Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 3 Shocking Details In Utah Mom's Horrifying Murder Confession

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Jennifer Gledhill is being held on suspicion of murdering her estranged husband, Matthew Johnson, in their home in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. Johnson's body has not been found. Police said Gledhill admitted to shooting Johnson to a confidential informant. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy looks at the details police have revealed in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show covering the biggest stories in crime. PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/CrimeFixHost:Angenette Levy  https://twitter.com/Angenette5Guest: Darryl Cohen  https://x.com/DarrylBCohenCRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A Utah National Guardsman is missing, presumed dead, and now his estranged wife is behind bars suspected of murdering him. But Matthew Johnson's body is still missing. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy.

Matthew Johnson's marriage to Jennifer Gledhill was anything but rosy. Gledhill filed for divorce in July and then asked for a protective order the next month. And I'll have more on that shortly. Now Gledhill is in jail in Salt Lake County, Utah on suspicion of murder and obstruction of justice. TV station KSL in Salt Lake captured these images of her being taken into custody last week for the murder of Matthew Johnson. Cottonwood Heights Police Sergeant Gary Young describes how the investigation started. The officers had been called to the family residence of 7038 South Horizon Circle, and it's known the couple had been going through a divorce since July of this year. They have three minor children from 11 to 5 years old.

Mr. Johnson is a respected member of the United States military, Utah National Guard. He's been employed there for about 20 years. He was last seen on the 20th of September and witnesses came forward and reported an argument between the couple on September 20th to 21st in the early hours of the morning. It is believed that Mr. Johnson died of a gunshot wound. Now you might be asking, why do police believe Matthew Johnson died from a gunshot wound? The probable cause statement outlines exactly why. It reads, Cottonwood Heights Police Department were in contact with a confidential informant who was reporting that they had spoken with Jennifer on the evening of September 22nd, 2024, at which time Jennifer Gledhill openly admitted to killing Johnson

by shooting him in the head while he slept. Johnson was shot while on the mattress inside the master bedroom of their home in Cottonwood Heights. Jennifer also told the CI she had removed the body of Johnson and had relocated his remains to a shallow grave at an undisclosed location. Jennifer Gladhill also told the CI she had been removing items from the home and destroying them to cover up this crime. Wow. This must be someone really close to Jennifer Gledhill for her to call and make this alleged admission. And how often do police get a break like that this early in a case? Probably not very often. The probable cause statement goes on to say, investigators obtained a search warrant

for the residents in Cottonwood Heights. And during the search, we discovered a large bloodstained spot in the master bedroom carpet underneath the bed. Blood was also found on the bed frame slats, which supports the information police were told. Evidence also supports that significant cleanup had taken place after this crime had occurred, including bleaching walls and using carpet cleaning supplies. Police say there was other evidence of a cleanup as well. The affidavit goes on to say the mattress located in the bedroom at the time of the search was consistent with a new mattress. Phone records revealed a new mattress was ordered on September 24th, 2024, and it arrived September 26th, 2024. Since September 21st, 2024, Matthew has had no contact with anyone, including his children.

Matthew's phone would go to voicemail. Matthew never returned to work and never left any evidence that would lead investigators to believe Matthew was still alive. Based on this behavior and evidence collected through this investigation, it is believed Matthew Johnson is deceased. The confidential informant also reported to police that Jennifer Gledhill said she buried Matthew Johnson's body in a shallow grave and police are using technology to try to find that shallow grave. We had over 20 warrants that we were seeking, you know, for various electronics to exploit, phones, cars, GPS, phone calls, computer, all the things that we would hopefully find viable leads that might help us locate the

shallow grave. Moving a body is not easy. And this is a woman. Is this, is there any belief that she could have had help in moving the body? We're not ruling anything out, but she had several days head start on us. She had, you know, time from the time of the reported argument to the time that we got our information on the 28th. I'm not sure what the timeframe is. I'm just speculating. It would be easier with five people, but that didn't make sense. Don't place that one, five suspects. No, I'm just indicating that we don't know, right? We're confident we know where it happened at. We know the manner of the murder. Now we're just looking for a body. We don't know about the disposition of the deceit at this time. Now, as I mentioned earlier,

Gledhill filed for divorce in early July. And according to the case history, she was granted a protective order. That order, though, was temporary. And the judge later determined that Gledhill, with evidence presented, may have been antagonizing Johnson and trying to goad him into a confrontation. Four days before police believed Johnson was killed, the protective order was dismissed because the evidence Gledhill presented did not meet Utah's definition of abuse. Then there was the argument I told you about on September 20th. When Matthew didn't show up for work on September 23rd, it raised another red flag that something wasn't right. Detectives searched for Matthew in the days following and eventually found his truck a

couple of blocks away from his home, which only raised more suspicion. The stories I cover each day here on Crime Fix show you just how scary the world can be. And one of the scariest things that can happen is if you're ever hurt. But it's important to realize if you ever are seriously hurt in an accident, your case could be worth millions. And that's where our sponsor Morgan & Morgan comes in. The firm has an army of more than a thousand attorneys who will fight for what you deserve, and they have the track record to prove it. In the past few months, Morgan & Morgan has won big verdicts like $12 million in Florida, $26 million in Philly, and $6.8 million in New York.

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The DA's office released a statement following Gledhill's arrest. It says the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office is aware of the arrest of Jennifer Gledhill by the Cottonwood Heights Police Department on suspicion of the alleged murder of her husband, Matthew Johnson. The matter will be screened for any charges, as is our protocol. Daryl Cohen is a former prosecutor. I want to bring him in to talk about this. Daryl, this case to me is very interesting. We have a confidential informant calling police and saying, Jennifer Gledhill told me she shot and killed her husband and then buried him in a shallow grave. They haven't been able to find the body yet. But this is unusual to me, this early on in a case to have somebody calling in and giving this information. Do you think it's

unusual? It is extraordinarily unusual, which tells me that A, whoever the CI was or is, was someone who knew Jennifer and knew her well, and either A, didn't like her, or B, was just doing the right thing when Jennifer said, oh, let me tell you what I did. I killed my husband. By the way, I learned how to bury him in a grave because of something called the cult mom who has a situation like that as well. Police are still looking for the shallow grave. I assume they will eventually find it. They've been executing search warrants. They're trying to get digital data. You know, anything can be tracked these days, whether it's your car, depending on

if you have the GPS system, your cell phone. Sometimes people will leave the phone at home when they commit crimes. But time is still of the essence. You want to be able to find the body as quickly as possible. And it's very gruesome that we have to talk like this. It's going to be a big challenge though. Do you think it's going to be a big challenge for them to locate Matthew Johnson's body? My best guess is Matthew Johnson will be located by an animal or animals who dig up this, if there is a shallow grave, and I suspect there is. All the circumstantial evidence tells me that she murdered him, and the question is, where is he? At least his remains. Animals have a tendency of smelling

things that we as humans can't. They'll dig it up. Perhaps there'll be a rainstorm. Unlikely there, but possible. Maybe a dust storm. Maybe a windstorm. They will find him. It's just a question of when and how they find him, whether it's forensically or accidentally, but he'll be found. What's so disturbing about this case, you know, you have children involved. Obviously there was a custody dispute going back and forth, a divorce case that was contentious.

We have children now who've essentially lost both their parents, but it's just confounding to me how volatile these divorce situations, these separations can be. And the fact that this CI is telling law enforcement that not only did she shoot him, she shot him in his sleep when he was at his most defenseless. And then there's this cleanup, allegedly, of the crime scene. And I'm just thinking to myself, how does a 41-year-old woman, oh, my God, move the body of her husband? I mean, moving a body and not to be gruesome again is incredibly difficult. I mean, we're talking about, you know, you're, you're

essentially talking about dead weight. This is not an easy task. My guess is she was not only working on mad, but she was working on adrenaline. And when you have that surge of adrenaline, it might last a second or two. It could last an hour or two. I'm not a doctor, but I know that to be the case. So she didn't get mad. She got even. She waited until he was completely defenseless. She shot, she killed him. She somehow or another was able to pull him off the bed, get him out of there, wrap him and get him to a shallow grave, wherever that may be, whether she drove to a place or whether it was just outside the house. But this is not that unusual in terms of superhuman strength coming when you need it. You just have to have it. Of course, then she bought a new bed, but what the heck, you know,

all she needed was new sheets. When we talk about the circumstantial evidence, I mean, it sounds like there's quite a bit. They're talking about blood on the slats of the bed, a bloodstain in the bedroom, ordering a new mattress, the statement to the CI. I'm just kind of stunned by this. It makes me wonder, was this planned or was this something that was more of like, you know, a spur of the moment thing, a reaction. It just, it seems very haphazard. Um, and I, I, I'm not, I can't really understand anybody who does something like this, but what are your thoughts on that? I feel exactly the same way. In my view, it was not planned for whatever reason she got so mad at him. And then she decided to get even by killing him. If she had planned this in my view, clearly, clearly she would not have done it

in the bed. She would not have had to order a new mattress. She would not have had to worry about the bed slats that she forgot to clean. None of the things she's done tell me it was planned. Everything she did tells me she did it at a spur of the moment, anger, rage, and then she had to clean up what she did. And she didn't do a good job, which is a good thing for us in terms of prosecution, not for her. You know, this is one of those cases too Daryl that goes to show you never really know what's going on behind closed doors. I mean this is a family that looks like they should be picture perfect. You've got a National Guardsman and you know they live allegedly in this million dollar home and you know it looks picture perfect you know in a photograph but obviously you just never know what's going on in somebody's life.

And this was this was not a good scene. Behind closed doors, there have been many a song that talks about behind closed doors. All of us know, most of us know what we don't know. And what we don't know is what happens behind those closed doors. We do know contentious divorce. We do know there were kids. But what we don't know is what it is that set her off, that she committed a murder. And I believe she will either be found guilty or she'll enter a plea of guilty at some point. Life takes on so many different soap opera-like aspects. We never quite know when we're mad, when we lose control. She, in my view, was mad. She lost control. She waited

until he fell asleep, and then she did what she thought she should do. But you're right. What she did is she took away both parents from the kids. Wonderful, isn't it? It's a very, very sad case. It's terrible. And we will continue to cover it. Matthew Johnson was regarded, you know, well regarded in the Utah National Guard. And his family is certainly grieving at this point in time, especially the children, I'm sure. And right now she's being held without bail. She hasn't been formally charged, but we'll wait and see. The DA's office is looking at that right now. Daryl Cohen, thank you so much.

Thank you. Nice to see you. Take care. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Jeanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.