what a difficult thing to live with too, because knowing as you're going to prison for the rest of your life that you are in a certain way responsible because you know,
you admitted something that you didn't do. But her confession didn't match the facts of the case anyway.
No, she I mean she got a lot of it wrong.
I mean she didn't get much of it right actually, and that's also a typical thing in these false confession cases. After torturing her for hours, the police were able to extract the taped confession that was riddled with inconsistencies. According to that false confession, Bobby Gene and a woman named Kimberly Leagun had met Samson in the French Quarter. Legun solicited him for sex. Then when he brought them back to his store and again back to the false narrative
that she created just to make the torture stop. She said Bobby herself got him once in the chest and once in the head, and then her friend Legan stabbed him over one hundred times. Then they robbed his store and sped off in a stolen Pontiac Graham Prix. Now for the actual facts, Arthur Sampson was shot only once in the stomach, Bobby Jean described Sampson as being twenty years younger and a half foot taller than he was.
And lastly, the Pontiac Grand Prix would not have made a good getaway car, as it was not stolen until hours after the murder. The man who had stashed a thirty two caliber Revolver a Knight for her person had made a statement admitting to just that, but that fact was inconvenient to the prosecution's narrative and was therefore hidden from the defense. All of this could have been brought
up during trial if Bobby Jean had adequate counsel. However, with no family and no backup whatsoever, Bobby Jean didn't have a chance in help. Now you're taking to jail, Yeah, how long did you have to wait? For your trial eighteen months, eighteen months in jail. Yeah, and I know how bad that must have been, because jail's, I mean, anywhere were terrible, but in New Orleans it's infamous. It is. Yeah, your trial was. It was like a combination of a
bad dream and a bad joke. It was because the people who are supposed to be defending you did nothing of the sort. Yeap, And can you talk about that? Yeah?
I can. Doing my trial, my lawyer wouldn't let me get onder standing and talking my own defense. He fell asleep drough the trial.
Your lawyer was asleep, Yeah.
He fell asleep during the I had to wake him up. And he didn't do no opening statements.
No opening statement, and no clue in statements.
And one of the jurors stood up in state totally d I cannot give miss Johnson a fair trial because I had a relationship with this man. The judge said, be seated with the victim. Yeah, and he And now I know because when I was in prison, I took fair leave and I graduated from it. But my lawyer should have called a mistrial when that jurors stood up and he didn't say not a word, and.
The judge said, just let's let's please proceed.
I mean, I've I've been doing this work for over twenty five years, and I've heard a lot of stories. I've never heard that before. I mean, I've heard stories of yourors that had but I never heard a duror actually stand up in.
A mid She she raised a hand and she said, I can I get this lady at petrial because I had a relationship with mister.
Samson, and so your lawyer was asleep, You're waking him up. He made no opening statement, he made no closing statement, and he didn't object to the last didn't call him miss trial.
He made one objection throughout the trial to the admission of a photograph. He asked a total of eight cross examination questions, the majority of which dealt with the ballistics of the gun. No opening and no closing, and he presented no case theory.
He essentially did nothing except.
Jake a nap and sid do.
Yeah. I mean, he didn't defend you so much as process you.
Right when I was in jail, when they occurring him to me, he never came seeing me. The only time I seen him was at court and sometimes when they would have court dates. For me, but he wouldn't be there, so they would postpone it to another day.
Oh so that's why I took eighteen months to get to trial. Yeah, because he wouldn't show up.
He wouldn't show up.
Did at any point did you request a different lawyer? Did you even know that you?
I didn't know. I was young and I didn't know, and you probably.
I mean, I would think in that situation, you know nothing about the law, right, And I would think again in that situation, that you would be worried if you did request, Well, then you're going to upset the only guy who's on your side right now. Did you have any family in the courtroom with you or anything like that? No, nobody, just you all alone. Yeah, Jesus Christ.
Took them less than an hour to come back with a guilty verdict.
Yeah.
So when I got there, so at first I wasn't because I was angry. I was angry and I was hurt. That's when I was starting I started fighting, and all this it didn't matter no more because I had at It was like, well, Baptigi, you got a life sentence.
Now, it's nothing you could do.
You're going to die in this prison.
But then I started praying and praying and praying. And one of the last fight I had, I remember, I was in that cell. I just fell to my knees and I said, God, just take my life. I'm I'm tired of living like this. Take my life and do what you want to do with it. And from that day to this one, I ain't been the same. I grew up, I got more mature, and I did everything.
I could do. Was they was offering the GED. So I know I had been out of school a few months and stuff, and I got in this trouble because I know I was a small girl. I had just I hadn't graduated. I dropped out at the eleventh grade. And so I took the GED and I passed the GED. It was giving grants off of introduction to business, payroll accountant and pay league. First, I took the pay of legal on and I passed with a full PARANORL yeah wow.
And I studied hard or I studied hard because I wanted it and I wanted I did everything I could to rehabilitate myself in every kind of way. It was nothing I didn't do positive in jail. I had fights in jail because I was small, and they thought I was scared of him, but I wasn't. And I had fights with quite a few people. But I grew and I matured. I did everything I know to do right. I was a law curder and all this in the prison.
When I got into the old the law library, I started writing to.
Everybody to try to help me. One day, my sister, theyd just sent me all your pavots I'm gonna bring into Innocent project. And when I sent them all to it, they got them and they started working on my case immediately. Every two weeks they would be up there to see week and they tell me how the case was going on whatever. And then the day, oh, I went to court on the seven. I didn't even know I had a court or the deal. Oh, they said, Jen Johnson, get ready, you got a court trip.
I said, a court trip? Downt y'all have never taken me back to court, so I didn't know what was going on. So I said okay, And when I got dressed, they brought me to courthouse and all them was in the.
Court room for me, all lawyers, yes, but all my lawyers walked up with me to the podium when I had to do the plea and everything.
For many long years, both the Promise of Justice Initiative and the Innocence Project of New Orleans worked tirelessly on Bobby Jane's case, investigating leads, studying the evidence, and identifying the inconsistencies in her violently coursed false confession to eventually force the District Attorney's office to offer a plea deal.
The deal was this, her first degree murder conviction and life sentence would be vacated, but Bobby Jean had to plead guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery in order to be recent sentence to time served. Her attorneys also had to drop any claims that the DA's office did not turn over exculpatory evidence. This was not the outcome the Day or anyone who cared about Bobby jan had hoped for, but it was the only one that would set her free.
It's really sort of the last miserable aspect of this case is the fact that even after all these years, and even after it's been proven that you had nothing to do with this, they still wouldn't admit their mistake, right because they wanted to maintain the conviction. They want to make sure you didn't get anything for it. So the DA's office in New Orleans forced you to take a plea just to sort.
Of could be free, as that was the only way say you take this, flee or you stay in prison.
Right, I think anybody would do what you did. And kat I want you to jump in here anytime, because I know you're intimately familiar with this case, and I know how proud you are of the work that as I am as a supporter of Innis's Project New Orleans, I'm so proud of the work that they did, and I'm so happy. I mean, I saw those pictures and I posted on my Instagram, which is at It's Jason Flamm as people know, but I posted the pictures of Bobby Jean walking out of prison that day, and I
just my heart was breaking or floating. I was breaking. My heart was breaking, and I was floating in the air, and it was a whole crazy thing. Can you shine some light on this cat because this case is bizarre even by our standards.
Yeah, absolutely so. It was a case that we worked on for several years. One of the attorneys in our office, Schrell Arnold, worked on it for a long time, and it ended up being the Promise of Justice Initiative, an incredible organization in New Orleans who ended up freeing Bobby Jean and walking her out of prison. But we were there because she was, you know, the first.
Female client who we'd really worked on her.
Case for for a long time and had a really good lead. And part of that is because, as you know, Jason, I'm sure sure you know, women aren't often sentenced to life in prison or long prison sentences, which is what HYPNO does is free innocent life sentence prisoners, and women so often are caught up in things that men do right there, or they harm or kill their domestic abusers.
And so this was you know, really exciting for us, I think because it was the first time that we'd worked with a woman for a number of years, and of course Bobby Cheen is just incredible, and you know, I think having her come home.
I actually came and hung out with her in Atlanta when.
She got home, and we went to the aquarium and started learning how to use a cell phone. That's as I think we showed you some pictures and it was a really incredible moment. I you know, can't imagine being incarcerated for forty one years.
No, I mean when you put that in context, that's I mean, you were only eighteen at the time, so that's twice as long as you had been alive, plus another five years. I mean, it's it's impossible, I think for anybody to comprehend who hasn't been through it. Jesus, who was president when you went to prison?
I don't remember. I don't know.
We have to look. Jimmy Carter was president. That's got Yeah. I mean it's a long time. Most of the people who are listening to the show weren't born yet, and everything was different, and then you come out into a world where everybody's walking around typing on their phones, going everywhere, like there's just everything is different.
When I am my first phone in my hand, I was like, oh my god. Cat. She had to assume me everything, how to turn it on and everything.
First thing she wanted was an Instagram account.
Oh yeah, what is your Instagram account?
I don't know.
She doesn't know Bobby Jean twenty eighteen.
So you walk out, I mean, what a difference you You go as a scared, brutalized, young nineteen twenty year old woman by the time eighteen when you went to jail and you come out as an accomplished, mature, fifty nine year old woman. You walk out into a world that looks almost nothing like it did when you went.
In, because New Orleans don't look nothing like it did when I went in. I mean I almost forgot the names of the streets that I definitely looked at.
To me, Yeah, I had five, five of my lords with me, and it was just, I don't know, it was a feeling I never had before.
I used to pray every night, God, you my only witness, and you know I didn't kill nobody, just open these doors and help me. Every night I prayed that in my robe. It was so hard for me.
Here we are at the Innocence Network conference. By the way, how about this conference, Bobby, It's amazing. Yeah. So we're here at the Innocence Never Conference with about two hundred exgonnarees and six hundred people activists, social workers, civilians who want to get involved. Two of them are in the room with us right now. We have lawyers here, we have experts on everything from you know, false confessions to uh, you name it, and uh. It's an awesome awesome thing.
I mean people are connecting and strategizing and coming up with best practices and helping each other. And yeah, I mean we have we have thirty five new exouneries here that were on stage last night singing and dancing and it was some crazy scene. Man, it's amazing, including you. Yeah, yeah, you're up there.
How to feel to be up there?
It was a feel good you feel.
Good for you to connect with the other exigneries. What is that experience?
Like, it's just like because I just thought, I said, I know that many people there's both convictions, and it made me feel good to know that I was.
I was.
I wasn't only one. Oh no, hell no, but I didn't know at the time. But it really feel good and to know that much loved it. We showed to each other.
Mm hmm. Yeah, we ain't done yet. We're going to be loving on you for the well for the rest of the time, but especially the LASS next twenty four hours and we're all going to be here together. It's going to be amazing. And I know that people are are so glad that you're here.
It's amazing.
It's amazing, right, Yes, yeah, I mean I'm so honored to be here and be a part of this movement. I will tell anybody who's listening that, you know, I call it selfish altruism because I can consider it a privilege and an honor to get to be around people like yourself and to be able to make some small difference is you know, it's the most rewarding thing in my life. I mean, you know, obviously you know I'm a father and that's a tremendously important thing to me.
But beyond that, it's the most important work that I can imagine being involved with. And you're a living proof of it. And here we are celebrating you and celebrating freedom and working on getting the next people out and and so now you're living in Georgia. In Georgia, yes, and what gives you joy? Now? Do you have any joy in your life? Now?
I have to enjoy my life now because it's like living where I live. I can come and go with exact please. Anybody could come get me and like take me wherever they want to save me, Like if they want to take me out there or whatever, I could do it. And they have a lot of activities because I'm because I'm because of my age. They have a lot of activities for old and I always attended. They have church service. I always attended and they treat me good.
And what is it that you do once a month, Bobby Jean.
Oh, I'll go to George's Innocent Project. I'm a men of the George's Innocent Project and I never missed a meeting. I'm always there.
Yeah.
They've really lovingly taken her into the exonery meetings that happen once a month there so she gets to hang out with other wrongfully incarcerated to people who live in Georgia.
I see you got the shirt on Georgia, said Mabby.
Do you go w a Jeorjia Innocent Project shirt? I say, yeah, I don't have one for all ipn wear the judge one.
I need to get you a just a shirt.
I know, don't have a justice sir.
I think we can arrange that. So, okay, you got that one. I got it. Okay. Perfect teamwork makes the dream work. So this is the part of the show that is my favorite part because this is the part of the show where I get to first of all, I thank.
You, thank you for having me.
Bobby Jean Johnson and Kat Forrester, thank you for coming and share especially you Bobby obviously Bobby Jeene for I know how difficult it is to talk about these things, and it's so important that you're here, so, you know, thank you on behalf of me and all my listeners
and everybody in the Innocence Network. And then this is the part where I get to stop talking, and I turned it over to YouTube fabulous ladies for final closing thoughts, and I think we should we should finish with you, Bobby, because I want to hear anything you have to say, any anything at all about any subject. But first, Kat, what what are your closing thoughts.
I'm just so glad that we helped get her home.
And I was thinking about it because were at the aquarium last night for the Innocence Network dinner, and we went to the aquarium right after she got out, and to see the joy on her face, you know, at like you know, seeing very cool.
Fash was just unparalleled.
And I'm just so glad to have been able to experience that with her and to see, you know, how many new things she gets to explore in this life now that she's a free, a free woman.
Yeah, it was amazing to me because the a Quirum I would always see that they showed on TV. I used to say, I want to go there. I want to go there. So when Kat had me, she said, you want to go to the Querrum. And when she did it, it was like a a lot of joy just jumped on my face.
I said, yeah, I want to go. I want to go Cat, I want to go see him. And when I came in, it was so beautiful. I just it was so amazing out here. But Kat led me all the way through and she was there. Yp Noel's been there for me.
I could call him at any given time or whenever, and if it's a problem I have, they would do their best to fix it. Or if I like sometimes I used to get depressed and stuff and I used to call them and talk. And Angelique has been marvelous. Oh my god, she has been.
Great client services specialists.
Yes, she has been great. No matter what, if she can't call me back at the time, she'll text me back and say I'll call you in a few minutes, just hold on and but then it has been great and it's and I'm happy to be home.
I'm happy.
I'm happy more happy.
Now than I've ever been in my life. I didn't I never.
Knew so much love and stuff, but no, I do. And it's it's great. It's this that they took a lot of away from me. They took everything away from me for nothing but something I didn't even do.
I lost everything, all my youth was gone, and I just want to thank you Jason for having me.
Well, we're going to be here for you too. You have a whole new family now. You've got eight hundred family members here now, and you've got a lot more that are listening to the show. And so you're a brave and strong and amazing woman and we're gonna support you in every way we can. So so again, thank you for being here. Thanks again for listening. I'm going to go try to recover. That's what I'm gonna do, and and we'll see you next week. I'm wrong for conviction.
I have some devastating news to share. Bobby Jean Johnson, who I recorded this amazing, haunting episode with, passed away. It was unexpected. I'm no doctor, but I can say that she died of the abuse and neglect that she suffered at the hands of the State of Louisiana during her forty one years of wrongful incarceration. Bobby was an angel on earth. She was just a beautiful, damaged soul who wanted nothing but to be loved and to help others.
And she was out less than eighteen months when she died. And I bring that up because it's a sort of a hidden and horrible truth. I don't know the statistics nationally, but in the state of Louisiana, approximately twenty percent of xanneries die within eighteen months of their release from prison. It's really hard for me to process this one. We were planning Bobby's birthday party when we got the news. She had called me and said that she called me
mister Jay. She called me, she called me mister Jay. He goes, you know, my birthday's coming up, and she said, I've in her little voice because you know, she's only about ninety something pounds, and she said, you know, I've never had a happy birthday. And you know, that really just messed my head up, as you can imagine. So we began planning myself. Stacy Ryan, who mentored her hero of the band, a wonderful rock and roll band that
I work with from Atlanta. We all were putting our resources together and planning a big, beautiful birthday celebration for her in Atlanta, and you know, just a week before it was supposed to happen, and got the news that she was gone. So Bobby Jean, You're gone, but never forgotten. Rest in power, don't forget to give us a fantastic
review wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps. And I'm a proud donor to the Ennocence Project and I really hope you'll join me in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocence Project dot orgorg to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music in the show is
by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one