Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - High School Teacher Leads Class to CRACK SERIAL MURDER CASE

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

In 2018, Elizabethton High School student teacher Alex Campbell challenged his students to see if they could figure out if the Redhead murders are sometimes called the Bible Belt Murders. There were 14 unsolved murders with a similar M.O.  Campbell gets help from a former FBI agent teaching the young people about profiling a case. The students of Elizabethton High School start to see a potential pattern emerge in six of the potential murders. In looking at the background of the murders, they started New Year's Day 1985, the body of a young female with reddish hair was found strangled, wrapped in a blanket, and tossed down an embankment off the southbound side of I-75 near Jellico, Tennessee.  Due to decomposition, authorities believe she was killed about 72 hours before her body was found,  10-12 weeks pregnant when she was murdered.   The identification of Tina McKenney Farmer of Indiana helped the investigation move forward quickly. The evidence from the crime scene was tested and a match was found. The DNA matched Jerry Johns, convicted in the 1987 attempted murder of a woman he kidnapped, strangled, and then dumped along I-40. Linda Schacke met Jerry Johns in a club in West Knoxville, Tennesee. The 36-year-old trucker seems like a nice guy until he pulls a gun, and forces her at gunpoint to drive to a wooded area off the interstate where he rips her shirt and uses part of it to strangle her. Johns then tosses the strangled and bound woman on the inside of a storm drain under I-40. Like Tina Famer and many others, Linda Schacke has red hair, Unlike the others, Linda Schacke survives the attack. When Jerry Johns was convicted of the attack on Schacke, he was considered a suspect in some homicides, but there was never enough evidence. However, even though Tina Marie McKenney Farmer was positively identified by fingerprint identification, there was DNA left behind in the blanket she was wrapped up in after she was killed.  2019, DNA evidence identified convicted kidnapper Jerry Leon Johns as the man who killed Tina Marie McKenney Farmer in December 1984. Johns died in prison in 2015. On December 18, 2019, a grand jury in Campbell County, Tennessee, ruled that Johns would have been indicted for murder in Farmer's death if he were still alive. The students of Elizabethton High School continue to investigate and believe they have developed some strong evidence that shows whoever killed McKenney-Farmer, probably killed Lisa Nichols, Michelle Inman, Elizabeth Lamotte, Tracy Walker, and even a still unidentified Jane Doe in Desoto County. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Alex Campbell - Teacher at Elizabethton High School, Host of the podcast: “Murder 101”, Author: “Ten Lessons That Will Get You Fired, But You Must Teach Immediately;" Instagram: @kt_studios  Marlee - Student who worked on the project Karra Porter - Attorney & Co-founder of the Cold Case Coalition; Instagram: @ColdCaseCoalition Dr. Bethany Marshall – Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills); Twitter: @DrBethanyLive/ Instagram & TikTok: drbethanymarshall; Appearing in the new show, “Paris in Love” on Peacock Scott Barker - Former FBI Special Agent (worked with students); Scott Barker on LinkedIn   Dr. Michelle Dupre – Forensic Pathologist and former Medical Examiner, Author: “Homicide Investigation Field Guide” & “Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide;” Ret. Police Detective Lexington County Sheriff’s Department Perry Chiaramonte - Senior Reporter at The Messenger; X: @TheMessenger @perrych See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. One woman, then the next woman, then the next, then the next, then the next, then the next. When would it stop? Why were happened over a period of years. What, if anything, do these women have in common? Who is the mastermind? And is there such a thing as an evil genius that can murder over and over and over and never get caught? The sad answer to that, the chilling answer to that is yes.

It happens all the time. What is the commonality? I've had so many serial killings. You have to find a commonality. What links the victims together? Otherwise, you're looking for a needle in a haystack. The only thing, they all had red hair. Let that sink in for a moment. What kind of commonality is that? How can we stop him, the killer? And oh, yes, statistics say it's a man. And why dump them by the motorway? Did he want them to be found?

It's like taking out a billboard on 3rd Avenue. I killed her and her and her and her and her and her. Clearly murdering with impunity until enter a high school teacher and his class. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and on Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to student William Bowers, and this is coming from the Murder 101 podcast from KT Studios. Listen. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is my privilege and honor to welcome you to our press conference. My name is William Bowers, and I'm a part of Mr. Campbell's sociology class. Many of you today are asking the same question. Why are we here? Why are we doing this? Why do we even care about this? Well, it starts 37 years ago when a man murdered an unknown woman and laid her body beside an interstate. Four years later, five more women shared the same fate. Those women would be found along interstates and highways across multiple

states. At the time of their death, the women were founded with reddish hair. Law enforcement at the time couldn't solve the murders due to the women never being identified. Wow. That was incredibly well-spoken by a student named William Bowers. And what is the Murder 101 podcast? And who are these students? and who is this teacher? And William Bowers asks a very good question. He poses a very good question. He frames it. Why does anybody do anything? But more particularly, why after nearly 40 years pass, Does anybody still care about these women, these redheaded victims, murdered and strewn by the interstate like trash? Well, all I can say is PTL, praise the Lord, somebody did care. And joining me right now is one of the students who worked on this project and the teacher that brought

them together. Joining us from Elizabethtown, Tennessee, Alex Campbell, teacher at the local high school, host of Murder 101, author of 10 Lessons That Will you fired, but you must teach immediately. Okay. Before I get to that, let me deal with this. Alex Campbell, your student, first of all, welcome. Thank you. It's great to be here. Your student, William Bowers, framed the question, why are we doing this? Why do we even care? Well, I know why I care, because I'm a crime victim, because I live with the memory of my murdered fiancé every day. Why do you care? Yeah, you know, true crime is such a popular genre, and obviously lots of people are interested in it. I think at the beginning of the semester, the students thought that it would be kind of neat, it'd be fun to see if there was a serial killer in their state, in their region. But throughout the project, what happened was the students thought less about finding

a serial killer, and they thought more about these people as human beings. And so by the time the end of the semester came around and Will was speaking there at the press conference, the students really had started taking to calling these six women, their six sisters. They said, we feel like family. And because maybe they were estranged from their family, their family can't, you know, put the pressure on and keep the story going. And so they decided that they wanted to become their family and do that for them. Wow. I don't think anyone could have answered as eloquently as you just did. Instead of trying to catch a perceived serial killer,

you and your class began identifying with the victims who have no voice. And isn't it true, Mr. Campbell, that it's also always those that are the weakest in our society that are most taken advantage of? For instance, women, children. These voices have gone unheard and unrepresented for nearly 40 years until you started your project. How did you come up with the idea, Alex Campbell, of creating a podcast really focusing on the MERS, but did you intend to

solve them? Like I said, I don't think the intent was necessarily to say, hey, we're going to be able to solve a killer by May, the end of the semester. The students, we had some good talks about, you know, what we wanted to see come from this. And of course, you don't want to discourage kids. You don't want to let them get some ideas that, you know, they could never fulfill. That usually leads to frustration for students. So they said, you know, just keeping people aware, getting the stories out there, and maybe helping one of these women get her name back would be enough for them. So the women were not even identified, Alex?

Yeah, so only one of the six women was identified at the time, and she had been identified in 1985. So it had been over 30 years since any movement on any of these cases. Which one was originally identified? Lisa Nichols. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So she, out of the six women, was originally identified. Are there only six women or are there others? So that's where it gets complicated. If you look at the redhead

murders, there's usually, depends on kind of what you look at, but 12 to maybe 14 different murders. Because they came up with 11. I'm curious how you came up with 12 to 14. Right. So see, that was the thing. There was this thing called the redhead murders, but nobody had ever said if any of these murders were related. So what the students did was they tried to prove, with the help of Scott Barker, that there were certain ones of these victims that were related to one suspect. Hold on. I'm trying to soak in everything you're saying. You got me drinking from a fire hydrant. What are we talking about? We're talking about somewhere between six, 11 and 14 women dead all under the umbrella of the red head murders. Many of them never even identified. It's like a potter's grave, so to speak.

And you just heard that teacher joining us from Elizabethton, Tennessee, describing the launching of his podcast with his students. He mentioned the name Scott Barker, former FBI special agent that helped the student. Scott Barker, why did you get involved? I received a telephone call from a colleague of mine who is the supervisor in Johnson City. He and I are friends. We actually went to the same high school, worked together, oddly enough, in such a large outfit. We ended up in the same office. And he called me and said, Hey,

there's a teacher at Elizabethan High School that's doing a project. And they're wanting somebody who has some knowledge about behavioral analysis. Come speak to the class and just give them some ideas, some fresh ideas, things to look at. And so I drove up. We took about an hour, hour and a half. And I just threw out some ideas, asked them questions, allowed them to ask me questions. And what I realized early on was they were really informed. They were really quizzical about how things worked, and they were anxious to get this case going and get this profile going. So all I tried to do was just give them some ideas, point them in the right direction,

and then they did the work. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Scott Barker and Alex Campbell. I can remember the first time anyone truly read out loud Shakespeare to me. It was Professor Kenneth Hammond at Mercer University. When he did that, the way he said it, I knew I had to major in Shakespearean literature. It was just like that. It changed my life. Do either of you realize how much you have changed not only the students' lives, but the lives of these victims' families? Well, maybe I don't, right, because I've really never been in their situation.

Here's one thing a lot of people ask me. They say, well, did any of your students really get turned on to, you know, detective work or criminal justice? Did they become lawyers or, you know, did they want to go into law enforcement? And as far as I know, none have. But to me, like, that makes me feel good because what I want the students to understand is that it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter if you're a professional, if you have more training than anybody. Any one of us in society, when we see a wrong, we can use the skills, the knowledges, the energy that we have to try to bring justice, whether you're an expert or not.

And so the fact that they're able to take that with them into their lives, no matter which job or career they go into, that's the thing that I think they took with them. And hopefully, no matter what they see, they're going to make the world a better place. Let's get down to the facts of the redhead murders. Take a listen again to student William Bowers. 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. With the information provided and what we have learned, we were able to create an MO, a signature, and a profile for the murder. Wow. You're hearing student William Bowers on Murder 101 podcast from KT Studios, a serial killer stalking an entire region, a swath of land, leaving his victims

along the interstate. What? Many people, yeah, we've heard of Ted Bundy. We've heard of Bill Gacy. We've heard of so many serial killers. But who had ever heard of the redhead murders until now? And this high school teacher and his class. Take a listen to Dave Mack Crime Online. What are the redhead murders? Thirteen redheaded women are killed by a suspected serial killer during a 14-year period. The theme of red-haired victims whose bodies were discarded along major highways led the crime spree to be called the redhead murders. The murders are believed to be related to several states including Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. And some of the facts leave many wondering about what we just don't know.

The killing spree could have lasted longer than 14 years. No one is sure. Is there more than one killer? Officials aren't sure. How many victims have there been? Five, 14, or more? Again, the answer is no one knows. Joining me right now, Perry Chiaramonte, senior reporter at The Messenger. Perry, tell me about the murders. their bodies, I believe, from the early 80s to about 1992. Many of them were, their investigations went nowhere. They were, all of them were cold cases. Many of them were estranged from their family and also they were found in other parts of the region that they weren't from. So it was kind of hard to track down family and build more of an ID on the victims. And, you know, these were a multitude of cases that never got solved until Alex's class kind of made headway and, for lack of a better term, cracked the case. Alex Campbell, the teacher who led this project. Alex, were the women nude?

Some were and some weren't. How many were nude? So that's also a thing, too. If we mean completely, like not even socks, then it appears maybe two or three. How about partially? Yeah, so there were probably four or five. Okay, gotcha. That might have been there.

To Scott Barker joining me, former FBI special agent who worked on cracking this serial murder case. Obviously, you know where I'm going, Scott Barker. I'm going toward motive. So I can hopefully get to the perp. If any are nude or partially nude, that tells me that there's very likely a sex motive. Agree, disagree? Agree 100%. So this is not someone walking around the mall and he happens to see a redheaded person and go, I hate redheads and murders them. This is someone who has a sex proclivity to rape and is picking easy targets,

hitchhikers and or women he can get off alone. And the fact that they are on the motorway, Scott Barker tells me this guy travels. And of course, it's a guy. I mean, statistically, of course, it's a guy. I mean, statistically, of course, it's a guy. The motorway, Scott Barker, the motorway where the bodies are disposed. It's like he pushes them out of the car dead. Yes, ma'am. Correct. And obviously, that leads you to believe what's the type of person that travels the motorway on a frequent occasion. And obviously, your first thought is using common sense that your offender is probably a trucker.

Exactly. A trucker or someone that travels like a traveling salesman to put. I don't have a better word to describe that. But yes, a trucker or traveling salesperson, a person that travels not by air, but by vehicle. That route. That's who I'm looking for. Also, we know, do we not, Scott Barker, that typically serial killers strike within their own race. Agree or disagree? Agree. And of course, there are some exceptions to that, like the DC snipers. That's a great exception. But generally, statistics heavily support the theory that serial killers kill within their own race. Why? I'm not a shrink. I don't know, but I know statistics. So now, now that we know that there

are six to 14 women, redheads, scattered, nude or partially nude for the most part along this area, we can deduce we've got a white male, old enough to drive, not too old to drive, that knows this stretch of roadway that is very likely a trucker or a traveling salesperson who was sexually active during this period of time. Yes, no, Scott Barker. Yes, 100%. Let me ask you this, Scott. What were the CODs, cause of deaths on these women? Or can you tell after that much time has passed? I think most of them were strangulation. There might have been one that was blunt force trauma, but the majority of them were strangulation. Okay, Dr. Bethany Marshall, I'm sure she's anxious, to put it mildly, to jump in. Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst, joining us out of the L.A. jurisdiction at drbethanymarshall.com. She's also appearing in the new season of Paris in Love on Peacock.

Dr. Bethany, jump in. Feet first. Well, I think one of the reasons that these women were strewn along the roadway may have been not because he was a trucker or a traveling salesman. I mean, that's a great likelihood, but that he put so much energy into hunting for certain types of victims, certain profiling of victims or victim types, that he was just on the move all the time. More like somebody who may be living a subsidized lifestyle, maybe somebody who didn't even work. I think one of the reasons these serial killers go underground for long periods of time and then they pop up and kill somebody is because their sexual fantasy life is so vivid that they live within that world, looking at pornography and looking at, you know,

fantasizing about things until eventually they can't take it anymore. And then they go out and offend. I think the reason for the strangulation is that this perpetrator wanted to see the fear in the women's eyes. Likely, he committed the sex act while he was strangling them. Why? Because psychopaths like to inflict pain and harm. This helps them to get sexually aroused.

So it's no coincidence that the victims are murdered, strangled, and sex attacked because that's all of their, this is their part of their sexual deviancy. That's the only way that they can, you know, achieve orgasm, for lack of a better word, is to commit this kind of offense. And often, often the semen is not even on the body. Sometimes it's in the area somewhere because they have, they're so worked up. They're walking around, they're, you know, they're not even on the victim at some point. They're just angry and agitated and really ambulating. I've learned that, and let me go to Kara Porter joining us out of Utah, attorney and co-founder of the Cold Case Coalition. You can find Kara at coldcasehelp.com. Kara, in my experience prosecuting, investigating, and covering serial killers, I believe we can learn possibly the most from the first victim before

the killer hones his or her, rarely, skills. So I would like to look at the first victim. Karen, do you agree with that assessment or not? I do. I think sometimes that's why it's especially frustrating if one cannot figure out who the first victim is. You know, if someone is still unidentified, and here there were several states where these bodies were found, what if there is an earlier victim that hasn't been brought to someone's attention? Yeah, I'm thinking right now of Rex Heuermann, the Long Island serial killer. Many people believe he is also the Manorville butcher. The butcher would dismember his victims. At some point, it's hypothesized that the butcher realized he didn't have to go to that extreme, so he just started burying them along Gilgo Beach. So we learn a lot from the

arc of the M.O., modus operandi, method of operation of the serial killer. Does it change? Is it flat? Let's look with that in mind at the first victim that we know of and can't really tell if that's correct, but this is who we think may be the first victim. Listen. 1983, the first victim was an unidentified white woman. Her body was found naked near the city of Littleton in West Virginia. Her hair, more auburn than red. Her cause of death, not known, but police say she was likely suffocated. A suspect was named after reports were made of a white man approximately 5'6 tall was seen near where the body was found. He was never identified. Of course he wasn't a white guy.

Maybe 5'6. Probably identified by a motorist. You're going to figure out how tall he was as you fly by at 60 mph? No. Uh-uh. But as we deduce with Scott Barker, former FBI agent, serial killers typically kill within their race. So we knew it's, we know it's a man. Oh, we know it's a white man. We kind of already knew that. What do we learn as the bodies continue to pop up, being picked up along the motorway like trash. Listen.

The body of a female wrapped in a blanket is found off I-17 near Jalico on New Year's Day, 1985. 90 days and four miles south of Jalico, another female is found. This time, it's the skeletonized partial remains of a young girl found in April of 1985. Officials believe she's been dead between one and four years. She was found by a passerby. 34 years after her remains were found, a reconstruction of her face is done by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, proving she hasn't been forgotten. Then, August 30, 2022, the unidentified remains found in 1985 are finally identified after Orthram Laboratories locates possible family members in Indiana.

She's identified as 15-year-old Tracy Sue Walker of Lafayette, Indiana. Her mother says she disappeared in 1978 after she was last seen at Tippecanoe Mall with a friend. Tracy Walker had red hair. Joining me right now is one of the students who worked on murder 101, hoping to just simply identify one or two of the victims, never imagining they, a group of high school students, led by their teacher, Alex Campbell, could crack a case. Joining me right now, Marlee Mathena from Elizabethton, Tennessee. Marlee, you're a high school senior, right? Yes, ma'am.

What went through your mind when you learned that one of the victims is a 15-year-old little girl who was just at the mall with a friend? It's really terrifying, honestly, and I think that's part of why I have been so passionate about this case, because it could very well happen to me, my best friend, my mom, my cousin. So I just want to advocate for women like that, and I know that if it was me or anyone that I was related to, I would want to stand for them. When you were working on this Murder 101 podcast with your high school teacher, when you went into it, what was your expectation? What did you think was going to happen? I thought that we would be able to dive deep into all the evidence and put all the facts out there. And my goal was really just to bring awareness to it again. And maybe other people would see and professionals could help them.

I never in a million years dreamed that I would be the one that got to uncover all of this evidence and make so many advancements. I got a question, Marley. What do you want to be when you grow up? I think I want to be something in the medical field. I'm not really sure yet. Man, you are so smart and so articulate. I've seen your picture. Pretty good looking. Thank you. Kind of beautiful too, man. You could do anything. And I'm just thinking of you with your group and Mr. Campbell working on this and Scott Barker working on this.

And you find out that one of the victims is a teen girl just like you. Her crime, she went to the mall and she ends up murdered on the side of the interstate. Dr. Michelle Dupree joining us, forensic pathologist, medical examiner, former detective with Lexington County Sheriff's Department, author of Money, Mischief, and Murder, the Murdoch Saga. But more important, for my purposes, the author, she literally wrote the book, Homicide Investigation Field Guide. Dr. Dupree, if you have red hair and you're murdered, will your hair change over time? Does it decompose or does it stay red? Nancy, it'll pretty much stay the same color. Certainly everything will decompose over time, but the color is going to remain the same. Now, after people pass away, does their hair keep growing? No, that's a myth. What happens is

your skin withdraws and it makes it look like your hair grows. The same thing with your nails. They don't grow after death. Dr. Michelle Dupree, joining us out of Columbia, South Carolina, with a case like this, how do you determine cause of death? Since many of the victims are skeletonized, and unless a neck bone or the hyoid bone is broken, there's no tissue to see bruises. How do you figure it out? You know, Nancy, that is a very difficult situation. A lot of times we can look at the bones and see if there are any injuries, any sharp force injuries, any gunshot wounds, anything like that. We can also take the soil from beneath where the victims are found and analyze that soil to see if there's any toxicology that may be relevant. But you're right, it's very

difficult when there is no real body to examine other than bones. Alex Campbell, the teacher at Elizabethton High School, host of Murder 101 and author of 10 Lessons That Will Get You Fire But You Must Teach Immediately. Now I had to find out what those two lessons are. But that after this, Alex Campbell, when did it become clear to you without any doubt that there was, in fact, a serial killer? Yeah. So one of the things that Scott Barker told us was that if you wanted to show that more than one of these victims was related to one perpetrator, was that you had to have the same M.O., the same signature, in the same time frame, and in the same geographic area. And so that's the work the students did several years ago. And once we found that six of those women pretty much shared all of those things,

that's when we became convinced that there actually was a serial killer that was responsible for several of the redhead murders. Scott Barker, you're absolutely correct. Same MO, modus operandi, same time frame, and same geographic area. And then, of course, you come up with a nut like Ted Bundy, who goes across the entire country and changes his MO. But I think I generally agree with you. Same MO, same time frame, same geographic area.

And, of course, Bundy not only moved, but moved a great deal, but also changed his M.O. So, of course, there is an exception to every rule. But, Scott Barker, these women fit your criteria to a T, and you're right. And you're right. Some killers will change the M.O. because, because obviously they're the smartest person in the room. And they think by changing the MO, they can do that. But in this case, I felt like that if they wanted to narrow it down, just because of what I was finding out about the cases, that they were all in the same general area. They were being dumped along the side of the road, that probably most of those things were going to be the same.

To focus on those things and maybe they could identify one individual who's committing all these crimes. You know, Scott Barker, I think on that last, next to last sentence, you're half right and half wrong. I can be totally wrong, but you said the serial killer thinks he is the smartest one in the room. You're so right about that. They think they're going to outsmart everybody, and very often they do. But I also think there's a component of a killer, especially

a serial killer, that acts on animal instinct like Bundy. There at the end, I mean, he was clubbing people dead. No elaborate plan. Just break in and kill. I think at some point they begin to act like an animal. They have to kill. We know Nancy. I know that's Dr. Bethany. Can I at least finish my sentence before you correct me? And then you're going to be right. I'm not going to be an idiot.

But they start just acting out of this insane desire to kill or to rape or to cause pain. And they get to where they throw all their planning out the window and their previously used M.O. and they just start killing and biting and maiming. Dr. Bethany? Well, to dovetail with what you're saying, because you're absolutely right, their deviant patterns increase and become more intense over time. Because if you think of this as a part of a sexual arousal pattern, sexuality and inflicting cruelty going hand in hand, they have to inflict increasing amounts of cruelty in order to enhance their sexual arousal. So over time, they become emboldened, they get more ideas,

they look at pornography, that stimulates them more. They get more ideas. They look at pornography. That stimulates them more. And so it's really increased deviancy as well is what we're seeing. So I guess, Scott Barker, what you said is absolutely correct. But I do think that there is some kind of a distorted instinct. I think it's what suits them at the moment. What maneuver, what ploy will get their victim? But apparently this guy stuck with his M.O., Scott Barker,

because all these women were found on the side of the interstate. Correct. Yes, ma'am. crime stories with nancy grace guys what more do we know listen to crime online.com investigative reporter crime online dave mack in the united states of america it seems like every state claims to be a part of the Bible Belt. But if you're looking for the buckle of the Bible Belt, you'll most likely be talking about an area that includes Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. And in these states, during a period of about 14 years, a serial killer was on the loose. This killer had a special affinity for redheads, as all of his victims were women with red or strawberry blonde hair, their bodies dumped along major highways in the states that make up the so-called Bible Belt. Wow, so which one is it, Alex Campbell?

The redhead murders or the Bible Belt murders? I guess it's both. Like we said, those 12 to 14 murders are all considered the redhead murders. What the students wanted to do with naming the serial killer of the Bible Belt Strangler was to separate those women out that could be linked to one killer and show that we actually did have a serial killer targeting multiple women during this time period. Guys, teacher Alex Campbell challenges students to see if the work of the redhead murderers was attributed to one man. They bring in a former FBI agent that helped teach them, Scott Barker. Marlee Mathena, a high school student in this group. Tell me, after you realized these six women were in fact connected, the moment that you, along with the other students,

realized you may be able to crack the case. It was incredible. We did one presentation to a sheriff and a district attorney, and it was just me and my partner Riley and just them. And the feedback that they gave us was absolutely incredible. And just the fact that I was talking to law enforcement officials and getting the ball rolling is just absolutely surreal. And it was incredible to say that I've been a part in bringing these women justice. To Alex Campbell, the teacher that spearheaded this, that created this, he teaches at Elizabethton High School, host of Murder 101. At what moment did you realize you were going to crack this case? I think whenever they identified the killer, Athena Farmer, and we were able to have

a suspect that we could look at. And what we did was we took the profile the students created, and then we said, does he fit the profile? He fit every single characteristic in that profile. And I think that's when the students realized he is going to be the person who is most likely responsible for several of these murders and is the Bible Belt Strangler we've been looking for. Tell me what those criteria were. What criteria did he meet? Yeah. So there was actually 17 different ones that they created with a rationale. And it was things like, of course, the job. And he was indeed a trucker. But they also identified his race, his marital status. They said he probably would be married or have long-term relationships. He would probably have a family. He would be able to

keep a stable job. That whenever people heard about this, they would say, oh, it can't be him. He's such a nice guy. So all those type of things. And when we really started looking into it, he fit every single one of those. And thinking about how you pieced it all together, what went through your mind, Alex Campbell, when you realized you had identified the killer? You know, it's one of those things where you think if I could ever get an answer to this question, I would I would be so happy. I would be satisfied. But the truth is, every time we get an answer in one of these cases, we realize we have like 50 more questions that need to be answered. So I got to tell you, I was hoping for like this feeling of satisfaction. But the reality is,

I just realized we had more and more work to do. To you, Scott Barker, what went through your mind when you realized that you guys had absolutely identified the redheaded serial killer, Jerry Johns? Quite frankly, I was shocked. I never thought it would get to that point. Again, as I said previously, I thought they would do a report, present it to the class, and that would probably be the end of it. I never realized it would go this far. And when Mr. Campbell sent me the profile originally to look at it, I went, wow, this is pretty good. And so they're coming up with these things that we had talked about in class, making the suggestions on where to look. And all of a sudden they come up with this profile. And then I remember when Mr. Campbell

called me and said, hey, they've identified a victim. And we started talking about other victims, the route that would have been taken by this trucker. And then we realized that, hey, this guy probably is responsible for some of these homicides. In the end, did DNA play a role, Marlee Mathena, in identifying the defendant, Jerry Johns? Yes, ma'am. I think it did. There were multiple T-shirts and things that he used to strangle the women, and his DNA was left behind on some of those.

Amazing that after all of this, Kara Porter joining me, co-founder of the Cold Case Coalition. These high school students and this high school teacher and this FBI agent managed to solve a cold case. It's astounding, Kara. You know, it's a wonderful example of how people who have, that have the passion and take the time to do a deep dive can really supplement limited law enforcement resources. I mean, what these students did was just fantastic. And I would love to see it replicated all over the country. I agree with you completely, Kara Porter, except for one thing. Supplement my rear end. They cracked the case.

It's amazing. I agree with you, Kira. You know, I mentioned Professor Hammond from Mercer undergrad. When I first heard him read and then explain a passage of Shakespeare, I knew that's what fiancé was murdered. I left any hopes of teaching in a classroom far behind and went to law school. I had no idea whether I could pull it off or not. And then another professor changed my life. His name was Sean Felony Murder Watson. Not only did he have a very heavy Irish brogue, but he talked about felony murder all the time. And as I sat there listening to Professor Watson speak, somehow I knew inside that I was at least going to try to become a felony prosecutor. Alex Campbell, you may never know how you affected these students.

I probably won't. You're right. One of the things in teaching is, you know, you can plan what you want the students to learn, what you're going to teach. But in reality, when you give them a hands-on, authentic learning experience, you can never really know what the student is going to take from it. But, you know, the one thing I want them to take is like there's problems in the world that need to be solved. And it's time for people to step up and do it, whether they're the expert or not. And I think they got it. And they care about fellow people. That's what it comes down to. Whether they're the expert or not, Marlene Mathena is certainly no homicide investigator. She's not a crime lab analyst. She's not CSI. But she and some other

high school students cared, and they cared deeply. And they have cracked the case of the redhead serial killer. Thank you to Scott Barker, Alex Campbell, Marlee Mathena, and the other students who finally got justice. Goodbye, friends. This is an iHeart Podcast.