Speaker 1: A group of high school student High school students Elizabeth
Speaker 1: and high school students started a project to research a
Speaker 1: string of unsolved murders. Their research led to the identification
Speaker 1: of the killer.
Speaker 2: Investigators now have an answer to a thirty four year
Speaker 2: old question.
Speaker 3: Once you start getting a few tips, or a few leads,
Speaker 3: or few identifications, then the cold case isn't so cold anymore.
Speaker 3: There's a pretty good chance he's still live. Everything that
Speaker 3: the students predicted through their profile turned out to be accurate.
Speaker 4: Redhead killer profile mal Caucasian, five nine, six hundred and
Speaker 4: seventy pounds, unstable home, absent father, and a domineering mother,
Speaker 4: right handed IQ above one hundred, most likely heterosexual.
Speaker 3: There is no profile of this killer except for the
Speaker 3: ones the students created.
Speaker 5: Just because some of these women no longer have people
Speaker 5: to speak for them does not mean that they desire
Speaker 5: to not be so anymore.
Speaker 6: What if this what do you mean?
Speaker 7: Comes after?
Speaker 2: This is Murder one oh one, Season one, episode seven, Nuisance.
Speaker 2: I'm Jeff Shane, a television and podcast producer at Katie
Speaker 2: Studios with Stephanie Leidecker, Courtney Armstrong, and Andrew Arnoult. Mister
Speaker 2: Campbell was eager to contact surviving victim Linda to ask
Speaker 2: her more questions and find out about her interactions with
Speaker 2: Jerry Johns, the man who was allegedly the Bible belt strangler.
Speaker 1: Did you how do you pick the case?
Speaker 6: I mean, how in the world would you come up with?
Speaker 3: Well, the reason I was, I guess I was drawn
Speaker 3: was we were actually working I was teaching sociology and
Speaker 3: we were working with a teacher who was down the hall,
Speaker 3: and he is the criminal justice teacher, and so we
Speaker 3: decided to kind of team up and put our classes together,
Speaker 3: and we were trying to look at the only cold
Speaker 3: case murder in our county that was unsolved. And so
Speaker 3: it was a redheaded teenage girl and she it was
Speaker 3: not so she's not really you wouldn't know her name
Speaker 3: because she was, oh, sorry, what it's okay. She she
Speaker 3: wasn't related those to any of those cases. What we
Speaker 3: found out is that most of the police felt she
Speaker 3: was They knew who had killed her. It was somebody
Speaker 3: here locally that she knew. But whenever I was researching,
Speaker 3: you know, I was just going online and see what
Speaker 3: I could find about it. And because she was young
Speaker 3: and teenager and it was in the eighties and she
Speaker 3: had red hair. It started bringing up these things about
Speaker 3: these these redhead murders. And you know, I was born
Speaker 3: in seventy eight, so I was growing up here in
Speaker 3: the eighties and I don't remember anything about it. So
Speaker 3: it was just it kind of fascinated me that there
Speaker 3: were things happening in East Tennessee where I grew up,
Speaker 3: and I had never heard about it. And then when
Speaker 3: I talked to people about it, they had never heard
Speaker 3: about it either, And so I guess what drew me
Speaker 3: to it was if I haven't heard about it and
Speaker 3: I live here and nobody else who lives here has
Speaker 3: heard about it, how are they ever. I kept reading
Speaker 3: the articles and TV I was like, you know, we
Speaker 3: hope to get more tips and we need the community
Speaker 3: to help us, but if nobody even remembers it, they're
Speaker 3: not going to get any tips or help. So I
Speaker 3: think that's why the students wanted to look into it,
Speaker 3: and I was kind of interested in it. Was because
Speaker 3: we wanted to bring attention to it so they could
Speaker 3: get some help, so people could call in tips or
Speaker 3: they could get some new leads. And actually that's exactly
Speaker 3: what happened. That's how Tina Farmer was identified, and I
Speaker 3: guess that's the reason I was drawn to the case.
Speaker 3: This may come as a surprise. Jerry John's was actually
Speaker 3: coutl blinde.
Speaker 6: Well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: None of us had like red hair. When you think
Speaker 1: of red hair. My not a red pint. If you
Speaker 1: got out in the sun. It looked like, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like red highlights or something, but not red
Speaker 1: writ just you know, strawberry blonders. I don't know that.
Speaker 6: Have you seen the.
Speaker 1: Pictures of me in my host or afterwards?
Speaker 3: I have, yes, So.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't seen it since that day,
Speaker 1: but I mean since the trial, I guess.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's that's what it looked me. Looked like
Speaker 3: a dark kind of auburn, you know. And I could
Speaker 3: I could tell it had the silence.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it was.
Speaker 1: It was It wasn't did any intentionally get red? And
Speaker 1: I just they just had a red tent to it.
Speaker 1: So and it was different colors.
Speaker 6: What I was born with.
Speaker 1: So but what he said, what at the very last second,
Speaker 1: it wasn't. I said, are you gonna kill me? He
Speaker 1: said yes, And that's not any things he really mean,
Speaker 1: you know, mean like just oh god, yes, I said
Speaker 1: why he said, You're a nuisance and that was it.
Speaker 2: It was important to understand how the abduction occurred and
Speaker 2: what Jerry John's behavior was like.
Speaker 3: So had he been I guess when you first met
Speaker 3: him or throughout the night?
Speaker 1: Did he was?
Speaker 3: He like charming or what kind of person was he?
Speaker 3: At first?
Speaker 6: He was it was just nice.
Speaker 1: And I was in a really really, really bad movie
Speaker 1: and I had this friend who had much loose shirt,
Speaker 1: more room than I did, and would do just about anything.
Speaker 6: And she told me about these guys.
Speaker 1: With these hundred dollar bills and for me, you know,
Speaker 1: so I don't I mean, if I normally didn't do that,
Speaker 1: I mean it. It's I don't think I've ever left
Speaker 1: the stranger ever before, but you know, there were a
Speaker 1: couple of guys that had paid me money, but not
Speaker 1: never had I just left the put, you know, with
Speaker 1: someone like that. And even at the child they didn't
Speaker 1: believe that, but I remember this. One of my neighbors
Speaker 1: testified that I didn't even know he was confie and
Speaker 1: they said, well, she's probably slept.
Speaker 6: With him or something.
Speaker 1: And the judge said, she's frosted she probably slept with
Speaker 1: all of them, which is far from true. Of course,
Speaker 1: I never slept with him. He was you know, I
Speaker 1: mean not of course, I guess he didn't. Johnny didn't
Speaker 1: know that. He just assumed that since I, you know,
Speaker 1: read the medium and stuff, that that's what kind of
Speaker 1: person I was. And I I mean, I was no innocent.
Speaker 6: I mean just that.
Speaker 3: I mean from everybody I've spoken to, Jerry John's was
Speaker 3: a very at times, I guess he was a very
Speaker 3: likable person. They said he made friends easily. He actually
Speaker 3: stole a lot of cars because people trusted him, even
Speaker 3: at like car lots, to take it for a test drive,
Speaker 3: and then he would just drive off with it. So
Speaker 3: I was just curious if you had seen him as,
Speaker 3: you know, a likable, kind of normal, jovial, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of person at first.
Speaker 1: Well, actually when we went to Lee's, I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened to Shanon. We had different cars, and I
Speaker 1: guess Jerry and his brother had different cars. And I
Speaker 1: followed Jerry Johnson the hotel and the entire way there.
Speaker 1: I was so scared I wanted to turn off.
Speaker 6: I was.
Speaker 1: I was so scared, and I was even praying, because
Speaker 1: I just I didn't want to go. I wanted to
Speaker 1: and then I kept thinking, I've got two halfs to
Speaker 1: these hundred dollars bills, and he'll kill me over him
Speaker 1: if I don't show up, and that I said a
Speaker 1: thousand times. I started to turn off and don't follow him.
Speaker 6: But if I.
Speaker 1: Hadn't had those hundred dollars half hundred dollars bills in
Speaker 1: my purse, I would I would have I wouldn't have drunk.
Speaker 6: But he was nice.
Speaker 1: I'm not. He never said anything ugly. And when he
Speaker 1: pulled in and said told me was this, well, he
Speaker 1: put the gun on me and told me to get
Speaker 1: in my car, and he drove and told me he
Speaker 1: was a Texas ranger and that he was looking for drugs.
Speaker 1: So he looked at my arms and he said, well,
Speaker 1: you're not a drug user, but you know people i've
Speaker 1: met the dust drugs. So we're going to find Shannon.
Speaker 1: And then eventually he said, I'm going to drop you
Speaker 1: off here in these woods, and he'd already tied my
Speaker 1: hands and stuff, and he said, I'm gonna leave you
Speaker 1: here until I find her, because I don't want you
Speaker 1: warning her or whatever so that she can help them
Speaker 1: find somebody that's selling drugs. Of course, I had no
Speaker 1: idea that Texas Ranger didn't have couldn't arrest people here
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean, I've never dealt with love before,
Speaker 1: so I just I, you know, back then, policemen told
Speaker 1: you do something, you did it, you know, And that's honestly.
Speaker 6: What I thought until the very last minute, I guess, but.
Speaker 1: He was really he never Oh, I doesn't know that.
Speaker 6: I was going to tell you.
Speaker 1: When he was turned my hate or you know, turned
Speaker 1: my hands up, he I said, oh, that's that hurts.
Speaker 1: That's time. So he loosened it or something keep from
Speaker 1: hurting me. Or I said something was uncomfortable. I can't
Speaker 1: I'd have to stop and think about it.
Speaker 6: But and he whatever he had tied.
Speaker 1: Or moved him, he loosened or put him in a
Speaker 1: different way so that I wouldn't be uncomfortable. And then
Speaker 1: my attorney, I can't even remember. Before the big trial,
Speaker 1: I guess something happened and my attorney said I needed
Speaker 1: to sue him even he didn't have any money, would
Speaker 1: never have any money.
Speaker 6: And I can't remember right now. Why are my attorney's dead?
Speaker 1: Also?
Speaker 5: But he said, you just need to.
Speaker 6: Do him, so to be down on paper.
Speaker 1: If he ever does get anything like a book dealer
Speaker 1: or something, then you know you'll get your part. But
Speaker 1: when I went to sign the papers that said that
Speaker 1: he had beaten me all around my face and stuff,
Speaker 1: I guess because he you know, he did knew about
Speaker 1: the brook and I said, bruised and my eyes were
Speaker 1: blood chalk for months because of breaking the blood vest.
Speaker 1: So I told him, I said, he didn't hit me. Ever,
Speaker 1: he was very nice to me, even, you know, made
Speaker 1: sure I was comfortable while I was being tied up,
Speaker 1: and he said, well that's okay because as you lost
Speaker 1: consciousness and he drugged you in put you in the covert.
Speaker 1: He I'm sure he hit hit and scratched and on
Speaker 1: the way or something like that. And so I was
Speaker 1: very very timid and shying. I just went ahead and
Speaker 1: signed it so that part he never hit me, he
Speaker 1: like I said, he you know, he wanted to make sure.
Speaker 6: And he was nice.
Speaker 1: When we got there. He ordered a pizza and I'm like,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I've never met him before. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was just there and and he offered he gave me
Speaker 1: two half hundred dollar bills and sending to half hundred
Speaker 1: dollar bills, and then he had a whole stack of
Speaker 1: hundreds and said there's more, you know. But by the
Speaker 1: time I got there, and I was so scared that
Speaker 1: when it was over, I just wanted to leave. I
Speaker 1: didn't care if I got the other half. In fact,
Speaker 1: I didn't ask for him. I just wanted out of there.
Speaker 1: And then he said he'd walk into my car because
Speaker 1: it's dangerous. And that's when he when we're outside of
Speaker 1: the car, Oh yeah, I know. I was gonna tell
Speaker 1: you that's car I had that, you know, the two
Speaker 1: agc X, which was the I mean it wasn't brand new,
Speaker 1: but it was had louvers, he key tops. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was snishes for a car.
Speaker 6: Anyway, he said, what'd you give to this car?
Speaker 1: And I think, like fifteen thousand, I don't know. He said,
Speaker 1: I've got, you know, fifty seven car or however many
Speaker 1: twelve cars, eighteen I don't know what the number was,
Speaker 1: and all of mine together. He don't come to that.
Speaker 1: It's like he was upset because I paid that much money.
Speaker 1: I guess he thought what I was doing to earn
Speaker 1: the money wasn't right. And I was using it. I
Speaker 1: used it to buy a car that he couldn't afford something.
Speaker 1: I guess it's the way it sounded to me.
Speaker 3: So even like when he parked the car and you
Speaker 3: were walking off the side of the road, you felt
Speaker 3: like he was just gonna leave you there, and you
Speaker 3: really you felt like he was still a police officer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said he was gonna he was just don't
Speaker 1: leave me there, and it wait for a few miles
Speaker 1: down the road from the place where we were working,
Speaker 1: and he was gonna go back and get shining and
Speaker 1: then come back and get me. That he couldn't have
Speaker 1: me in the car when you really get hurts, so
Speaker 1: that I could because i'd warn him, or I could come.
Speaker 1: I don't know whether we're no cellphones rinsing back then,
Speaker 1: but somebody he was afraid of Warner or something, and
Speaker 1: so that's what he said he was going to do,
Speaker 1: just leave me there in the off the side roasiness
Speaker 1: that time into a tree or something. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Is what I can't remember exactly that my hands were tied.
Speaker 2: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 2: a moment. Murder one on.
Speaker 3: One, let me ask you this like, when did you
Speaker 3: realize that you were unsafe? You know, at what point
Speaker 3: did he say something or did something change that you
Speaker 3: realize like, oh, my life's in danger.
Speaker 1: Yes, that the very minute it happened, he had like
Speaker 1: he said, he held the gun on me, and he oh,
Speaker 1: I know. He kept saying if I tried to escape,
Speaker 1: if I tried to get out of the car, run,
Speaker 1: then he would he would shoot me and say that
Speaker 1: I tried to escape, which I believed there were word
Speaker 1: of because he was this policeman that they you know,
Speaker 1: Texas Ranger and he was here to find somebody that's
Speaker 1: telling drugs and arrest them. And he said it's I ran.
Speaker 1: That he'd cheat me back and that he said I
Speaker 1: tried to run, so that's why. And then when we stopped,
Speaker 1: he looked at he was ring slow along the interstate,
Speaker 1: and I think, I'm not ask him what he was
Speaker 1: doing or looking for him say I'm looking for a
Speaker 1: place where I can leave you until I go back
Speaker 1: and get your friend Salmon, and then I'll come back
Speaker 1: and get you. And I still thought, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: hopeful that that's what he meant to do. And at
Speaker 1: this first time he sounded mean or ugly. Was when
Speaker 1: I said, are you going to kill me? And his
Speaker 1: whole demeanor everything changed. He said yes, and that's that
Speaker 1: I knew of. And I said why, and he said,
Speaker 1: you're a nuisance and that was it. But the very
Speaker 1: last second was the only time I actually really knew
Speaker 1: that he was gonna do anything to hurt me, I guess.
Speaker 3: And so that was after you had already gotten out
Speaker 3: of the car and walked over to the side of
Speaker 3: the road.
Speaker 1: That's when you ask him, yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 6: We were in the woods.
Speaker 1: You know, down there he had I guess maybe I
Speaker 1: had had my feet tied or something. So but whatever
Speaker 1: it was, he fixed it to where I could walk
Speaker 1: when we got out of the car. And then when
Speaker 1: we got down there, like it was down a little bank,
Speaker 1: and he was gonna leave me there. I don't know
Speaker 1: if he said he's gonna I don't know how he
Speaker 1: said I was gonna stay there. Probably tied me to
Speaker 1: a tree or something, I don't know, but he that's
Speaker 1: when he took the piece of the T shirt he
Speaker 1: ripped into shrip, he ripped into pieces to tie me up.
Speaker 1: So one of the pieces, maybe it was the ones
Speaker 1: that was around my leg. I can't remember running he
Speaker 1: wrapped it. He started rapping it around his fingers. That's
Speaker 1: why i'm That's when I said, are you going to
Speaker 1: kill me? Because that's when I saw him wrapping that
Speaker 1: thing around his fingers, and for some reason, I knew
Speaker 1: he was going.
Speaker 6: To strangle me.
Speaker 3: That is one thing I would like to ask about
Speaker 3: because some of the other victims, even ones who had
Speaker 3: been dead for many years. I am finding online that
Speaker 3: there were ligatures made of cloth, you know, clothing near
Speaker 3: those bodies, and I feel like that could actually be
Speaker 3: something that could help them determine if he was involved.
Speaker 1: Yes, there was another thing I meant to tell you
Speaker 1: is I'm interrupting you, but I forget if.
Speaker 6: I don't say it.
Speaker 1: The knot that he tied after he strangled me, the
Speaker 1: naughty tide was some sort of fancy knot that most
Speaker 1: people don't know. And what I don't remember what right
Speaker 1: had no idea, But every woman, all these women when
Speaker 1: they came, when they people came from these different states,
Speaker 1: all these women had had been there. The knot they
Speaker 1: it was tied was exactly the same with whatever material
Speaker 1: was there that he had. Somebody had tied that same
Speaker 1: exact knot. And that's one of the reasons they put
Speaker 1: the cases. They thought they might you know, people came
Speaker 1: up from Mississippi or we're all different states. That's what
Speaker 1: they were going.
Speaker 5: But then the judge that the media, god bless them,
Speaker 5: kept talking about, you know, every single day it was
Speaker 5: in the paper, but the Redhead murders, you know.
Speaker 1: But the judge said made them stop it and said
Speaker 1: they were none of that. Nobody was allowed to mention
Speaker 1: or say anything about anything.
Speaker 6: Said what happened to me?
Speaker 1: Because if if they kept on, he would get off
Speaker 1: on a technicality, because because it would paint the jury
Speaker 1: or something. That's why they all of a sudden worried
Speaker 1: about or just quit.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that they didn't find anything to tie them together.
Speaker 6: It's just that the judge made them quit.
Speaker 1: And then when they sentenced him, the judge looked and
Speaker 1: he said he never ever wanted him to see the
Speaker 1: light of day again. And they gave him different sentences.
Speaker 1: Had come to one hundred and some years or something
Speaker 1: plus thirty days, and they said the thirty days at
Speaker 1: it on. There was what was some teaching in jail
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life, and that I didn't
Speaker 1: even have to be at the things where you you know,
Speaker 1: where he goes and tries to get out in a
Speaker 1: parole board or whatever, because he said there's no way
Speaker 1: they'd ever let him out, so I'd never even have
Speaker 1: to go there and testified or whatever.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I can I ask you about the knots.
Speaker 3: So did he did he cut the shirt with a
Speaker 3: knife or did he rip it up?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: How did he do that?
Speaker 1: Did might have cut it with a knife, but he
Speaker 1: ripped it into like one or two inch strips. He
Speaker 1: ripped the shirt, the T shirt I was wearing, he
Speaker 1: ripped it into these all into these numerous strips. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Several could have been ten could and I
Speaker 1: don't know. I can't remember.
Speaker 6: And he may have started out cutting.
Speaker 1: Them, but I know he ripped them in.
Speaker 6: I think he just ripped them.
Speaker 3: Now, was that in the car or did he do that?
Speaker 3: It's a hotel. When did he do that in the car?
Speaker 1: When we had gone back to the catch one and
Speaker 1: we were in the second parking lot, there was a
Speaker 1: regular parking lot and then there was like an overflowed
Speaker 1: parking lot where big rigs could sit or if they
Speaker 1: had overflowed, you know, but nobody was there that ours
Speaker 1: was the only car, and like it he was driving,
Speaker 1: and he said that we'd gone back there to wait
Speaker 1: on chin. And that's when he tied me.
Speaker 7: Up and he told me to give me that what
Speaker 7: he was going to do, and everything that he did,
Speaker 7: he ripped it up and used it to tie my
Speaker 7: hands and feet and that was when I, you know,
Speaker 7: I just thought of something that happened that he said.
Speaker 6: Something that hadn't said.
Speaker 3: Well, can I ask you about the shirt?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 3: Were you wearing it and he made you take it off?
Speaker 3: Or did he have it.
Speaker 1: Already or yeah, it was a T shirt. I was
Speaker 1: wearing a T shirt. I wearing jeans and a T
Speaker 1: shirt and a black leather coat. And I'm assuming a
Speaker 1: broad I don't know, but he took my T shirt off,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure I must have had a shirt
Speaker 1: under it or something or a bra and I had
Speaker 1: I know I had the black The black jacket saved
Speaker 1: my life.
Speaker 3: How is that?
Speaker 1: A corner of that jacket got in stuck underneath the
Speaker 1: stretchy tied around my neck. And when I woke dot
Speaker 1: conscious head again, I pulled and it came out, and
Speaker 1: it still wasn't enough room for me to breathe, but
Speaker 1: it was enough for me to start using my fingers
Speaker 1: and picking at it. And I thought, sure he was
Speaker 1: just watching me, to not watch me suffer. But I
Speaker 1: still kept pulling and pulling, and I felt around and
Speaker 1: I was in that covert and I was I thought
Speaker 1: I was blind for life and deformed because my eyes
Speaker 1: around on my face, you know they and it didn't matter.
Speaker 6: I wanted to live.
Speaker 1: So I blind climbed the hill I had still, you know,
Speaker 1: I had to find I Celtics, and I staggered.
Speaker 6: Onto the highway and the truck.
Speaker 1: That stopped almost run over me, and some I had
Speaker 1: broken my hands apart, I think I had. At the
Speaker 1: very top hill, I had finally gotten the thing around
Speaker 1: my neck broke with and I was sticking with his
Speaker 1: consciousness again and for somehow I got off there.
Speaker 6: Well, then I had.
Speaker 1: These I had blood started just pouring out of my
Speaker 1: nose when the when I got breath, and so here
Speaker 1: I was got these two strings tied around my hands,
Speaker 1: dripping blood, and so they thought I was shooting up
Speaker 1: drugs up the guys in the truck.
Speaker 6: That almost run over me. I staggered out in front.
Speaker 1: Of them, covered in blood, and like I tied.
Speaker 6: Up my arm, you know, they tied their arm to
Speaker 6: shoot up.
Speaker 1: And so they thought they were afraid I was gonna
Speaker 1: die in the truck. So there was the only one in,
Speaker 1: a younger one, and I could hear them saying, nope,
Speaker 1: we keep there in trucks.
Speaker 6: She'll die in the truck. And they're in a company truck.
Speaker 1: And then they had called I guess on the hoodie thing.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think these are the people are gonna kill me,
Speaker 1: because I remember Jerry John's had this brother.
Speaker 6: So I didn't know how many they were.
Speaker 1: You know, And so I started to take off running around.
Speaker 1: Even when the policeman to put me in the Baptist
Speaker 1: car to take to the hospital, he was afraid to
Speaker 1: wait on the ambulance, so I died before it got there.
Speaker 1: So I was I was screaming, don't kill me, don't
Speaker 1: kill me. He's gonna kill my.
Speaker 6: Friend, you know.
Speaker 1: And they brought that out child because I'd say he
Speaker 1: or them, because sometimes I'd be talking about he Jerry
Speaker 1: Johnson was gonna chill her or them. Jerry Johnson brother
Speaker 1: was gonna kill him. So it's like I was just
Speaker 1: making stuff up, saying here them. At the time, I
Speaker 1: had had no idea. I hadn't seen the brother since
Speaker 1: we've left, and we all ended up at the hotel
Speaker 1: and he went, the brother went to his room, and
Speaker 1: then I never did see Shannon.
Speaker 6: So but I said the police the minute.
Speaker 1: That's all I could talk about is the hospital was
Speaker 1: go get Shannon, Go get you know, he's gonna kill her.
Speaker 1: He's gonna kill her. And so they went and brought
Speaker 1: her and.
Speaker 2: Let's stop here for another quick break murder one on one.
Speaker 3: You know, I was just sitting here and I'm just
Speaker 3: it's just blew me away. You were talking about the
Speaker 3: corner of the collar of that jacket like it saved
Speaker 3: your life. That's that's amazing, you know that's while you're
Speaker 3: still here. Is that that just that collar of that jacket.
Speaker 1: God puts that there? Yeah, there is no doubt in
Speaker 1: my mind. And I know which to have a psychiatrist.
Speaker 1: And I quit Gold because he told me that God
Speaker 1: didn't work that way.
Speaker 6: Well, God does work that way.
Speaker 1: He gets your attention, and I knew what I was
Speaker 1: doing was horrible, and he definitely got my attentions, you.
Speaker 3: Know, but you know without that, you know, that's what
Speaker 3: you feel like allowed you to survive that, and you know,
Speaker 3: because of that, you were able to, you know, get
Speaker 3: he was able to become arrested, and like you saved
Speaker 3: a lot of people. Just that corner of that collary.
Speaker 1: The newspaper said.
Speaker 6: For colliment, he wrote, because.
Speaker 1: They said I acted bad, I played dead, which that's
Speaker 1: not true. I wanted to die so bad that I
Speaker 1: just collapsed because I wanted to die.
Speaker 6: I wanted to hurt him die, I don't know what.
Speaker 1: So I just collapsed like I was already dead, but
Speaker 1: then I lost consciousness. But well I'm not. I had
Speaker 1: a little bit tun because I remember your leads rustling,
Speaker 1: but I never could figure it out until I guess
Speaker 1: still allays said and done, and I really I realized
Speaker 1: that he had drugged me because I had to take
Speaker 1: the home hide people back there and show them the covert,
Speaker 1: and of course there was blood on the covert, so
Speaker 1: they they you know, they knew what they knew.
Speaker 6: What it's happened.
Speaker 3: But that's that's amazing about the corner of that collar.
Speaker 3: That's just that's just awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the news got some of the stuff completely wrong. So,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, there weren't redheaded murders.
Speaker 6: When you had it.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, you should have been around and named
Speaker 1: it the Bible Belt murders back then, and the said
Speaker 1: of the media, and they named them the red headed murders.
Speaker 3: But that's something interesting that my students decided was that,
Speaker 3: I mean, there was if you look online and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of people victims from late seventies up to
Speaker 3: the early nineties, and they're all grouped together as what
Speaker 3: they call these redhead murders. But obviously they're not all related.
Speaker 3: Some of them are very different. A woman was taken
Speaker 3: from her home, you know, a small little boy, so
Speaker 3: they're not related obviously. And so the students wanted to
Speaker 3: separate all these you know, quote redhead murders into maybe
Speaker 3: the people who could be linked to one person who
Speaker 3: did it, because there's really no way to talk about,
Speaker 3: you know, the people who related to one person, because
Speaker 3: they just lumped all these people together. And so that's
Speaker 3: why they wanted to give him a name.
Speaker 1: And when they had the meeting with all these people
Speaker 1: from different states, and it wasn't just the Bible Belt.
Speaker 1: There were states around, but I think it's mostly east
Speaker 1: or southern, you know, in southwest and southeast, but they
Speaker 1: might have been some Indianna too, I can't remember. But
Speaker 1: there were like fifty two girls or something that they
Speaker 1: questioned me about fifty two different women that had been chilled.
Speaker 1: I think seems that or there was a lot of them,
Speaker 1: but some of them, like I said, had were that
Speaker 1: they were.
Speaker 6: They were either.
Speaker 1: Prostitutes or homeless. They had no family or around. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody's gonna miss him right away. They had the exact
Speaker 1: time knot tied. They were found off major interstates. And
Speaker 1: see doesn't wish.
Speaker 6: I wish that Larry Johnson was alive because he could
Speaker 6: be bring them for all this.
Speaker 1: Or somebody. I don't know anybody that's still alive that
Speaker 1: was back then. But there were so many similarities that
Speaker 1: they're not.
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah that there was nobody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he didn't take them from their home.
Speaker 6: With their little boy or whatever.
Speaker 1: And there's more than the six or eleven or whatever
Speaker 1: that there were more of those women that had the
Speaker 1: real similarities.
Speaker 6: To what I've been through than what's on that list.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how I could get a list
Speaker 1: of those people.
Speaker 3: Well, i'll share with you. We have spoken to a
Speaker 3: TBI agent who was part of this. He had done
Speaker 3: some investigations, and he told us that we would never
Speaker 3: know the true number because he said sometimes he would
Speaker 3: get a call by a corner and he would travel
Speaker 3: to another state or another county and they would show
Speaker 3: him a body and he'd say, now, we called you
Speaker 3: because we think this might be related to your case,
Speaker 3: and so he would look at the body. But then
Speaker 3: they would have you know, the corners results and it
Speaker 3: would say or the autopsy results and it would say
Speaker 3: drug overdose. And he would say, well, why did you
Speaker 3: call me on a drug overdose? You know I'm investigating murders.
Speaker 3: And they said, well, it's obvious she was strangled, but
Speaker 3: because we found signs that she was using drugs, we
Speaker 3: didn't want to waste a lot of time on this case,
Speaker 3: so we just labeled it as an overdose. So he
Speaker 3: told me that we would never be able to find
Speaker 3: those because they're not even listed as murders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, I'm sure they'll never find him.
Speaker 6: They probably.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I have never found all the bodies because
Speaker 1: I wasn't the first one, that's for sure. He knew
Speaker 1: what he was doing.
Speaker 3: And you know, can I ask you what made you
Speaker 3: think that he knew what he was doing or hed
Speaker 3: done it before?
Speaker 1: Well I didn't think any of that, of course at first.
Speaker 1: But everything was worked out so perfectly. You know, he
Speaker 1: he knew where to park my car in the corner
Speaker 1: of that parking lot, and he knew to walk me
Speaker 1: to my car, and he stole my car, and they
Speaker 1: said he had numerous other He had a briefcase with
Speaker 1: him that had dozens of uh, stolen titles.
Speaker 6: I guess what the cars because he had lot his
Speaker 6: stolen cars, and.
Speaker 1: You know, and they took me down that covert where
Speaker 1: evidently he had done a lot of them in that way.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so like his story, like him being a
Speaker 3: police officer, you feel like he had done that before,
Speaker 3: and he was very convincing or oh yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: I believe they every word of it. He looked at
Speaker 1: my arms to see if I'd had any marks on him,
Speaker 1: And where would you look for drugs more than you know,
Speaker 1: a place like that, you know, and you know, we
Speaker 1: just I thought it was a Texas ranger. I mean,
Speaker 1: I honestly did he acted like it, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: When I saw he's done, it seemed like a thought
Speaker 1: And he said this because he had he was a
Speaker 1: Texas languer. I mean, I'm like I said, I didn't
Speaker 1: know Texas Rangers.
Speaker 6: Weren't allowed to practice anywhere with Texas you know.
Speaker 3: Can I ask you a question about the knots? Did
Speaker 3: he seem like he had tied those knots before? Did
Speaker 3: he have any trouble? Did you know exactly what he
Speaker 3: was doing?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 6: I had no idea.
Speaker 1: I begged that.
Speaker 6: Huh.
Speaker 3: I mean about him when he was tying the knots
Speaker 3: in your shirt and things? Did it seem like he
Speaker 3: knew exactly what he was doing, like he had practiced
Speaker 3: or he had done that before?
Speaker 1: When he tore up my shirt?
Speaker 3: He did?
Speaker 1: Because I thought, who was he just thoughts take my
Speaker 1: t shirt off and read it up to time? Up
Speaker 1: with that?
Speaker 6: That just don't Who would have thought that?
Speaker 1: And he didn't came? He not, Well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you did not.
Speaker 6: I can't.
Speaker 1: He had to have tied some sort of knots so
Speaker 1: I wouldn't get loose, But at the time it didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know any difference not with a knot. I
Speaker 1: mean they say it was some sort of special have
Speaker 1: you that you learned I don't know, in the service
Speaker 1: or or something, or.
Speaker 3: Well, I have some pictures of that. They actually preserve
Speaker 3: those in the case file in Nashville, So I have
Speaker 3: pictures of those that I've looked at, and they're I
Speaker 3: don't I can't say they're complicated. I don't know enough
Speaker 3: about knots, but there's there's a lot of knots like
Speaker 3: tied on top of knots with that, and so I'm
Speaker 3: trying to find somebody who's an expert with knots to
Speaker 3: to say, is that is there a certain name to
Speaker 3: that type of knot or is there a place where
Speaker 3: you learn it? So we're trying to look into that.
Speaker 1: Yeah there, Well I don't I know.
Speaker 6: It's why I wish that I.
Speaker 1: Had if that's the third they told me that. Of
Speaker 1: course I didn't know anything aboutnots, but they're the ones
Speaker 1: that Toby and they said it was like, okay, if
Speaker 1: you're standing behind me and you strangle someone.
Speaker 6: And they it was.
Speaker 1: I can't says on the left side they were even
Speaker 1: in the same position. I guess on the women, you know,
Speaker 1: like when you sit it's doing your dishes, you always
Speaker 1: put your spine a certain place, you know.
Speaker 6: I mean, I guess it's how I thought about it.
Speaker 1: Whatever, just and I can't remember all the other similarities,
Speaker 1: but there were other similarities. I mean, most of the
Speaker 1: women I think were at my height, and they weren't
Speaker 1: saying people, you know, they they nobody would be looking
Speaker 1: for them for a while.
Speaker 3: And well, just going back to something that you said
Speaker 3: that they showed you lots of different pictures of women.
Speaker 3: And I mean, did you feel like he had it
Speaker 3: in him to kill a lot of other people?
Speaker 6: Absolutely?
Speaker 1: I knew, without a doubt killed other people. I mean
Speaker 1: there was when a minute he said yes and then
Speaker 1: he's just you know, I was met. Oh, when he
Speaker 1: took me down the hill that he told the gun
Speaker 1: on me, like when we were walking down or while
Speaker 1: we were there, is when he told the gun on
Speaker 1: me and I screamed and he told me to shut
Speaker 1: up or he shoot me, and I shut up. For
Speaker 1: this day, I'm not sure how I did. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt in my mind that he killed lives
Speaker 1: to live well, like she will never know how many.
Speaker 6: And I hope for their.
Speaker 1: Family's sake, we can find some of them and give them.
Speaker 6: Well closure, what you know, whatever.
Speaker 7: But I know he's just.
Speaker 1: In fact, all these years, I wanted to go and
Speaker 1: look at him and say why, why you know?
Speaker 6: But I never could.
Speaker 2: More on that next time. Murder one oh one is
Speaker 2: executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Alex Campbell, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew
Speaker 2: Arnot and me Jeff Shane. Additional producing by Connor Powell
Speaker 2: and Gabriel Castillo. Editing by Jeff Twa and Davey Cooper Wasser.
Speaker 2: Music by Vancor Music. Murder one oh one is a
Speaker 2: production of iHeart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts
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