Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 a string of unsolved murders. Their research
led to the identification.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Of the killer.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Investigators now have an answer to a thirty four year
old question.
Speaker 4 (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 5 (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 4 (00:46):
There is no profile of this killer except for the
ones the students created.
Speaker 6 (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 7 (00:57):
What if this guy's still alive?
Speaker 8 (00:58):
Like what if becomes.
Speaker 9 (00:58):
After us kill me?
Speaker 10 (01:01):
Yes, this is Murder one oh one, Season one, Episode
three starts spreading the news. I'm Jeff Sheen, a television
and podcast producer at Kati Studios with Stephanie Leidecker, Courtney Armstrong,
Andrew Arnold. As the semester drew to a close, high
(01:23):
school teacher Alex Campbell discusses what the class was feeling.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
I think that some people feel that helping the police
or solving crimes is something that we pay the professionals
to do. But what I wanted to encourage the students
to understand was that everybody has an obligation in the
community and everybody can help in some way. Police have
a hard time solving crimes if there's no witnesses, just
because they weren't adults or they weren't police officers. I
(01:52):
want them to still understand that they could do great
work on their own. The semester was coming to a close.
It was May, temperature was warm up, we just had
a couple of weeks left in school. We led into
the press conference stirred on them in that one victim
identified Lisa Nichols, and it'd been over thirty years since
she had been identified. So at this point we have
two very good profiles. We have the offender profile, the
(02:15):
criminal profile, and then we also have the victim profile,
and as far as we know, nobody else has them.
So our goal was just to really get this information
out to everyone, you know, and as big a way
as possible.
Speaker 10 (02:29):
Student Will Bowers remembers what it was like at school.
Speaker 11 (02:32):
In the school, I mean it was like it was unreal,
like everybody was shocking, surprised, like around. I mean, you
don't hear like high schools doing something like this.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
I want other students to know that they can do
anything to set their mind too. Isn't the world isn't
just limited to like you're a teenager, so you have work.
If you work, yes, work in school. And that said,
you can't go as far as you want it.
Speaker 8 (02:57):
You can go.
Speaker 5 (02:57):
You can do anything in life. Don't let no one
stop you. There's hateful people, there's hateful teachers even but
keep going no matter what.
Speaker 10 (03:07):
The plan for the press conference was for the students
to present their findings in a big way. A few
of the students from the class were selected to present
the information in the Uncovered and its significance. One of
them was Junior Wild Hours.
Speaker 11 (03:21):
Yeah, I was shocked that mister Campbell kicked me.
Speaker 12 (03:24):
I mean I'm okay speaking outside. I mean I usually
done like the pet browleies at high school, but like that,
this was the first time, like I really felt like
super nervous or something.
Speaker 11 (03:36):
And I guess mister Campbell, since he's seen me do
the fat browleyes, so you seen me done these little things,
especially where I play sports and stuff like that, he
knew that I was capable of doing it, which I
never thought I would be. We basically made sure that
I spoke correctly, made sure all my notes were on point,
(03:56):
make sure I wasn't saying anything that that was false
or anything like that. It was a process to get
to where I was in front of the microphone that day.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
Young people have a lot of energy, and they also
have a lot of passion. If you could help kind
of focus that and find something that they're passionate about
and let them use the energy, they will do more
than you ever.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Expected they could.
Speaker 13 (04:22):
So what most people don't know is that this project
actually started with students getting curious about what learning could
look like and ended with students digging into something really
big and bold and compelling that had a life way
beyond the confines of one class.
Speaker 10 (04:41):
Before we hear about the press conference, we think it's
important for you to understand the origins of the original assignment.
The project actually stemmed from a grant that the students
had won from a company called XQ Institute. Founded in
twenty fifteen. XQ Institute is the nation's leading nonprofit organization
dedicated to improving school across the country.
Speaker 13 (05:04):
I'm Carrie Schneider. I'm the head of editorial at XQ Institute,
and we're a nonprofit that's dedicated to rethinking high school.
If you stop for a second and think back to
your high school experience and like what things stood out
to you as the moments that were even if it
was like one day or one lesson or one thing
in your high school, and you were like, oh, that
(05:24):
was actually fun to me. Taking that one thing that
you can remember about high school and making all of
high school feel like that it doesn't have to be
a boring, tedious march through like learn this, learn that,
take the test, move on, go to the next thing.
The way I met mister Campbell and all the teachers
and students there was when they entered xq's National Super
(05:46):
School Challenge, So way back in fifteen twenty sixteen, there
was an open call to the country to come together
and design the high school of the future. They didn't
win the full grant and the full support for building
a whole new school. They did win an XQ Student
Leadership Award, so they got a smaller grant and scholarships
(06:09):
for the kids that were involved, and then support to
turn their initial ideas into a wider program.
Speaker 10 (06:18):
When working with XQ Institute, mister Campbell did something unique.
He turned to his students for guidance.
Speaker 13 (06:28):
So mister Campbell presented to his students, like, look, guys,
if we're going to really dig into this project stuff,
what kinds of things are you interested in? And true
crime things in our own community that stood out as
something that the kids were interested in. He was like, cool,
true crime, let's go, let's find some unsolved mysteries.
Speaker 10 (06:47):
Carrie remembers the first time she heard about the project.
Speaker 13 (06:51):
So, the first time I heard about this project was
actually at an education conference. Mister Campbell was hosting a
session on projects for teasatures and how to really connect
with your students in this way. And he was in
a room of probably forty or fifty teachers from across
the country, and I was just kind of sitting and
listening in and he just sort of dropped on the room.
(07:13):
Oh and my students are actually solving a murder right now,
you know, we're working on and you could just see
people in the room go ah. You could physically observe
teachers going wait a minute what. There were definitely skeptics.
So he really stood up and said, you know, just
think about how much their minds are changing, and what
they're learning about the world, and what this means for
(07:33):
thinking about people differently, and what we're learning about victims'
rights and what we're learning about justice, and what we're
learning about relationships and families and gender. The skeptics were
kind of like, you know, I can't think of another
example of the way kids can really get that much.
So it's hard to argue with it when you see
just how much they learned and how much they take
(07:54):
away from it.
Speaker 10 (07:57):
When she heard about the press conference, Carrie knew it
was a big deal.
Speaker 13 (08:03):
I remember that mister Campbell sent me an email letting
me know that the press conference was happening and telling me,
you know, creating a little fomo like you're not gonna
be here, You're gonna have to wait until you find
out the big news like everyone else. And he was
so proud of his students and really excited to share
the milestones that they were announcing in the press conference.
(08:24):
That press conference represented a big moment for realizing the
value of that project and the possibility of what kids
can do. It's real now, because I think it was
a big transition from a class project to something they
were ready to really put it out in the world.
Speaker 10 (08:47):
Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
a moment. Murder one on one. On May fifteenth, twenty eighteen,
the big moment finally arrived.
Speaker 11 (09:11):
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Is my privilege and honor
to welcome you to our prest conference. My name is
William Bowers, and I'm a part of mister Campbell's sociology class.
Many of you or today are asking the same question
while we're here, Why are we doing this? Why do
we even care about this? Well, it starts thirty seven
(09:32):
years ago when a man murdered an unknown woman and
laid her body decided in the state. Four years later,
five more women said the same faith those women would
be founded along in the states and the highways across
multiple states at the time of their death. The women
were founded with reddish hair law enforcement at the time
(09:55):
couldn't solve the murders due to the women never being
identified and their transitive lifestyles. The cases became cold for
over thirty five years until a few people asked, why
hasn't the murderer and the women have been identified yet?
Speaker 10 (10:12):
Standing in front of six images of the Bible Belt
stranglers victims, Junior Will Bauers spoke to roughly sixty people,
including members of law enforcement, the press, and locals in
the community.
Speaker 11 (10:22):
We spent months learning about the Redheaded murders. We learned
what a serial killer is. We looked into the lives
of some of the most infamous serial killers like Ted
Bundy and Richard Chase.
Speaker 14 (10:35):
With the information providing and what we have learned, we
were able to create an mo a, signature and the
profile for the murderer. Without the hard work, grit, and
determination by the students, we would never have this press
conference to day. Martin Luther King Junior once said human
progress it's neither automatic nor inedible. Every step towards the
(11:01):
goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle. The tires,
extortions and passionate concerns of dedicated individuals. The men and
women that you see here today are dedicated to these cases.
Speaker 11 (11:17):
The tireless work and effort by these individuals are the
reason why these cases have been brought back.
Speaker 10 (11:23):
Shane Waters also spoke.
Speaker 15 (11:25):
Out of the six victims that we believe could be
a part of the Redhead murders, all but one remain
unidentified people. That's right, after more than thirty years, only
one of these victims has a name. I felt defeated.
I felt like I had no choice but to put
the case down and move on to something easier. I
(11:47):
can remember sitting at my computer about to drag this
file on my desktop titled Redheads to the Trash, when
I realized that this is the exact thing that is
preventing this killer from being caught. More than that, I
knew that this is what the killer assumed would happen
each time he targeted a new victim. I believe he
(12:08):
assumed that society wouldn't care that these women were gone.
After all, if there is no family to come forward
to fight for them, surely it will not be a
story worth telling. Today, I stand here along with the
high school sociology class, to remind the world of these
six women. Today, we are their family. If the coward
(12:31):
responsible for these murders is watching, I have a message
for you. We will not stop. We will not forget.
Speaker 10 (12:40):
Senior Mason Peterson made an impassioned plea to the public.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
So we need the public's help. We need you to
be aware of this case. We need you to share
this case around with any info that we are giving
you or what you already know. We need you to
find people that may know something we don't. Then the
people with this information should contact the police. There's no
doubt that someone saw something and thought it was probably
nothing or it's not that important. It could be something,
(13:06):
whether big or small. It could lead to a big break.
We want to help remember and identify the victims because
it helps the police find what correlations their victims have
with their perpetrator and bring him closer to justice. We
also want to help the police find the Bible belt
stranglers so he can be held accountable for his actions.
Speaker 10 (13:23):
Finally, mister Campbell spoke.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
During the course of this semester, the students have worked
with professional profiler and members of law enforcement community, and
these asperts explained to us that if you have the
same mo and the same offender, signature in the same
geographical area in the same period of time, then it's
almost assuredly the same person responsible. So as a class,
(13:45):
we began to look at each of the rough league
dozen cases that are oftentimes referred to as the Redhead
murders that took place from nineteen seventy eight until two
thousand and one. But there were six of these murders
that stood out because they were so similar, so our
students began to focus on these. These murders occurred between
nineteen eighty and eighty five, and the bodies were discovered
between nineteen eighty three and eighty five, so we knew
(14:08):
that we had six murders occurring in the same time period.
So then we looked at geographic location and we found
the same six murders, three in Tennessee, Campbell, Cheatham, and
Green County, plus one in Wetzel County, West Virginia, with
one just across the border in Knox County, Kentucky, and
finally another one just across the border in West Memphis, Arkansas.
(14:30):
They were all linked because of not just geographic proximity,
but because they were connected by highways and interstates along
the Knoxville Nashville Corridor. After concluding that we had the
same location, same time period, same mo and same signature,
we enlisted the help of professionals in evaluating our work.
We consulted and they agreed with us that these six
(14:52):
murders are most likely the work of one person. So
since these murders happened around Tennessee and what is oftentimes
referred to as the Bible bbble Belt, and most of
the victims were strangled or suffocated, we have decided to
name this serial killer the Bible Belt strangler. Today, we're
making these documents publicly available to the media and the public,
(15:13):
including the eight page psychological profile. Sadly, murder has been
around as long as humanity. People think they can commit
such acts and get away from the prying eyes of public.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
And they'll never be seen. They'll think there'll be no witnesses.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
They think they're too good at their craft, they think
they're too smart. But often when some time is passed,
they feel like they're never going to be caught. But
the monster we now seek took the lives of six
women that we feel he intentionally targeted because they were
out on the rown alone with no family and no friends.
Their lives were most likely stolen from them in the
(15:48):
dark back parking, loss of truck stops and rest areas,
and then dumped along lonely highways at night where he
thought no one would see him. And he's eluded justice
for almost forty years. But the Bible Belt Stranglers wrong.
He made a mistake. Somebody saw something, somebody's heard something.
The blood of these six women that was spilled into
(16:10):
the overgrown hedges of our nation's highways and interstates has
gone unnoticed for way too long. And today we are
here to recognize these voices and give them justice for
which they're still crying out. We want the media to
hear their cry as well, so the people out there
with the information that law enforcement needs to identify these
victims and solve these crimes can come forward. So, Bible
(16:34):
Belt Strangler, we know you're out there. We know that
somebody has information to help find you and hold you accountable.
And after today, everyone knows that we're looking for you.
And today everyone knows that we are our sisters keepers,
because we're like family. And this time, no matter how
hard you squeeze your evil hands, you will never be
(16:56):
able to silence their crimes.
Speaker 10 (17:00):
Now years later, mister Campbell reflects on the press conference
and its impact on not just the students, but the
case as a whole.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
Right before will and it's a different ones. Stepped to
the microphone. I said, I just want you to know
if the Bible Belt strangler is still alive, he's probably
watching right now.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Now go out there and do the press conference. And
they looked at me like, oh, that was terrible, why
did you do that?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
But really, when I stepped to the microphone I spoke
to the Bible belt strangler, I was full of so
much emotion and I didn't think it would be that way.
You know, again, I'm removed from these murders and these
cases and I didn't know them, but I almost started crying.
I could just feel the emotion, just feeling me, and
you know, to realize that there are people out there
(17:45):
and they deserve to be brought to justice, and that
I could literally be speaking of them, they could be
watching me on the live stream. It was kind of
surreal experience that really maybe more emotional than I thought
I would be. I was worried about the students. You know,
they're young, they're used to speaking in public, but I
probably should have been worried about myself. I think the
closer they got into the case and looking at the case,
(18:07):
they realized that they might actually be able to change something.
I think, especially young people today, feel like if they
do work, they want something to come out of it,
and I believe that this press conference made them feel
like that in the future something good could come from
their work.
Speaker 13 (18:21):
That press conference really put the kids out there. Wasn't
adults speaking with kids in the background, but it was
really representative of the kind of belief that mister Campbell
has in his students and Elizabethton has in their high school,
and the belief that XQ has in the potential of
young people and the potential of educators to create these
(18:41):
environments for students. I think for mister Campbell and for
those kids, it was a moment of real vulnerability and
a moment to really put themselves out there in a
way to say they believed in what they had done,
and they believed in the power of their research and
the power of their position and the power of their findings.
(19:02):
And for us, that was a big moment for us
at XQ to go, yes, this is what we mean.
This is what rethinking high school looks like. This is
exactly what young people can do. Now, let's make sure
it's not just one class in one high school in
one town in Tennessee, but it's happening for kids everywhere.
Speaker 10 (19:23):
You can find more about XQ Institute at XQ America,
across all socials.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
All these TV stations are running the story and it
got a lot of attention. Matter of fact, it got
so much attention it went national. We got in Oxygen
True Crime today. Like all these these people were covering it.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
A group of Elizabethan High School students started a project
to research a string of unsolved murders from thirty years ago.
Speaker 7 (19:48):
For three decades, the mystery had remained unsolved. Six redheaded
women strangled and left on the side of a highway.
Only one victim's name was even known. That's when a
group of elizabeth In High School students started their research.
Speaker 8 (20:02):
A group of high school student detectives are investigating a
series of unsolved killings.
Speaker 16 (20:08):
Students from elizabeth And High School presented their research on
what is known as the Redhead Murders. Over the last semester,
the students have studied several cold cases spanning the South.
The cases all have several things connecting them, including the
victim's hair color. Students created a profile of the suspected
killer and named him the Bible Belt strangler.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
Students in Elizabethton had a class where they investigated these murders.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I think this media attention really did a lot to
bring eyes back to the case and help, you know,
make the cases not so cold. So what happened was
the students had tried to bring.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
The case back up. It had this media blitz, It'd
been featured all over the nation.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
They have a name for the killer, they have a
way to separate the six out from the rest of
the victims.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
People start calling the TBI, and they start.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Calling the local police agencies, and they start saying, well,
you know, what does this mean.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Are we looking at other cases? Are these related to
any others?
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Could she have been killed, you know, by the same
person as somebody else? And I think it just it
just really got a media firestorm really going, and it
brought up a lot of attention back to these cases.
Once you start getting a few tips or a few leads,
or you know, a few identifications, then the cold case
isn't so cold.
Speaker 16 (21:30):
Anymore.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
There's a huge true crime whatever you call them, what
citizen sleuth kind of community out there.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
They And so what happened was there was a lady
who spent a lot of time on these kind of
missing persons websites and Jane go kind of websites. So
she heard the podcast that the students were featured on,
and she thought, huh, here's six victims. Here's six bodies,
and they look like this.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
They're this age, there're this weight, this height, whatever.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
And then she was also looking at these missing person
websites and she noticed that a missing person she felt
matched up with this victim. It was shortly after they disappeared,
so she actually said, I think that this missing person
may be here, Jane Doe to Campbell County Jain Doe,
(22:24):
and that tip was submitted to the TBI, and pretty
soon the TBI was traveling to Indiana to find her
relatives and take DNA swaps, and sure enough, it did
turn out to be that missing person.
Speaker 10 (22:50):
Let's stop here for another quick break murder.
Speaker 9 (23:03):
One on one, A woman who thinks Jane Doe is
her mother is sharing her story hoping it'll give identity
to the woman left dead inside of a discarded fridge.
Speaker 8 (23:14):
Many believe the person who killed the Jane Doe also
killed six other redheaded women. All but one of those
are also unidentified. He's called the Bible Belt strangler and
he's never been caught.
Speaker 17 (23:26):
Well.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
I saw the headline that said, you know one of
redhead murders victims identified.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
That's when it got really intense.
Speaker 8 (23:33):
The Campbell County Jane Doe has now been identified as
Tina Marie McKenny. Like McKenny, four of the other five
victims were Jane doe'es. The autopsy suggested that she was strangled.
Speaker 18 (23:46):
I want you ought to know this is Tina laying here,
and she does matter, and she deliver her and she
didn't abandon her. And she does have a family.
Speaker 15 (23:55):
She had us, Tinas, and he took her from me.
Speaker 10 (24:04):
Shane Waters ended up speaking to Tina's sister, Liza Plummer.
Speaker 18 (24:07):
She was still that quiet little kid that sat in
that corner and nicest can be. She was naive. Our
life was hell at home.
Speaker 6 (24:20):
The family inquired about Farmer. They were told that she
didn't want to come back with them, and she had
left with the truckers, said to be headed to Kentucky.
The family did not believe that story. Her family reported
her missing to the authorities at this time, Yet authorities
in Indiana did not enter her international databases. The state
did not have a law common to many other states,
(24:42):
requiring law enforcement to enter unidentified victims into this database.
Speaker 10 (24:50):
Tina's sister Liza told the story the last time she
saw Tina.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Tina was nineteen.
Speaker 18 (24:55):
I was turned eighteen, and that's when her and dad
got into it. And my dad he was just be honest,
a mean ass, that's just how he was, and Tina cried.
I went inside. Me and Dad had some words, and
we went out into the van and slept in Scott's
band that was my boyfriend then, and I woke up
(25:16):
the next morning. Tina left me note saying she didn't
want to make trouble to me and Dad, and she
just left. So I'm fearing that she probably went across
the street, used the phone booth and called someone to
come and get her.
Speaker 10 (25:26):
Eliza recalls realizing that something truly bad had happened to
her sister. Tina.
Speaker 12 (25:30):
I used to.
Speaker 18 (25:31):
Always tell I said now the minute Dad passed on,
I know it's a terrible thing to said then my
dad left us earth she would have came back. And
when my dad was gone and she didn't come back,
on kneed Tina was gone. I've been on this since
I think two thousand and four, hard, really hard on it,
and I just got bits and pieces here and there.
Speaker 19 (25:50):
No one from the investigation has been in touch with
you to let you know anything.
Speaker 12 (25:55):
No, they put it the nath REGs.
Speaker 18 (25:57):
They've paid aneath rig.
Speaker 15 (25:59):
I think the most thing about this for me, though,
is had the police worked into this back then, they
would have heard the story, probably found her.
Speaker 11 (26:09):
Maybe linked together, yeah, linked.
Speaker 10 (26:12):
Tina's neighbor at the time, a woman named Tammy, was
also present and said something that couldn't be ignored.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
Dicky said, and Geneva, she was saying to you that
she had run off with a truck driver.
Speaker 18 (26:24):
He told us, Yeah, that she had run off with
the truck driver. When I go buy interstates, I break.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
I stand truck driver, I break.
Speaker 8 (26:35):
Because no one know.
Speaker 18 (26:37):
But see, the stories are in my head.
Speaker 10 (26:41):
They're never going to leave my head.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Is you know she mattered, she was here, she was fine.
Speaker 10 (26:50):
The truck driver revealed was an eerie callback to what
the FBI analyst and the students had predicted.
Speaker 17 (26:57):
You know, these bodies are being done along the interstates.
First thought to the kids was, Hey, if I was
in your shoes and I was an investigator's case. As
a detective, my first thought would be because these bodies
are being dumped on the side of NY State by
a gut feeling and experience tells me if it's.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
A truck driver.
Speaker 11 (27:16):
But we knew it had to be a truck driver.
Speaker 5 (27:19):
He's pretty stocky, you know, truck driver type.
Speaker 11 (27:21):
He's a truck driver.
Speaker 10 (27:23):
Soon the most shocking twist would come to late.
Speaker 19 (27:28):
Good afternoon. I am Jared E. Fler, 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 and Campbell County, Tennessee. At that time, an investigation
(27:49):
was 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 3 (28:05):
The grand jury.
Speaker 19 (28:06):
Found that the unidentified body was that of Tina Marie
Farmer of Marion County, Indiana. Additionally, the grand jury found
that there was a fiship proof to believe that Jerry
Johns of Cleveland, Tennessee caused her death.
Speaker 10 (28:27):
More on that next time. Murder one oh one is
executive produced by Stephanie Leidecker, Alex Campbell, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew
Arnold and me Jeff Shane. Additional producing by Connor Powell
and Gabriel Castillo, Editing by Jeff Twa and Davey Cooper Wasser.
(28:48):
Music by Vanacor Music. Murder one oh one is a
production of iHeartRadio and Katie's Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.