Speaker 1: A group of high school students.
Speaker 2: High school students Elizabeth and high school students started a
Speaker 2: project to research a string of unsolved murders.
Speaker 3: Their research led to the identification of the killer. Investigators
Speaker 3: now have an answer to a thirty four year old question.
Speaker 4: Once you start getting a few tips, or a few leads,
Speaker 4: or few identifications, then the cold case isn't so cold anymore.
Speaker 1: There's a pretty good chance he's still alive.
Speaker 4: Everything that the students predicted through their profile turned out
Speaker 4: to be accurate.
Speaker 5: Redhead Killer profile mail Caucasian, five nine six, two hundred
Speaker 5: and seventy pounds, unstable home, absent father, and a domineering mother,
Speaker 5: right handed, IQ above one hundred, most likely heterosexual.
Speaker 4: There is no profile of this killer except for the
Speaker 4: ones the students created.
Speaker 6: Just because some of these women no longer have people
Speaker 6: to speak for them does not mean that they deserve to.
Speaker 1: Not be so anymore.
Speaker 7: What if this guy's still alive?
Speaker 8: Like, what if becomes after us?
Speaker 3: You're gonna kill me? Who's a year? This is Murder
Speaker 3: one oh one, Season one, Episode five, The Next Generation.
Speaker 3: I'm Jeff Shane, a television and podcast producer at Katie
Speaker 3: Studios with Stephanie Leidecker, Courtney Armstrong, and Andrew Arnold. It
Speaker 3: had been four and a half years since the original
Speaker 3: assignment wrapped up, but mister Campbell always felt there was
Speaker 3: more to uncover. While scheduling and timing made it challenging
Speaker 3: for mister Campbell to teach another sociology class, something even
Speaker 3: better would come his way. In the fall of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two. I spoke to him about a potentially game
Speaker 3: changing update.
Speaker 4: I mean, who says it has to be them to
Speaker 4: do the work? I mean, you know, I mean, this
Speaker 4: class did this work four or five years ago, but
Speaker 4: I have students now that could do the work too,
Speaker 4: and may want to do the work. For example, had
Speaker 4: two young ladies basically begged me to teach each a
Speaker 4: class on criminal psychology. And it's so funny because I
Speaker 4: don't even think they knew really all the background of
Speaker 4: things I did years ago. They weren't even at the
Speaker 4: high school then. But what I'm saying is there is
Speaker 4: work that needs to be done, but we also have
Speaker 4: other students that I think are really willing to do it,
Speaker 4: and they want to learn, and they want to do
Speaker 4: exciting things and help people too.
Speaker 3: So if there's a world where we can bring current
Speaker 3: high school students in and have then kind of be
Speaker 3: a part of these group meets where you assign things
Speaker 3: and we talk about it and exciten me up.
Speaker 4: We had a teacher gets sick and so we're short
Speaker 4: of subs that you know, teachers helped cover each other's classes.
Speaker 4: So I went into that classroom and it was a
Speaker 4: you know, it was a health science class or something,
Speaker 4: and I don't know how it came up, but you know,
Speaker 4: they got their work done. There was a few minutes
Speaker 4: at the end, and I'm just in there to make
Speaker 4: sure everything's kind of calm. I don't have anything new
Speaker 4: to teach them or anything. And they started talking about it,
Speaker 4: and you know, it just comes out. They're so into this,
Speaker 4: they're so into true crime. They're so into coology and
Speaker 4: sociology and criminology. They were so excited. And then I'm
Speaker 4: sitting here thinking like they don't have any idea who
Speaker 4: they're talking to, because I'm excited about this stuff too,
Speaker 4: and they don't realize that there's this very important work
Speaker 4: that things to be continued.
Speaker 3: A few days later, mister Campbell officially enlisted juniors. Riley
Speaker 3: Whitson and Marlee Mathena to help work the case. The
Speaker 3: plan was for the two teens to start meeting mister
Speaker 3: Campbell before school to see what they could find.
Speaker 4: Okay, so, originally the students from about four or five
Speaker 4: years ago were looking at six different victims, but because
Speaker 4: of their work, a lot of stuff has.
Speaker 1: Really been coming out in the last few years.
Speaker 4: So why don't you ladies tell me what you've been
Speaker 4: working on. Marley, why don't you go first.
Speaker 8: I've been working on the de Putto County Jane Doe
Speaker 8: and she was found January twenty fourth. I'm in nineteen
Speaker 8: eighty five. She was adjacent Tiway seventy eight in all
Speaker 8: of Rinch, Mississippi. And she was white with red or
Speaker 8: strawberry blonde hair. She was about twenty to thirty five
Speaker 8: years old. She was kind of smaller lady. There's only
Speaker 8: one hundred and ten pounds, about five two to five four.
Speaker 8: She was wearing a top, some jeans, but she had
Speaker 8: no underwear, socks, shoes, broad jewelry, any of that. They
Speaker 8: don't know her eye color. They think maybe brown, but
Speaker 8: they don't know for sure. And she had scars from
Speaker 8: surgeries and piercings and tattoos and everything, and they think
Speaker 8: that she was sexually assaulted and her cause of death
Speaker 8: was asphyxiation by ligature strangulation.
Speaker 4: So you fel the DeSoto County Jane do deserves to
Speaker 4: be included with the other six that the students had
Speaker 4: found a few years back.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think she does.
Speaker 5: What.
Speaker 4: I don't know, what is it that jumps out about
Speaker 4: that case that makes you think it needs to be included.
Speaker 1: With that list.
Speaker 8: Well, it just kind of lines up with everything, like
Speaker 8: the strangulation and that she's smaller, has red hair, and
Speaker 8: that she was dumped off on a highway.
Speaker 4: Now you said it was in Mississippi, Yes, and Mississippi
Speaker 4: doesn't seem to fit the kind of East Well forty
Speaker 4: corridor kind of thing. Where's that at in Mississippi?
Speaker 8: It's in Olive Branch, but I think that's where his
Speaker 8: sister lives.
Speaker 1: Jerry John's sister.
Speaker 4: Yes, he did have a sister that live in Batesville,
Speaker 4: which I think was kind of just south of the
Speaker 4: Tennessee state line. So maybe we need to look at
Speaker 4: that and let's see how far this victim was found
Speaker 4: from West Memphis, where Lisa Nichols was found, and then
Speaker 4: let's see how far that is from his sister's hometown
Speaker 4: there in Mississippi, So maybe we can do that by
Speaker 4: next week.
Speaker 1: That sound good, Riley, What have you been digging into?
Speaker 6: I've been looking at the case of baby girl Jane Doe,
Speaker 6: who has now been identified as Tracy Sue Walker.
Speaker 4: Walker was born.
Speaker 6: June second, nineteen sixty three and reportedly went missing from
Speaker 6: tip A Canoe Mall in nineteen seventy eight, which made
Speaker 6: her around fifteen years old at the time her disappearance.
Speaker 6: Her mother also reported her as running away a couple
Speaker 6: of times, so this made people believe that she had
Speaker 6: just run away until she was identified in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: Okay, so what are some of the things you think
Speaker 4: make this case deserve to be included.
Speaker 1: With the original six.
Speaker 6: Obviously, she had red hair, she was younger, smaller girls,
Speaker 6: some of the previously mentioned similarities between all of these cases.
Speaker 6: But something very interesting we found in the last couple
Speaker 6: weeks of research was that there were similarities between the
Speaker 6: knots and cloth of Tina Farmer and the survivor Linda Show.
Speaker 6: So that's been a very interesting finding and pretty compelling
Speaker 6: as far as tying this all to Jerry Leon john
Speaker 6: did they.
Speaker 1: Are you looking at there on your computer? Yes, let
Speaker 1: me see that.
Speaker 4: You know, this is fascinating because a few years back
Speaker 4: we scoured the internet, the students scoured the internet looking
Speaker 4: for all this information. And I'm gonna be honest, this
Speaker 4: was not there a few years ago. And Holy Michael,
Speaker 4: I think this was big.
Speaker 1: So let me tell you this. What's they set in?
Speaker 4: I know it's up north a little bit. I think
Speaker 4: it was Indiana.
Speaker 8: Hold on, yeah, Indiana.
Speaker 1: Lafayette, Lafayette, Yeah, Lafayette, Indiana.
Speaker 4: That is very interesting because I know that area, not
Speaker 4: because I've ever been up through there. But actually Tina Farmer,
Speaker 4: who was the other Campbell County Jane Doe, went missing
Speaker 4: from around Indianapolis, Yes, which is at that time probably
Speaker 4: close to a ten hour drive from Knoxville, which is
Speaker 4: where Jerry Leon Johns was spending a lot of time.
Speaker 1: And so think about this. Think about this for a second.
Speaker 4: Tina Farmer goes missing from around Indianapolis. This girl goes
Speaker 4: missing from Lafayette, which is about an hour from Indianapolis,
Speaker 4: and those are about ten hours away. And both of
Speaker 4: those girls end up dead within a mile of each
Speaker 4: other ten hour drive away. I think that's really big.
Speaker 4: What's the chance it.
Speaker 6: Is the greatest coincidence of all time?
Speaker 4: Or and they're both red headed, and they're both white,
Speaker 4: and they're both teenagers, and they both have the same
Speaker 4: body style and hete and wait and all those things.
Speaker 1: That is crazy. And then also I know.
Speaker 4: That by looking at the history of jer Leon Johns
Speaker 4: that the cops put together for the lend of share prosecution,
Speaker 4: that he had lived in Rockford.
Speaker 1: Illinois, and he still had family in Rockford, Illinois.
Speaker 4: And if you look on the interstate, you have to
Speaker 4: go through from from Tennessee, you have to go through
Speaker 4: Indianapolis and Lafayette to get to Rockford.
Speaker 1: Which is about an hour away.
Speaker 4: So if he's traveling back and forth from his family
Speaker 4: back down to areas here in Tennessee and East Tennessee,
Speaker 4: those interstates and those cities are on the is on
Speaker 4: that interstate, right on the way. And the fact that
Speaker 4: both those young ladies went went missing from so far
Speaker 4: away and then end up dead within a mile of
Speaker 4: each other, within a couple of years of each other,
Speaker 4: about thirty miles.
Speaker 1: North of where Jerry Leon Johnson is hanging out. That's crazy.
Speaker 6: And from what we've seen, I believe that Jerry Leon Johns.
Speaker 6: I believe he's a very opportunistic but also calculated killer.
Speaker 6: So I think wherever he's traveling, that's where we'll see
Speaker 6: the path of destruction, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 6: when we see these patterns of him traveling to these
Speaker 6: different places, you know he's bound to recavoc where he goes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I think that's big. I definitely agree with you.
Speaker 4: We need to look at the Tracy Sue Walker case.
Speaker 4: And that's not because of bad work of the original students.
Speaker 1: It's because it's new. Information's going right, and she.
Speaker 6: Wasn't identified until August of this year.
Speaker 4: You know, Okay, awesome, So I think you guys are
Speaker 4: doing a good job.
Speaker 1: I think we definitely need to continue to look at.
Speaker 4: These two victims and maybe they need to be included
Speaker 4: in the inner circle. And Marty, we'll go back to you, like,
Speaker 4: what do you think you need to do next to
Speaker 4: solidify the fact that you think she's connected with these
Speaker 4: other murders.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 3: a moment. Murder one O one.
Speaker 8: I think I definitely need to figure out like the
Speaker 8: relationship between where she was found and where his sister lives,
Speaker 8: So definitely figure out that. So then it gives like
Speaker 8: a reason for why he would be going down there,
Speaker 8: and it just connects it, so it's not like it's
Speaker 8: crazy out of the way, And then I think look
Speaker 8: at the other victims a little bit more and try
Speaker 8: and find like connecting factors between this.
Speaker 6: And an unfortunate fact too, is so many of these women
Speaker 6: were done injustice as far as the investigation goes, just
Speaker 6: because so many of them were transient or were a
Speaker 6: possible sex workers away from home. So many of them
Speaker 6: were done a disservice by the justice system and enough
Speaker 6: wasn't enough, attention wasn't given to them. Yeah, for Tina
Speaker 6: Farmer and Linda, they were cloth that had been tied
Speaker 6: around their necks and the knot was in the cloth
Speaker 6: around their necks.
Speaker 4: So all right, So right here I have a huge
Speaker 4: three ring binder. This is all of the information that
Speaker 4: was collected for the Linda attempted murder.
Speaker 1: By Jerry Leon Johnson.
Speaker 4: So that's the only one that went to court. So
Speaker 4: we have all this information and I have it right here,
Speaker 4: and in this stack of a couple hundred pages, we
Speaker 4: actually went down to Nashville, and here are some pictures
Speaker 4: of the knots that were tied around her neck. Now,
Speaker 4: it says in here that he took the T shirt
Speaker 4: she was wearing, ripped it into strips, and then used
Speaker 4: that to bind her ankles together and then her wrist together,
Speaker 4: and then tied her wrist her ankles like the hawg tie,
Speaker 4: And when she was in the car, that's how she
Speaker 4: was tied. And so then he used those T shirt
Speaker 4: strips to strangle her. And you're telling me that they
Speaker 4: found something similar on Tina Farmer, who was who was
Speaker 4: also another the other Campbell County victim.
Speaker 6: Yes, they found cloth that had been ripped up and
Speaker 6: tied around the neck of her as well.
Speaker 8: So very very similar, as.
Speaker 6: You've said too, and just something interesting that when we
Speaker 6: were personally into this case, it just kind of blew
Speaker 6: my mind and shows you the ruthless, the ruthlessness and
Speaker 6: the savageness of Jerry Leon Johns. Whenever Linda was choked,
Speaker 6: she was choked so hard that she was blind for
Speaker 6: three days after the assault, and the whites of her
Speaker 6: eyes we've seen the pictures from the hospital. The whites
Speaker 6: in her eyes were completely red, as deep as red
Speaker 6: as you can think. It was a haunting sight to
Speaker 6: see her picture from them.
Speaker 1: I almost say something else like that.
Speaker 4: Information about Tina Farmer being strangled with a cloth was
Speaker 4: not out there either.
Speaker 1: It didn't say anything like that when we were looking.
Speaker 4: And I didn't even know that she was found in
Speaker 4: a blanket until it came out that she was identified.
Speaker 4: And they knew that Jerr Lee on John has killed
Speaker 4: her because his DNA was found on the blanket, So
Speaker 4: they didn't even release that. So the fact that now
Speaker 4: we know that she was strangled with a.
Speaker 1: Cloth shirt from a.
Speaker 8: T shirts, from her T shirt.
Speaker 4: Okay, from her T shirt, very very similar to Linda.
Speaker 4: And then this girl Tracy Walker, who disappeared about an
Speaker 4: hour from Tina Farmer up in Indianapolis, ends up about
Speaker 4: a mile away from her. She also has been They
Speaker 4: found the T shirt that survived, yes, I believe, so
Speaker 4: they have strips of cloth with a knot in there.
Speaker 4: And then we know for a fact on the Linden
Speaker 4: case that he tied her and then strangled her with
Speaker 4: a T shirt. If that is not signature on a Yeah,
Speaker 4: then I don't know what is I totally agree that
Speaker 4: Tracy C. Walker definitely needs to be like right in
Speaker 4: the center of the possible victims.
Speaker 6: And I believe we should look and see what we
Speaker 6: can find on other victims to see if there's that
Speaker 6: possible Samemo. I mean, if he did something so similar
Speaker 6: for these three victims, he's bound to do it for others.
Speaker 4: You know, is there anything else we need to do
Speaker 4: this week? You know, just kind of research and see
Speaker 4: if we can continue to pull these together.
Speaker 6: Like I said, just I think looking more into I mean,
Speaker 6: we know some of these small details that may seem insignificant,
Speaker 6: but these are the type of details that we're going
Speaker 6: to put together to really make a compelling case for ourselves.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, girls, great job. I know it's almost time
Speaker 4: to go to class. I appreciate y'all coming in early.
Speaker 4: I know you got your busy, you got basketball, you
Speaker 4: got school. But I appreciate y'all coming in before school
Speaker 4: and working on this in your spare time.
Speaker 1: I really think we've come a long way. I can't
Speaker 1: wait to see what else you guys find.
Speaker 3: So who are the young women going above and beyond
Speaker 3: in the search of justice.
Speaker 6: I'm Riley Wits, and obviously I'm sixteen. I'll be seventeen
Speaker 6: the day before, no two days before Halloween, so I've
Speaker 6: kind of always had that spooky ambiance follow me around
Speaker 6: everywhere I go. But yeah, I've always been very interested,
Speaker 6: morbidly and fascinated with stuff that most people are like, Wow,
Speaker 6: You're either going to be a serial killer or a
Speaker 6: brain surgeon when you grow up.
Speaker 8: Hi, I'm Malonsina. I'm a junior at elizabeth In High
Speaker 8: School and I'm sixteen.
Speaker 3: Marley spoke about the extracurricular club.
Speaker 8: We started, like a little club, which right now is
Speaker 8: just me and Riley, so we just started getting into it.
Speaker 8: I would say that it's definitely out there, like I'm
Speaker 8: not gonna take away from that, but like anyone's capable
Speaker 8: of anything.
Speaker 6: So we decided, you know, to come in early few
Speaker 6: times a week and do some work on our own
Speaker 6: when we could. Me and Marley both play play basketball
Speaker 6: for the school, so we'll be in the locker room
Speaker 6: talking about it, and all our teammates are like, what
Speaker 6: the heck is going on?
Speaker 8: The rest is history.
Speaker 3: I guess Marley and Riley are best friends.
Speaker 8: Riley's my best friend. She has been since like third grade,
Speaker 8: so we've always been close. Well in third grade, we
Speaker 8: met her basketball and we both still play basketball now
Speaker 8: and we go over to her or I used to
Speaker 8: go over to her house all the time and we
Speaker 8: just did everything together. And back then I used to
Speaker 8: be like really really quiet, like I would have a
Speaker 8: panic attack. Before I had this phone call and she
Speaker 8: was more outgoing. But she's still pullay the more the
Speaker 8: outgoing one and all that. But I think I've gained
Speaker 8: a little bit more of the outgoing this her.
Speaker 3: We spoke to Riley's dad, mister Woodson.
Speaker 2: I mean, they are literally best bff's best friends. Our
Speaker 2: families are best friends. We vacation together, like we go
Speaker 2: we go to Florida together every year. We you know,
Speaker 2: we travel, we stay together. We you know, we get
Speaker 2: together on the weekend's cookouts with them, hang by the
Speaker 2: pool where and she has a younger brother who is
Speaker 2: the same age as my youngest daughter, and their best friends.
Speaker 2: So it's just like our whole folent family dynamic. It's
Speaker 2: we were We didn't know them back then, but me
Speaker 2: and my wife got married like a month apart from
Speaker 2: Marley's mom and dad, Mikey and Courtney, and then we
Speaker 2: had our first kids at the same time and our
Speaker 2: second kids at the same time. They're just a couple
Speaker 2: of parts. So yeah, it's a pretty interesting dynamic.
Speaker 3: We also got the chance to connect with Marley's mom,
Speaker 3: missus Mathena.
Speaker 7: They are peanut, butter and jelly. Riley is much more.
Speaker 7: Riley is the extrovert. She's out going, she could talk
Speaker 7: to anyone. She's definitely not shy. She performs. She has
Speaker 7: a beautiful singing voice, and it's comfortable. She you know,
Speaker 7: at many events. She everything from performing with the praise
Speaker 7: band at her church, she sings at funeral she has
Speaker 7: sung from the very large crowds for community events, the
Speaker 7: national anthem. So Riley's there. Marley's more of the quiet
Speaker 7: behind the scenes. But they balanced each other so well.
Speaker 7: You know, one is more cautious, one is more of
Speaker 7: a risk taker. You know, you've got one pulling the
Speaker 7: turtle out of the shell and the other one tempering,
Speaker 7: you know. I mean, they are just in and yank.
Speaker 7: They are a perfect sweet little friendship. Basketball is their passion.
Speaker 7: Last year their team went to the state tournament. We
Speaker 7: didn't win the championship, but we had an awesome run
Speaker 7: and we lost no players. We had the juniors and
Speaker 7: sophomores last year. So our goal this year is for
Speaker 7: the girls to go back. They're working very hard. Riley
Speaker 7: is point guard. She is an awesome shooter. She has
Speaker 7: the most beautiful three point shot you've ever seen. Marley
Speaker 7: plays the post position and again, you know, her timidness
Speaker 7: has been, you know, something that she's been working to
Speaker 7: come out of, and she has really grown and pushed
Speaker 7: herself again to the next level and in her post
Speaker 7: position really going after the ball and crashing the boards
Speaker 7: and rebounding. They both girls are very, very very hard
Speaker 7: workers on the court, off the court, in the classroom.
Speaker 7: Whatever they do their work ethic, they will put in
Speaker 7: one hundred and ten percent. So them getting up at
Speaker 7: seven o'clock in the morning, that's not out of character
Speaker 7: for them.
Speaker 3: Aside from being on her students and star basketball players,
Speaker 3: what truly bonded the girls was their obsession with true crime,
Speaker 3: and I think.
Speaker 2: That falls in with wanting to solve the Jane Doe
Speaker 2: type stuff. She loves helping people less fortunate. It like
Speaker 2: at church before at church and there's kids in the
Speaker 2: youth who are kind of less fortunate, Riley will gravitate
Speaker 2: to those kids. She wants to love on those kids
Speaker 2: and help those kids, and I think they kind of
Speaker 2: really as part of her passion for one to solve
Speaker 2: the Jane Doe. She wants to help these ladies out,
Speaker 2: or these people, these victims who don't have a voice anymore.
Speaker 2: She wants to help them out. She is a typical teenager,
Speaker 2: but she's she's.
Speaker 4: On her phone a lot.
Speaker 2: But I'm not kidding. If she's on her phone for
Speaker 2: five hours in her spare time of day, four and
Speaker 2: a half hours is with the crime podcasts.
Speaker 3: For Marley's mom, the newfound interest came as a bit
Speaker 3: of a shock.
Speaker 7: She is not the child that enjoys thrill rides. She
Speaker 7: has never watched scary movies, you know, and it's like, wows,
Speaker 7: And I'm interested in true crime. That's kind of surprising.
Speaker 7: But she's really interested into the scientific, the forensic, and
Speaker 7: she's like, to make big, big impacts in life, you
Speaker 7: kind of have to go outside the box.
Speaker 3: The club took a few days to review the information
Speaker 3: before meeting back up.
Speaker 6: So what have you been finding so like I said previously,
Speaker 6: we're just trying to tie Tracy Walker with the rest
Speaker 6: of these victims, and really because we feel that there's
Speaker 6: a lot of compelling evidence that ties her to Juy
Speaker 6: Lean Johns. So something very interesting I found here. I'm
Speaker 6: looking at my map. Tina Farmer was from Indianapolis and Indiana,
Speaker 6: and a Walker was from Lafayette in Indiana.
Speaker 1: And that's about an hour or maybe yeah.
Speaker 6: Round about something like that. Well, we've covered that Jerry
Speaker 6: Leon John was a trucker. Well, there's a highway or
Speaker 6: interstate that goes directly between these two and he would
Speaker 6: have taken this route so he didn't have to go
Speaker 6: through Chicago, which most truckers would not want to go
Speaker 6: through Chicago due to traffic obvious reasons. So there's a
Speaker 6: direct line between these two cities which he would have taken,
Speaker 6: which I think is very just give us a direct line.
Speaker 6: But even more than that, directly above to the left
Speaker 6: of these two cities is Rockford, Illinois, which was where
Speaker 6: Jerry Leon John's family was from, and when him and
Speaker 6: his wife divorced, she actually moved back there. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's practically a perfect diagonal line.
Speaker 1: It's highway of death. Yes, as sad as that he is.
Speaker 8: So.
Speaker 6: I mean, there's just so many similarities.
Speaker 8: There's no way it's coincidental.
Speaker 4: It's hard to say to people got kidnapped ten hours
Speaker 4: away and their bodies ended up within a mile of.
Speaker 1: Each other, and it wasn't the same person. Everything else
Speaker 1: matches exactly it.
Speaker 8: And this is actually pretty interesting. But her name is
Speaker 8: We figured out that the Desto count and Jane Doe
Speaker 8: was also strangled with the ligature?
Speaker 1: Did it say anything about what type of ligature?
Speaker 7: On?
Speaker 8: NamUs didn't and just said that it was a ligature,
Speaker 8: but she was missing like a jacket and undergarments, which
Speaker 8: I don't know if that has anything to do with it,
Speaker 8: but he could use the jacket.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a lot of good work for a couple
Speaker 4: of days. They got to give y' all a pretty
Speaker 4: good grade too. But you getting ready to have your
Speaker 4: big three day weekend, don't rub it in. These teachers
Speaker 4: have to work on Friday.
Speaker 1: But what do you think we need to.
Speaker 8: Do figure out more about the what the ligature could
Speaker 8: have been?
Speaker 1: Riley? What are you going to be working?
Speaker 6: I believe just again trying to tie more more of
Speaker 6: these cases together. Looking into specific small details, even if
Speaker 6: they seem insignificant, because I feel like those add up.
Speaker 6: Like just seeing that Tina Farm and Tracy Walker were
Speaker 6: from Lafayette and Indianapolis, you wouldn't think too much into that,
Speaker 6: But seeing that route to Rockford, I mean, that's just
Speaker 6: pretty compelling in my opinion. So maybe looking at some
Speaker 6: more geography, seeing if these would have been roots that
Speaker 6: he would have taken.
Speaker 1: I think also we need to keep working on our timeline.
Speaker 4: Yeah, where what was he doing when Tracy Walker disappears?
Speaker 6: Maybe since that I've thought about too those intricate knots.
Speaker 6: Could he have got those from his military training? Yeah,
Speaker 6: in his boot camp. You know, it'd be interesting to
Speaker 6: see what those types of notes are used for, if
Speaker 6: we could identify them.
Speaker 1: I would love to maybe show this to a not expert.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, in between meetings, Riley spoke about why she was
Speaker 3: motivated to do this work.
Speaker 8: These were people.
Speaker 6: They weren't names, they weren't Jane Doe's, they weren't people
Speaker 6: who didn't They were loved and they were cherished at
Speaker 6: some point in their lives, and their family members have
Speaker 6: gone this long, maybe not even knowing if they're dead
Speaker 6: or alive, you know, just wondering if there's still out
Speaker 6: there and nobody wants to hear that their daughter or
Speaker 6: sister or cousin has been killed. But I think if
Speaker 6: we can bring closure to some of these people and
Speaker 6: to some of these families and say, you know, this
Speaker 6: is what happened, this is who did it. They didn't
Speaker 6: run away willingly or you know they were still out
Speaker 6: there or they're not still out there, I think that
Speaker 6: would just be so rewarding in itself, just to know
Speaker 6: that we were able to bring some peace and some
Speaker 6: closure to people. That gets me so frustrated because you know,
Speaker 6: I've heard it people like, we'll talk about it, and
Speaker 6: people are like, you're so young, Like why are you
Speaker 6: worried about this? I'm like, because if we don't face
Speaker 6: this issue now, my daughter, or my mom or.
Speaker 8: My sister, it could be them one day.
Speaker 6: If this was anybody in my family, I would want
Speaker 6: everybody and anybody doing whatever they could to help out.
Speaker 6: If I can give a little bit of my time to,
Speaker 6: you know, honor these women and take back their names
Speaker 6: from Jerry Leon John's. It's just so heartbreaking to see
Speaker 6: these women die and no change come from it like
Speaker 6: this is the worst possible circumstance and the worst possible
Speaker 6: thing that could happened to a person, and there's not
Speaker 6: even change coming from that. They shouldn't have died at all,
Speaker 6: but they should not have died in vain. More than that.
Speaker 3: Let's stop here for another quick break murder one on one.
Speaker 3: While Riley and Marley continued to research, mister Campbell set
Speaker 3: off to locate the only known surviving victim of the
Speaker 3: Bible Belt strangler. When the club reconvened, he had promising news.
Speaker 1: Hey, good morning, ladies. How y'all doing. Yeah, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is our last.
Speaker 4: Day before a little three day weekend, you guys get
Speaker 4: I appreciate y'all coming in early.
Speaker 1: If this story had.
Speaker 4: A hero, in my opinion, that is his final victim,
Speaker 4: which is Linn. She was the lady who was attacked
Speaker 4: left for dead beside the road. He knew what it
Speaker 4: was like to literally see the life go out of
Speaker 4: their eyes because he choked them, probably facing them with
Speaker 4: the ligature, and so he left her for dead beside
Speaker 4: the road. And we have to assume that she wasn't breathing,
Speaker 4: and she was, for all intentsive purposes dead but she
Speaker 4: comes back to life. She starts breathing again, and then
Speaker 4: she gets out of the culvert and goes into the
Speaker 4: interstate and gets somebody to help her. Remember, she was
Speaker 4: blind for three days. He choked her so badly she
Speaker 4: couldn't see. She actually made it all the way across
Speaker 4: two lanes of traffic, through the median and into the
Speaker 4: other lane, and she really didn't know she was out
Speaker 4: in the middle road. She just knew she was close
Speaker 4: to some traffic. But because she got out there and
Speaker 4: she got helped so quickly, she was able to tell
Speaker 4: the police, you know, what he looked like, what he
Speaker 4: was driving, where they were, and they caught him. They
Speaker 4: caught him that night. And because of that, he didn't
Speaker 4: get to hurt anybody else, right, which is great, But
Speaker 4: if it wasn't for her will to live, and you know,
Speaker 4: just the toughness and tenasty she had, he would have
Speaker 4: gone on to hurt more and more and more people.
Speaker 1: He wasn't going to stop.
Speaker 4: So if there's anybody that's the hero in the story,
Speaker 4: it's Lindy. And I've been looking for her for a
Speaker 4: long time and what I found was she had gotten
Speaker 4: divorced a couple of years later, she had a child
Speaker 4: and then she moved. So whenever I found him, I
Speaker 4: started looking up his name, and then I found the
Speaker 4: death notice in the paper and down at the bottom
Speaker 4: had listed like a special friend and it mentioned Linda.
Speaker 4: So I was like, all right, not many people make
Speaker 4: it into that death announcement, so maybe it's her. So
Speaker 4: whenever I began to look for that, I found a
Speaker 4: lot of lends you can imagine, across the country. So
Speaker 4: I just began to look, where do you look when
Speaker 4: you want to find somebody?
Speaker 1: On Facebook? So I pulled out Facebook.
Speaker 4: I started looking, and when I looked, I'm like, this
Speaker 4: is probably her.
Speaker 1: So I began to dig through.
Speaker 4: Her posts and I find that she had mentioned something
Speaker 4: about being with her son and his last name was
Speaker 4: so that was her first child. And then I find
Speaker 4: like all these kind of links to like Greenville, Green County,
Speaker 4: Washington County, Tennessee. And then that kind of falls off
Speaker 4: a few years ago and she appears and it looks
Speaker 4: like that's where one of her at least one of
Speaker 4: her children live, So I think I found her.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of like.
Speaker 4: The dog that you know, chased the car and then
Speaker 4: caught it, like, what are you going to do? You know,
Speaker 4: I've looked for so long and now I know where
Speaker 4: she's at and I have a way to.
Speaker 6: Contact her, and she may not know the lives that
Speaker 6: she's possibly saved.
Speaker 4: You know, well, that's true. You know, I was talking
Speaker 4: about her being like the hero of the story. If
Speaker 4: she doesn't have that will to live, if she doesn't
Speaker 4: call the police and go through with the prosecution, then
Speaker 4: he continues to hurt people and kill people.
Speaker 1: So does she even know this?
Speaker 4: I mean, it's been part.
Speaker 1: She was just a few years older than you all.
Speaker 4: So y'all have any advice for me as I reach
Speaker 4: out to her.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't go into it as if you're don't make
Speaker 6: her feel she's on trial or like you're asking her
Speaker 6: questions questions. Get to know her first, ask her about,
Speaker 6: you know, her current interest, her family, how she likes.
Speaker 6: To Just get to know her first and get that
Speaker 6: personal connection. I think it'll be a lot easier for
Speaker 6: her to open up with you if she wants to.
Speaker 6: And at the same time, don't push obviously, you know,
Speaker 6: don't push if she if she doesn't want.
Speaker 8: To send me a message to her instead of calling her,
Speaker 8: so that may be better than she can answer on
Speaker 8: her own time and not feel like pressured like she
Speaker 8: has to talk about it right then, like if you can,
Speaker 8: it's supposed to.
Speaker 6: I mean, she might need a little bit to gather
Speaker 6: what she wants to say and what she doesn't want.
Speaker 6: So that's a good point, just really reinforcing the idea
Speaker 6: that her story could save even more lives. It's save
Speaker 6: the lives because she stopped Jay lean John in my opinion,
Speaker 6: but at the same time, she could bring so much
Speaker 6: justice and peace and closure to so many families.
Speaker 1: Now I would think so too. Okay, well, hey, I
Speaker 1: think that's been a pretty good week. So what are
Speaker 1: you gonna do over your three day weekend?
Speaker 8: Probably just research some more.
Speaker 1: So y'all do school work even when you're off school.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not like calculus there.
Speaker 6: Oh no, I have to go do my calculus homework
Speaker 6: right now in first period because I was looking at this.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 4: The bell just rang right, So well, you guys, scurry
Speaker 4: on the class, But thank you for your works.
Speaker 1: I think it's been a really good week, and we'll
Speaker 1: just keep working.
Speaker 6: And see what we find, yeah for.
Speaker 4: Sure, And then I'll see if I can get up
Speaker 4: the nerve to call into and see how she feels about.
Speaker 6: That, crossing my fingers toes and eyes.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, all right.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys, have a great day.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you too.
Speaker 6: Hello?
Speaker 4: Is this Lennon?
Speaker 3: Yeah, more on that next time. Murder one oh one
Speaker 3: is executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Alex Campbell, Courtney Armstrong,
Speaker 3: Andrew Arnault and me Jeff Shane. Additional producing by Connor
Speaker 3: Powell and Gabriel Castillo. Editing by Jeff Twa and Davey
Speaker 3: Cooper Wasser. Music by Vancor Music. Murder one oh one
Speaker 3: is a production of iHeartRadio and Katie Studios. For more
Speaker 3: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 3: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.