January 31, 2024 • 26 mins
Within six months of the press conference, Mr. Campbells class has identified four of the six original victims. The TBI holds a surprise press conference and names a possible suspect.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
A group of high school students.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
High school students Elizabeth In high school students started a
project to research.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
A string of unsolved murders. Their research led to the
identification of the killer.
Speaker 4 (00:12):
Investigators now have an answer to a thirty four year
old question.
Speaker 5 (00:17):
Once you start getting a few tips, or a few leads,
or few identifications, then the cold case isn't so cold anymore.
There's a pretty good chance he's still alive. Everything that
the students predicted through their profile turned out to be accurate.
Speaker 6 (00:33):
Redhead killer profile mal Caucasian, five nine six, two hundred
and seventy pounds, unstable home, absent father, and a domineering mother,
right handed, IQ above one hundred, most likely heterosexual.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
There is no profile of this killer except for the
ones the students created.
Speaker 7 (00:51):
Just because some of these women no longer have people
to speak for them does not mean that they desire
to not be so anymore.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
What if this guy's still alive?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Like, what if becomes after us?
Speaker 8 (01:00):
You're gonna kill me?
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Who's yeah?
Speaker 9 (01:05):
This is Murder one oh one, Season one, Episode four,
Major Breaks. I'm Jeff Shane, a television and podcast producer
at Katie Studios with Stephanie Leidecker, Courtney Armstrong, and Andrew Arnoult.
The semester may have been over, but the mystery was
(01:27):
just beginning to unravel.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
So what happened was the students had tried to bring
the case back up. They had this media blitz. It'd
been featured all over the nation. They have a name
for the killer, they have a way to separate these
six out from the rest of the victims, and I
think it just really got a media firestorm really going,
and it brought up a lot of attention back to
these cases.
Speaker 9 (01:54):
In the fall of twenty eighteen, with the Campbell County
Jane Doe identified as Tina Farmer, mister Campbell got incredible
news that officials were retesting the DNA of yet another case.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
I'll tell you what's so crazy is that we knew
they were testing the DNA of the Knox County chained up,
and we knew that had been they had collected the
DNA because we talked to the woman who they felt
was her daughter. So we had we talked to her
and I talked to her and she had written this
letters and so we had communicated with her. So we
were just waiting on that DNA because the Kentucky State
Police are like, we submitted it.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
It's going to be any day.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
We don't know when, but like it could be today.
Speaker 9 (02:28):
The alleged daughter of the Knox County Jane Doe, a
woman named Elizabeth Pilgrim, spoke about how she felt about.
Speaker 10 (02:34):
The whole situation.
Speaker 11 (02:39):
I think it's her the necklaces, my brother recognizing the
first mark, the staying you know, the two's the scar,
like it just fits into place. Not knowing is like
the worst part. And then you got to keep being
put on hold and put on hold. You know, it's
(03:00):
heartbreaking a little bit. And when that is her is
a major part. But I don't think that's gonna be
fully all my closure.
Speaker 9 (03:11):
As it turned out, Elizabeth's mother, Apsey, was in fact
the Knox County Jane Doe.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
You have two identifications, like in rapid succession. And now
what happens is the media frenzy is going even more
right because of course people start calling the TBI, and
they start calling the local police agencies and they start saying, well,
what does this mean? Are we looking at other cases?
Are these related to any others? Could she have been killed,
(03:38):
you know, by the same person as somebody else. So
within six months of the press conference, we now have
four of the victims identified.
Speaker 9 (03:47):
Here's what we know about each victim, according to mister
Campbell's classes research.
Speaker 12 (03:54):
On October first, twenty eighteen, the Knox County Sheriff's Office
now this woman had been positively identified as Esby Regina
Black Pilgrim of western North Carolina. A DNA match was
made between her and her grown daughter, who said her
mother disappeared when the girl was six weeks old. Pilgrim
(04:15):
also had four older children. A friend of Pilgrim's had
noticed the case when the Kentucky State Police posted about
unidentified victims on social media sites, and she contacted the
daughter saying she felt it was her missing mother. They
both contacted authorities with the information. Esby was a stay
at home mom. The husband came home for lunch only
(04:38):
to find his wife missing and the youngest child crying
in the crib. The husband went to authorities, but it
appears it was not taken seriously as she had left
the home many times before.
Speaker 7 (04:49):
The Green County Jane Doe was not identified until November
twenty eighteen, when officials announced that the victim was new
Hampshire native Elizabeth Lamont at the time of her death.
Lamont had disappeared on April sixth, nineteen eighty four, after
gaining lead from her youth facility to attend a football
game at the local high school, but never returned to
(05:12):
the group home where she resided in Manchester. She was
identified through a DNA match.
Speaker 9 (05:19):
But identifying the victim wasn't the biggest break in the case.
Mister Campbell spoke about the investigation into Tina Farmer's murder.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Once she's identified, of course there's like this renewed interest
and maybe we should look at things and they resubmit,
or maybe for the first time they submitted, because DNA
really wasn't much of an investigative tool at that time,
that they submit some of the evidence from her case,
and in this case, it was a blanket and they
find DNA on it that's in you know, the database
(05:48):
for offenders. When they found out that he was the
killer man, the case just went crazy because now instead
of all of us having all that we had was victimology,
now we actually had a suspect. So not only can
we look at the victims and say where were they,
when were they there? We can begin to look at
the suspect and say where was he?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Investigators now have an answer to a thirty four year
old question. The TBI says it knows who killed Tina
Marie Farmer.
Speaker 9 (06:20):
In December of twenty eighteen, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigators
otherwise known as the TBI, held a surprise press conference.
Speaker 10 (06:30):
Good afternoon, I'm Jared Efler, the elected District attorney for
Tennessee's eighth Judicial District, of which Campbell County is a
part of. On January the first, nineteen eighty five, an
unidentified female body was discovered murdered along Interstate seventy five
in Campbell County, Tennessee. At that time, an investigation was
(06:51):
launched by the TBI to determine two things, the identity
of the unknown female and who was responsible for her death. Yesterday,
the results of that investigation were presented to the Campbell
County Grand Jury.
Speaker 7 (07:07):
The grand jury.
Speaker 10 (07:08):
Found that the unidentified body was that of Tina Marie
Farmer of Marion County, Indiana. Additionally, the grand jury found
that there was a fish up proof to believe that
Jerry Johns of Cleveland, Tennessee, caused her death.
Speaker 9 (07:33):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. Murder one on one.
Speaker 13 (07:49):
I'm Brad Neeland, Deputy director for the Tennessee Borou Investigation.
We'd like to thank General Efforts in his office for
their efforts and support on this case. Hasn't been easy,
but we never gave up, and that represents our commitment
to all cases, even those beamed cold. Our agency exists
(08:10):
that ghilp shall askate, will insocence suffer, and we're gratified
that we can now provide some answers to the family
of Tina Farmer. DNA was found on items that was analyzed.
As a result, a DNA profile was entered into combined
DNA index system, resulting in a match that profile matched
(08:34):
that out of Jerry John's.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
It's a major break. TBI agents say they now know
who killed Tina Farmer in nineteen eighty four and then
dump that redhead on the side of I seventy five
in Campbell County. Investigators today named the suspect and the
death of Tina Farmer. It could also be the break
agents need to close a half dozen other murder cases.
(08:58):
This is a key step for an investigation spanning more
than three decades.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Since these students started connecting the dots, the name of
another victim was identified, and TBI investigators now say Jerry
Leon Johns is believed to be the killer of at
least one of the victims.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
You know, the killer behind an infamous three decade old
murdering Campbell County. The TBI says Jerry Johns from Cleveland, Tennessee,
killed Tina Farmer and dumped her body a long eye
seventy five.
Speaker 9 (09:27):
During the press conference, a reporter asked, the connection between
Tina Farmer and Jerry Johns.
Speaker 14 (09:33):
How happening?
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Is there any kind of insight you have on what might.
Speaker 13 (09:38):
Have happened to lead to this.
Speaker 14 (09:39):
You know that she had been at a truck stop
near her hometown, and mister Johns was a long haul
truck driver, and we believe the connection lies somewhere in there.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Everything that the students predicted through their profile turned out
to be accurate. What jumped out to us immediately is
that Jerry Johns was a trucker. Now, that really blew
the case wide opened, because you're not just working it
from the angle of the victim. You're working it from
the angle of the perpetrator as will.
Speaker 9 (10:07):
During his investigative work on the story, Shane Waters was
able to track down Jerry John's ex wife. She provided
shocking details about the man that would eventually become the
Bible Belt strangler. The following is based off of Shane's
recollection of his conversation.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Well, when I met with Jerry Johnson's ex wife, she
tells me the story about when they first met. He
was I think twenty one, and he was a wall
from the military hiding out in her parents's at it.
They were his neighbors, his parents's neighbors, so he was
a wall from the military hiding out in her attic.
(10:47):
She was very young. I think she said that she
was twelve, and they end up having a sexual relationship.
And when she told me that at this moment where
I thought he may be even more of a monster
than I realized. So they end up getting married, he
(11:08):
ends up getting her pregnant, and you know, she's only
at that point where she gets pregnant. She says she
was thirteen, and she goes to her dad and she
tells him that she's pregnant, and that is when Jerry
Johnson her learns that they're actually half brother and sister
because Jerry Johns's mom, she was a prostitute and she
(11:33):
slept with her neighbor's dad, and because of that, Jerry
Johns was actually his son. So when they learned that
her dad was trying to convince them to have an
abortion to abort that child, they refuse to do that.
And so what they ended up doing was moving down
(11:55):
to Texas with his mom for a few reasons. One
because she was so young, even in Tennessee at that time,
that was not acceptable for him being over twenty one
in her only being thirteen.
Speaker 9 (12:11):
To clarify, Jerry Johns's ex wife told Shane that she
had inadvertently married and gotten pregnant with her half brother's baby.
To avoid punishment, the couple moved to Texas to raise
their child.
Speaker 8 (12:23):
He ended up having to go to prison because of
going a wall from the military, and during that time
she told me that his mom would take her to
different bars in places and prostitute her out to help
make aans meet. His ex wife told me he developed
(12:45):
a lot of resentment for his mom.
Speaker 9 (12:47):
Shane learned another seemingly important detail during his conversation with
Jerry Johns's ex wife, his.
Speaker 8 (12:57):
Mom and his wife was a redhead and j John's.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Over the years, we learned that Jerry Johns have been
arrested for a variety in fractions, everything from auto theft,
caring concil weapon, obstructing an officer all the way to arson.
So during our research we were able to find what
a lot of law enforcement and medical officials said about
Jerry Johns. And let me tell you the things that
(13:23):
we read, it was just chilling how accurate they would
come to be. Johns is conniving. He's a manipulating type
of individual whose own self interest has played a large
part in his arrival at this situation. Jerry Johns is
viewed as immature, dissocial individual who admits to the use
of depressants and hallucinogenic drugs. He has demonstrated a pattern
(13:46):
of having escaped from the brig at Camp Pendleton and
then escaping from an armed guard and plotting to escape
from a county jail. Mister John's demonstrated inability to profit
from experience, making him a prime candidate for continued criminal activity.
He is considered by this writer to be criminally oriented
(14:07):
and a good prediction would be that this man will
continue to be involved in law violations for a number
of years to come. It is believed that Johns is
just beginning a long career as a law violator. It
is this writer's impression that Johns is capable of serious crimes. However,
it is noted that this opinion cannot be documented. It
(14:27):
should be noted that he is considered a definite escape risk.
John's is a very immature and responsible individual with a
hot temper. He openly verbalizes anger and hostility toward authority figures.
His prognosis for community adjustment is guarded.
Speaker 9 (14:45):
The tbi's press conference revealed an update that would change
the investigation.
Speaker 14 (14:49):
Obviously, the most challenging thing for me is just the
fact that we're not able to charge this individual because
he's already deceased.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
He died in prison in twenty fifteen, serving time for
the attempted murder of another redhead.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Despite knowing her killer, agents say they can't charge him.
The suspect died four years ago. Jerry Johns was serving
time for trying to kill someone else.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Both women had red hair, and he tried to kill
them in the same way, leaving their bodies in the
side of the interstate.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
Jerry Johns died in prison in twenty fifteen, where he
was serving time for the attempted murder of another redheaded woman,
a woman named Linda more On her Later.
Speaker 10 (15:28):
Had mister Johns been alive at the time the case
was presented to the grand jury yesterday, he would have
been charge for the first degree murder of Tina Marie Farmer.
We are extremely disappointed that we're not able to prosecute
mister Johns.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
Jerry Leon Johnson is dead, so they can't have a
trial for a dead man. But the best thing they
could do to consider the case closed was to take
the information they had to a grand jury, and if
the grand jury returned to Trouville, then they would consider
this a closed case. When you go to a grand jury,
they the return what's called a true bill if they
feel there is enough evidence to proceed to a trial,
(16:06):
or they return a no bill where there is not
enough evidence that they think it should proceed to a trial.
And then once that is returned, it's up to the
DA's office to decide if they want to continue with charges.
So it has happened at times that a true bill
has been returned and the DA did not decide to
take it to trial. That for example, happened in the
(16:26):
John in a Ramsey case in case you're curious, but
normally that is why das take it to a grand jury,
to see if a jury of the peers would think
that was enough evidence to go ahead and move forward
with the trial. That's what they did in the Tina
Farmer case, and they could presumably do that again in
some of these other cases as well. Getting a true
(16:49):
bill from a grand jury, especially against someone who's already
dead and they can't be punished in any way, may
not feel like a priority for maybe law enforcement, But
for these families to know who is responsible for taking
their loved one away, that would be very important for them.
And then, of course, also we have two victims that
have not even been identified yet, so continuing to work
(17:11):
on those cases and get their identifications would be very
important for those families as well.
Speaker 9 (17:18):
The tbi's press conference also led to more questions.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
There's people who have drawn connections between Farmer's murderer and others.
Is this potentially the person who did all of these crimes.
Speaker 14 (17:30):
We're open two options on that. We're still looking into
other possibilities on other cases. Right now, I can't tell
you with any definitive proof that he's involved in any
other cases.
Speaker 9 (17:41):
Despite mister Campbell's class having just presented their findings months
earlier that helped lead to Tina Farmer's identification, the TBI
made no mention of them during their press conference.
Speaker 13 (17:51):
I'd like to recognize a special Agent, Brandon Elkins an
intelligence analyst Amy Emberton for the work on this case.
Agan Elkins has been working this case for the last
ten years. He was assigned the case as a detective
while working for the Campbell County Sheriff's Department, and continued
to work on the case after he was hired by
(18:14):
the TBI In twenty sixteen. Agan Elkins resubmitted evidence in
this case to the TBI Crime Lavatory for examination.
Speaker 9 (18:24):
As a reminder, mister Campbell's students presented their findings in
May of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 13 (18:29):
In August twenty eighteen, Agent Elkins was made aware of
bele Tena Marie Kennt McKinney Farmer, who was reportedly missing
from Indiana. MS Farmer matched description of the unidentified female
found in Campbell County. TBI intelligence analyst Amy Emerton was
able to track down a fingerprint card on Farmer from
(18:52):
the early eighties. Those fingerprints were compared against the post
mortem prints of the Campbell County Jane Do, resulting in
a positive match. Since that time, Adan Elkins has been
working diligently to put the missing pieces of this case together.
This is a perfect example of how determination combined the
(19:14):
traditional police work and modern day science could lead to
major developments in cold cases. We have more cases like
this to pursue, and we will pursue them as time
and resources allow, because we believe justice demands it.
Speaker 8 (19:34):
The TBI did all their codes to make sure that
Alex and I did not show up to that press comfort.
So what happened was late the night before the press
conference of the tv I was putting together, they put
out a little fee to the local media and Tennesee
it letting them know that early the next morning, I
think it was like an eight o'clock there was going
(19:56):
to be a press conference in regards to Tina Farmer's case. Well,
one of the local reporters who still have my number
called me and to let me know, and he's like,
this is very unusual that they did this, but He's like,
I have a feeling that it's it's to keep someone
from coming there. And I was like, well, I wonder
(20:18):
who that is. So I called Alex to let him know,
and he's like, well, I'm going to try to go.
And so Alex was able to maneuver himself to be
able to get their time the next morning to get
to this press conference. They get to the end, they
allowed people to ask questions. So then I hear a
very familiar with boys.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
Thanks guys, thank you.
Speaker 10 (20:46):
Yes, our PI has a copy of those, and you
know that's like public record at this time, and she
will distribute those at the conclusion of this conference. Okay,
and you know the name of the family members that
she spent with the last plum that's the question for
Jean Ols.
Speaker 14 (21:03):
I don't feel confor releasing that information right now.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
Let's stop here for another quick break murder one on one.
Speaker 8 (21:32):
Immediately, I think that they realized that Alex was with
the podcast group, and so they shut the whole thing down.
The director of the TBI kind of steps in and
he's like, all right, we're gonna end this here. Everyone
have a good day, and they all walk out, and
as they walk out. The director walks up to Alex
(21:53):
and he's like, you must be with the podcast group,
and Alex is like, oh, I'm you know, I'm with
the students, but yeah, we work with Shane with the podcast.
And it was a very like weird confrontational moment and
Alex leaves and he gets back to the school. But
(22:14):
there was a threat that came to him from the
director of the TBI that basically told us that we
needed to back off or basically or else, which is
crazy to me, Like, why are they scared of some
high school students who are just trying to help spread
(22:35):
the word of what happened to these women it to
help prevent it from happening, Like nowhere have we tried
to tarnish the reputation of the TBI, Like nowhere did
any of us deserve to be threatened. And to be
honest with you, I'm not sure Alex will want to
(22:56):
tell you about the threat because it did scare us,
But I'm a firm believer of you sharing these things
and talking about it.
Speaker 9 (23:08):
We've reached out to the TBI and they've declined to
participate in this podcast.
Speaker 8 (23:13):
Maybe it's an ego thing, Maybe they just have these
huge egos and they are so scared of people thinking
that this little podcaster in Indiana and these high school
kids did something that they couldn't do, or maybe that
they are worried that it's going to look bad on
(23:33):
them because they for so many years didn't work on
the case, you know, because it did set with them
for so long. You know, they could have worked on
this for all this time, but no one did.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
I mean, look, they're the cops. They test the DNA,
they get the fingerprints, they go knock on the doors.
They do very important work that you know the students
can't do. But you know, keeping this in the media
spot and out there in the public and you know,
on true crime websites and blogs and podcasts like that
(24:07):
is actually how they got the tip about Tina Farmer
from a woman who was looking at these true crime
missing persons blogs. So we know that that's keeping it
out there just kind of seems disingenuous to say, you know,
we want the public to help us, and then you
have these people that have probably worked harder than anybody
except law enforcement, and they're not really recognized for that
(24:29):
help that they request. There so much should happened, and
we had so much new information to look at. It
seemed like the perfect time to dive back into these cases.
We really just needed to look at all the information
kind of trickled out over the last five years. Put
(24:50):
that together and see, you know, are there some of
these victims that need to be excluded redhead victims, yes,
but maybe not victims of the Bible belt strangler. Or
maybe there's some new victims that need to be included.
Lots of new information that come out and it needed
to be reanalyzed. In a lot of these kind of
new developments, I mean, there's still victims out here that
(25:11):
have not been identified, so there's still families that do
not know what happened with their weapons. We also find
out that maybe we need to relook at our list.
So our list of six, for example, we just used
open source information. We had nobody on the inside the
police department's.
Speaker 11 (25:29):
Given us the information.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
So as the heat began to get turned back up
on these cases, more information comes out that needs to
be investigated. This class did this work four or five
years ago, but I have students now that could do
the work to it and may want to do the
work and I'm sitting here in the back of my
mind thinking I've already got the project. I know exactly
(25:52):
what we would do and where we would pick.
Speaker 9 (25:54):
Up more on that next time. Murder one oh one
is executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Alex Campbell, Courtney Armstrong,
Andrew Arnot and me Jeff Shane. Additional producing by Connor
Powell and Gabriel Castillo. Editing by Jeff Twa and Davey
(26:18):
Cooper Wasser. Music by Vanicore Music. Murder one oh one
is a production of iHeart Radio and Katie Studios. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
A group of high school students.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
High school students Elizabeth In high school students started a
project to research.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
A string of unsolved murders. Their research led to the
identification of the killer.
Speaker 4 (00:12):
Investigators now have an answer to a thirty four year
old question.
Speaker 5 (00:17):
Once you start getting a few tips, or a few leads,
or few identifications, then the cold case isn't so cold anymore.
There's a pretty good chance he's still alive. Everything that
the students predicted through their profile turned out to be accurate.
Speaker 6 (00:33):
Redhead killer profile mal Caucasian, five nine six, two hundred
and seventy pounds, unstable home, absent father, and a domineering mother,
right handed, IQ above one hundred, most likely heterosexual.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
There is no profile of this killer except for the
ones the students created.
Speaker 7 (00:51):
Just because some of these women no longer have people
to speak for them does not mean that they desire
to not be so anymore.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
What if this guy's still alive?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Like, what if becomes after us?
Speaker 8 (01:00):
You're gonna kill me?
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Who's yeah?
Speaker 9 (01:05):
This is Murder one oh one, Season one, Episode four,
Major Breaks. I'm Jeff Shane, a television and podcast producer
at Katie Studios with Stephanie Leidecker, Courtney Armstrong, and Andrew Arnoult.
The semester may have been over, but the mystery was
(01:27):
just beginning to unravel.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
So what happened was the students had tried to bring
the case back up. They had this media blitz. It'd
been featured all over the nation. They have a name
for the killer, they have a way to separate these
six out from the rest of the victims, and I
think it just really got a media firestorm really going,
and it brought up a lot of attention back to
these cases.
Speaker 9 (01:54):
In the fall of twenty eighteen, with the Campbell County
Jane Doe identified as Tina Farmer, mister Campbell got incredible
news that officials were retesting the DNA of yet another case.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
I'll tell you what's so crazy is that we knew
they were testing the DNA of the Knox County chained up,
and we knew that had been they had collected the
DNA because we talked to the woman who they felt
was her daughter. So we had we talked to her
and I talked to her and she had written this
letters and so we had communicated with her. So we
were just waiting on that DNA because the Kentucky State
Police are like, we submitted it.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
It's going to be any day.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
We don't know when, but like it could be today.
Speaker 9 (02:28):
The alleged daughter of the Knox County Jane Doe, a
woman named Elizabeth Pilgrim, spoke about how she felt about.
Speaker 10 (02:34):
The whole situation.
Speaker 11 (02:39):
I think it's her the necklaces, my brother recognizing the
first mark, the staying you know, the two's the scar,
like it just fits into place. Not knowing is like
the worst part. And then you got to keep being
put on hold and put on hold. You know, it's
(03:00):
heartbreaking a little bit. And when that is her is
a major part. But I don't think that's gonna be
fully all my closure.
Speaker 9 (03:11):
As it turned out, Elizabeth's mother, Apsey, was in fact
the Knox County Jane Doe.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
You have two identifications, like in rapid succession. And now
what happens is the media frenzy is going even more
right because of course people start calling the TBI, and
they start calling the local police agencies and they start saying, well,
what does this mean? Are we looking at other cases?
Are these related to any others? Could she have been killed,
(03:38):
you know, by the same person as somebody else. So
within six months of the press conference, we now have
four of the victims identified.
Speaker 9 (03:47):
Here's what we know about each victim, according to mister
Campbell's classes research.
Speaker 12 (03:54):
On October first, twenty eighteen, the Knox County Sheriff's Office
now this woman had been positively identified as Esby Regina
Black Pilgrim of western North Carolina. A DNA match was
made between her and her grown daughter, who said her
mother disappeared when the girl was six weeks old. Pilgrim
(04:15):
also had four older children. A friend of Pilgrim's had
noticed the case when the Kentucky State Police posted about
unidentified victims on social media sites, and she contacted the
daughter saying she felt it was her missing mother. They
both contacted authorities with the information. Esby was a stay
at home mom. The husband came home for lunch only
(04:38):
to find his wife missing and the youngest child crying
in the crib. The husband went to authorities, but it
appears it was not taken seriously as she had left
the home many times before.
Speaker 7 (04:49):
The Green County Jane Doe was not identified until November
twenty eighteen, when officials announced that the victim was new
Hampshire native Elizabeth Lamont at the time of her death.
Lamont had disappeared on April sixth, nineteen eighty four, after
gaining lead from her youth facility to attend a football
game at the local high school, but never returned to
(05:12):
the group home where she resided in Manchester. She was
identified through a DNA match.
Speaker 9 (05:19):
But identifying the victim wasn't the biggest break in the case.
Mister Campbell spoke about the investigation into Tina Farmer's murder.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
Once she's identified, of course there's like this renewed interest
and maybe we should look at things and they resubmit,
or maybe for the first time they submitted, because DNA
really wasn't much of an investigative tool at that time,
that they submit some of the evidence from her case,
and in this case, it was a blanket and they
find DNA on it that's in you know, the database
(05:48):
for offenders. When they found out that he was the
killer man, the case just went crazy because now instead
of all of us having all that we had was victimology,
now we actually had a suspect. So not only can
we look at the victims and say where were they,
when were they there? We can begin to look at
the suspect and say where was he?
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Investigators now have an answer to a thirty four year
old question. The TBI says it knows who killed Tina
Marie Farmer.
Speaker 9 (06:20):
In December of twenty eighteen, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigators
otherwise known as the TBI, held a surprise press conference.
Speaker 10 (06:30):
Good afternoon, I'm Jared Efler, the elected District attorney for
Tennessee's eighth Judicial District, of which Campbell County is a
part of. On January the first, nineteen eighty five, an
unidentified female body was discovered murdered along Interstate seventy five
in Campbell County, Tennessee. At that time, an investigation was
(06:51):
launched by the TBI to determine two things, the identity
of the unknown female and who was responsible for her death. Yesterday,
the results of that investigation were presented to the Campbell
County Grand Jury.
Speaker 7 (07:07):
The grand jury.
Speaker 10 (07:08):
Found that the unidentified body was that of Tina Marie
Farmer of Marion County, Indiana. Additionally, the grand jury found
that there was a fish up proof to believe that
Jerry Johns of Cleveland, Tennessee, caused her death.
Speaker 9 (07:33):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. Murder one on one.
Speaker 13 (07:49):
I'm Brad Neeland, Deputy director for the Tennessee Borou Investigation.
We'd like to thank General Efforts in his office for
their efforts and support on this case. Hasn't been easy,
but we never gave up, and that represents our commitment
to all cases, even those beamed cold. Our agency exists
(08:10):
that ghilp shall askate, will insocence suffer, and we're gratified
that we can now provide some answers to the family
of Tina Farmer. DNA was found on items that was analyzed.
As a result, a DNA profile was entered into combined
DNA index system, resulting in a match that profile matched
(08:34):
that out of Jerry John's.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
It's a major break. TBI agents say they now know
who killed Tina Farmer in nineteen eighty four and then
dump that redhead on the side of I seventy five
in Campbell County. Investigators today named the suspect and the
death of Tina Farmer. It could also be the break
agents need to close a half dozen other murder cases.
(08:58):
This is a key step for an investigation spanning more
than three decades.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Since these students started connecting the dots, the name of
another victim was identified, and TBI investigators now say Jerry
Leon Johns is believed to be the killer of at
least one of the victims.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
You know, the killer behind an infamous three decade old
murdering Campbell County. The TBI says Jerry Johns from Cleveland, Tennessee,
killed Tina Farmer and dumped her body a long eye
seventy five.
Speaker 9 (09:27):
During the press conference, a reporter asked, the connection between
Tina Farmer and Jerry Johns.
Speaker 14 (09:33):
How happening?
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Is there any kind of insight you have on what might.
Speaker 13 (09:38):
Have happened to lead to this.
Speaker 14 (09:39):
You know that she had been at a truck stop
near her hometown, and mister Johns was a long haul
truck driver, and we believe the connection lies somewhere in there.
Speaker 5 (09:51):
Everything that the students predicted through their profile turned out
to be accurate. What jumped out to us immediately is
that Jerry Johns was a trucker. Now, that really blew
the case wide opened, because you're not just working it
from the angle of the victim. You're working it from
the angle of the perpetrator as will.
Speaker 9 (10:07):
During his investigative work on the story, Shane Waters was
able to track down Jerry John's ex wife. She provided
shocking details about the man that would eventually become the
Bible Belt strangler. The following is based off of Shane's
recollection of his conversation.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Well, when I met with Jerry Johnson's ex wife, she
tells me the story about when they first met. He
was I think twenty one, and he was a wall
from the military hiding out in her parents's at it.
They were his neighbors, his parents's neighbors, so he was
a wall from the military hiding out in her attic.
(10:47):
She was very young. I think she said that she
was twelve, and they end up having a sexual relationship.
And when she told me that at this moment where
I thought he may be even more of a monster
than I realized. So they end up getting married, he
(11:08):
ends up getting her pregnant, and you know, she's only
at that point where she gets pregnant. She says she
was thirteen, and she goes to her dad and she
tells him that she's pregnant, and that is when Jerry
Johnson her learns that they're actually half brother and sister
because Jerry Johns's mom, she was a prostitute and she
(11:33):
slept with her neighbor's dad, and because of that, Jerry
Johns was actually his son. So when they learned that
her dad was trying to convince them to have an
abortion to abort that child, they refuse to do that.
And so what they ended up doing was moving down
(11:55):
to Texas with his mom for a few reasons. One
because she was so young, even in Tennessee at that time,
that was not acceptable for him being over twenty one
in her only being thirteen.
Speaker 9 (12:11):
To clarify, Jerry Johns's ex wife told Shane that she
had inadvertently married and gotten pregnant with her half brother's baby.
To avoid punishment, the couple moved to Texas to raise
their child.
Speaker 8 (12:23):
He ended up having to go to prison because of
going a wall from the military, and during that time
she told me that his mom would take her to
different bars in places and prostitute her out to help
make aans meet. His ex wife told me he developed
(12:45):
a lot of resentment for his mom.
Speaker 9 (12:47):
Shane learned another seemingly important detail during his conversation with
Jerry Johns's ex wife, his.
Speaker 8 (12:57):
Mom and his wife was a redhead and j John's.
Speaker 5 (13:01):
Over the years, we learned that Jerry Johns have been
arrested for a variety in fractions, everything from auto theft,
caring concil weapon, obstructing an officer all the way to arson.
So during our research we were able to find what
a lot of law enforcement and medical officials said about
Jerry Johns. And let me tell you the things that
(13:23):
we read, it was just chilling how accurate they would
come to be. Johns is conniving. He's a manipulating type
of individual whose own self interest has played a large
part in his arrival at this situation. Jerry Johns is
viewed as immature, dissocial individual who admits to the use
of depressants and hallucinogenic drugs. He has demonstrated a pattern
(13:46):
of having escaped from the brig at Camp Pendleton and
then escaping from an armed guard and plotting to escape
from a county jail. Mister John's demonstrated inability to profit
from experience, making him a prime candidate for continued criminal activity.
He is considered by this writer to be criminally oriented
(14:07):
and a good prediction would be that this man will
continue to be involved in law violations for a number
of years to come. It is believed that Johns is
just beginning a long career as a law violator. It
is this writer's impression that Johns is capable of serious crimes. However,
it is noted that this opinion cannot be documented. It
(14:27):
should be noted that he is considered a definite escape risk.
John's is a very immature and responsible individual with a
hot temper. He openly verbalizes anger and hostility toward authority figures.
His prognosis for community adjustment is guarded.
Speaker 9 (14:45):
The tbi's press conference revealed an update that would change
the investigation.
Speaker 14 (14:49):
Obviously, the most challenging thing for me is just the
fact that we're not able to charge this individual because
he's already deceased.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
He died in prison in twenty fifteen, serving time for
the attempted murder of another redhead.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Despite knowing her killer, agents say they can't charge him.
The suspect died four years ago. Jerry Johns was serving
time for trying to kill someone else.
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Both women had red hair, and he tried to kill
them in the same way, leaving their bodies in the
side of the interstate.
Speaker 9 (15:18):
Jerry Johns died in prison in twenty fifteen, where he
was serving time for the attempted murder of another redheaded woman,
a woman named Linda more On her Later.
Speaker 10 (15:28):
Had mister Johns been alive at the time the case
was presented to the grand jury yesterday, he would have
been charge for the first degree murder of Tina Marie Farmer.
We are extremely disappointed that we're not able to prosecute
mister Johns.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
Jerry Leon Johnson is dead, so they can't have a
trial for a dead man. But the best thing they
could do to consider the case closed was to take
the information they had to a grand jury, and if
the grand jury returned to Trouville, then they would consider
this a closed case. When you go to a grand jury,
they the return what's called a true bill if they
feel there is enough evidence to proceed to a trial,
(16:06):
or they return a no bill where there is not
enough evidence that they think it should proceed to a trial.
And then once that is returned, it's up to the
DA's office to decide if they want to continue with charges.
So it has happened at times that a true bill
has been returned and the DA did not decide to
take it to trial. That for example, happened in the
(16:26):
John in a Ramsey case in case you're curious, but
normally that is why das take it to a grand jury,
to see if a jury of the peers would think
that was enough evidence to go ahead and move forward
with the trial. That's what they did in the Tina
Farmer case, and they could presumably do that again in
some of these other cases as well. Getting a true
(16:49):
bill from a grand jury, especially against someone who's already
dead and they can't be punished in any way, may
not feel like a priority for maybe law enforcement, But
for these families to know who is responsible for taking
their loved one away, that would be very important for them.
And then, of course, also we have two victims that
have not even been identified yet, so continuing to work
(17:11):
on those cases and get their identifications would be very
important for those families as well.
Speaker 9 (17:18):
The tbi's press conference also led to more questions.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
There's people who have drawn connections between Farmer's murderer and others.
Is this potentially the person who did all of these crimes.
Speaker 14 (17:30):
We're open two options on that. We're still looking into
other possibilities on other cases. Right now, I can't tell
you with any definitive proof that he's involved in any
other cases.
Speaker 9 (17:41):
Despite mister Campbell's class having just presented their findings months
earlier that helped lead to Tina Farmer's identification, the TBI
made no mention of them during their press conference.
Speaker 13 (17:51):
I'd like to recognize a special Agent, Brandon Elkins an
intelligence analyst Amy Emberton for the work on this case.
Agan Elkins has been working this case for the last
ten years. He was assigned the case as a detective
while working for the Campbell County Sheriff's Department, and continued
to work on the case after he was hired by
(18:14):
the TBI In twenty sixteen. Agan Elkins resubmitted evidence in
this case to the TBI Crime Lavatory for examination.
Speaker 9 (18:24):
As a reminder, mister Campbell's students presented their findings in
May of twenty eighteen.
Speaker 13 (18:29):
In August twenty eighteen, Agent Elkins was made aware of
bele Tena Marie Kennt McKinney Farmer, who was reportedly missing
from Indiana. MS Farmer matched description of the unidentified female
found in Campbell County. TBI intelligence analyst Amy Emerton was
able to track down a fingerprint card on Farmer from
(18:52):
the early eighties. Those fingerprints were compared against the post
mortem prints of the Campbell County Jane Do, resulting in
a positive match. Since that time, Adan Elkins has been
working diligently to put the missing pieces of this case together.
This is a perfect example of how determination combined the
(19:14):
traditional police work and modern day science could lead to
major developments in cold cases. We have more cases like
this to pursue, and we will pursue them as time
and resources allow, because we believe justice demands it.
Speaker 8 (19:34):
The TBI did all their codes to make sure that
Alex and I did not show up to that press comfort.
So what happened was late the night before the press
conference of the tv I was putting together, they put
out a little fee to the local media and Tennesee
it letting them know that early the next morning, I
think it was like an eight o'clock there was going
(19:56):
to be a press conference in regards to Tina Farmer's case. Well,
one of the local reporters who still have my number
called me and to let me know, and he's like,
this is very unusual that they did this, but He's like,
I have a feeling that it's it's to keep someone
from coming there. And I was like, well, I wonder
(20:18):
who that is. So I called Alex to let him know,
and he's like, well, I'm going to try to go.
And so Alex was able to maneuver himself to be
able to get their time the next morning to get
to this press conference. They get to the end, they
allowed people to ask questions. So then I hear a
very familiar with boys.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
Thanks guys, thank you.
Speaker 10 (20:46):
Yes, our PI has a copy of those, and you
know that's like public record at this time, and she
will distribute those at the conclusion of this conference. Okay,
and you know the name of the family members that
she spent with the last plum that's the question for
Jean Ols.
Speaker 14 (21:03):
I don't feel confor releasing that information right now.
Speaker 9 (21:13):
Let's stop here for another quick break murder one on one.
Speaker 8 (21:32):
Immediately, I think that they realized that Alex was with
the podcast group, and so they shut the whole thing down.
The director of the TBI kind of steps in and
he's like, all right, we're gonna end this here. Everyone
have a good day, and they all walk out, and
as they walk out. The director walks up to Alex
(21:53):
and he's like, you must be with the podcast group,
and Alex is like, oh, I'm you know, I'm with
the students, but yeah, we work with Shane with the podcast.
And it was a very like weird confrontational moment and
Alex leaves and he gets back to the school. But
(22:14):
there was a threat that came to him from the
director of the TBI that basically told us that we
needed to back off or basically or else, which is
crazy to me, Like, why are they scared of some
high school students who are just trying to help spread
(22:35):
the word of what happened to these women it to
help prevent it from happening, Like nowhere have we tried
to tarnish the reputation of the TBI, Like nowhere did
any of us deserve to be threatened. And to be
honest with you, I'm not sure Alex will want to
(22:56):
tell you about the threat because it did scare us,
But I'm a firm believer of you sharing these things
and talking about it.
Speaker 9 (23:08):
We've reached out to the TBI and they've declined to
participate in this podcast.
Speaker 8 (23:13):
Maybe it's an ego thing, Maybe they just have these
huge egos and they are so scared of people thinking
that this little podcaster in Indiana and these high school
kids did something that they couldn't do, or maybe that
they are worried that it's going to look bad on
(23:33):
them because they for so many years didn't work on
the case, you know, because it did set with them
for so long. You know, they could have worked on
this for all this time, but no one did.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
I mean, look, they're the cops. They test the DNA,
they get the fingerprints, they go knock on the doors.
They do very important work that you know the students
can't do. But you know, keeping this in the media
spot and out there in the public and you know,
on true crime websites and blogs and podcasts like that
(24:07):
is actually how they got the tip about Tina Farmer
from a woman who was looking at these true crime
missing persons blogs. So we know that that's keeping it
out there just kind of seems disingenuous to say, you know,
we want the public to help us, and then you
have these people that have probably worked harder than anybody
except law enforcement, and they're not really recognized for that
(24:29):
help that they request. There so much should happened, and
we had so much new information to look at. It
seemed like the perfect time to dive back into these cases.
We really just needed to look at all the information
kind of trickled out over the last five years. Put
(24:50):
that together and see, you know, are there some of
these victims that need to be excluded redhead victims, yes,
but maybe not victims of the Bible belt strangler. Or
maybe there's some new victims that need to be included.
Lots of new information that come out and it needed
to be reanalyzed. In a lot of these kind of
new developments, I mean, there's still victims out here that
(25:11):
have not been identified, so there's still families that do
not know what happened with their weapons. We also find
out that maybe we need to relook at our list.
So our list of six, for example, we just used
open source information. We had nobody on the inside the
police department's.
Speaker 11 (25:29):
Given us the information.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
So as the heat began to get turned back up
on these cases, more information comes out that needs to
be investigated. This class did this work four or five
years ago, but I have students now that could do
the work to it and may want to do the
work and I'm sitting here in the back of my
mind thinking I've already got the project. I know exactly
(25:52):
what we would do and where we would pick.
Speaker 9 (25:54):
Up more on that next time. Murder one oh one
is executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Alex Campbell, Courtney Armstrong,
Andrew Arnot and me Jeff Shane. Additional producing by Connor
Powell and Gabriel Castillo. Editing by Jeff Twa and Davey
(26:18):
Cooper Wasser. Music by Vanicore Music. Murder one oh one
is a production of iHeart Radio and Katie Studios. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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