Criminology - Riley Whitelaw

Episode Date: November 5, 2023

In 2022, 17-year-old Riley Whitelaw was murdered by her co-worker, 28-year-old Joshua Johnson, in the breakroom of the Walgreens where they worked. Riley had been harassed by Joshua and had made complaints to management. For a time, the two worked different schedules. But, to get more hours, Riley had to be on the schedule with Johnson. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Riley Whitelaw and her murderer, Joshua Johnson. Riley was put in a situation where she did not feel safe. Ultimately, that feeling proved correct when Joshua Johnson murdered Riley. This is a case that brings up many questions regarding how companies handle these types of situations. Many have levied that Walgreens did not do enough to protect Riley Whitelaw. What should they have done? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 281 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing good. Went out to bring my daughter to school this morning and all of a sudden I noticed it was a bit chilly out there. A bit chilly, huh? Yeah, we've had a bunch of frost warnings already.

already, some snow warnings flurry. I'm not ready for, but I can't believe it's November already. My wife and I were talking about this last night. There's something about this year in particular. It just seemed to fly by. Yeah. And my wife is a Christmas fanatic. So she's chomping at the bit to take down the Halloween decorations and already get putting up the Christmas decoration. So that sounds like work for you. Now she does most of it. She always doing it. That's, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Plus I interfere if I try and do things a certain way. She's like, no, it doesn't look right that way.

So I just let the expert do it. Yeah, well, we've all been there. Hey, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Ann Shaw and Liam. So some great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks, Ann and Liam. And thanks to everyone else that supports the show.

It helps us out a lot. And for anyone that would like to go to patreon.com slash criminology to sign up. All right. Let's go ahead and jump into this case. And this week, the case we're talking about is one of those cases that feels just as frustrating as it does heartbreaking because what happened was so preventable. We weren't talking about a random attack. It wasn't a stranger jumping out of the bushes to waylay an unsuspecting victim or

a case of mistaken identity. There were signs that the victim in this case should not have been around the suspect. but because they worked together and she didn't make the schedule. She found herself stuck interacting with him regularly. 17-year-old Riley Whitelaw was murdered by her co-worker, 28-year-old Joshua Johnson, in the break room of the Walgreens where they worked. Luckily, he didn't cover his tracks very well

and was caught almost immediately. He's behind bars now, where he will likely stay for the rest of his life. Time will tell. whether a civil lawsuit against the company is filed or whether any changes will be made to help ensure the safety of employees at companies with similar policies. I think the big question that we'll be asking as we move forward with this episode is that was there any way that this murder could have been prevented? And if so, why wasn't it?

Joshua Johnson was already an employee at Walgreens on Centennial Boulevard in Colorado. Springs, Colorado in early 2021, when 16-year-old Riley Whitel began working there as a part-time employee. Riley attended school at Air Academy High School in Colorado Springs, where she was a straight-A student and was also on the color guard team. Just a few months after Riley started working at Walgreens, Johnson began to act inappropriately toward her. According to K.R. D.O. News, the most mild thing we know, he told her, is that he would ask her out when she was 18. Riley also told friend that Johnson brushed up against her and smacked her butt. All of this activity made Riley uncomfortable and how could it have not made her feel uncomfortable?

Eventually, she talked to her manager about Johnson's behavior toward her because of one specific incident that seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back. According to K-O-A-A.com, Riley said that Joshua Johnson had come up to her and said, I bet you like to be choked. This incident was witnessed by another co-worker, shift lead Jonathan Rowe, who heard what Johnson said and then walked away from the two. He didn't say anything at the time, later explaining at trial that he made a note of it to bring it up to a manager at a later date. When he spoke to Riley about it later, he told her that she should tell management and that he would be present for that meeting if it would help her. one of the stores managers, 32-year-old Justin Zanino, did take that complaint in December 2021.

And according to Fox 21 news, warned Johnson to keep things professional. Johnson appeared to be receptive to this warning, according to Zanino. And I've had a lot of jobs more. I know you have two in your lifetime. In a lot of those jobs, there were other employees with whom I, you know, disagreed or didn't like or had incidents. Those can be very tough situation. Now, these were usually other men, not the exact situation that Riley was experiencing, but you still have to make that decision. Do you go to management? And if so, what are they going to

do? Is it going to exacerbate the problem? And then what's it like having to see this? person, work with this person, when you just don't get along for whatever reason. Yeah, I think men, for the most part, don't have to deal with those kinds of things where someone's being inappropriate with them, getting physical, touching them. I think that happens more to women, although it can happen to men, obviously. But for this young girl to have to experience that, it had to be frightening for her. And maybe she weighed, do I tell them about this? Do I not say anything?

and I'm going to look like a troublemaker, but at the same time, she knew it was wrong and it made her uncomfortable. And I think she did the right thing by bringing it up. Yeah, and we have to keep in mind her age. You know, at 16, 17 years old, you don't know a lot of times how to handle some of these situations. I remember my oldest daughter, you know, had a job at kind of a casual eatery type, not quite fast food, but at a restaurant. And she had a real problem with another female coworker. And this person was belligerent. They, they were just doing things that were unacceptable. But my daughter didn't know exactly how to handle it. And, why would she? You know, she hadn't been through it all. So she, you know, would talk to us about it.

And we would try to give her advice, but she had some of those same fears. You know, do I tell management? And if so, how's that going to go? And I think those feelings are very normal. Yeah, I think the last thing somebody should be worried about when they go to work is, am I going to be harassed? Am I going to be, people are going to be grabbing me, touching me inappropriately, those kinds of things. So I, and I think that's why they have a lot of many employers have laws in place, rules in place to stop this kind of stuff. Not so much back when we were younger or teenagers, but I think today a lot of companies do have policies in place to sort of stop this kind of thing in its tracks. But here's the thing.

Policies are great, but it's still on management, right? If they are made aware of something, how do they handle it? What steps do they take? And this is something that we'll be talking about as we move forward in the episode. In March 2022, Riley helped the customer named Jacob Leacock get a job at the store. There was obvious chemistry between them. When he would come into shop and when she handed him his receipt, there would be a quick drawing on it from her.

The two started dating. And according to another employee, Joshua Johnson appeared to be acting jealous. Jacob sensed the tenseness coming from Joshua telling KRDO news, he always seemed angry when I worked with him. Things got worse for Riley, and eventually she asked manager Justin Zanino to change her schedule because she still felt uncomfortable

working around Joshua Johnson. She had been adamant that she didn't want to get anyone in trouble. She just wanted to avoid Johnson. Riley told her mom, Courtney Whitelaw, about the trouble and concerns she had about Johnson. And later, her mom told the Colorado Springs Gazette, there were more concerns as she was there longer. And that makes perfect sense to me.

You know, if the behavior is not changing and if it is even, you know, ramping up, well, there's going to be more concerns. The longer she's there, there's also going to be more anxiety, more stress because you're dealing with this, you know, day after day that you work there. But I want to go back to something that was said about Riley. And it was that she didn't want to get anyone in trouble. And you could understand that. She wants it to go away, but she's not really wanting anyone to get fired or to get into big time trouble.

So she just wanted to avoid Joshua Johnson. And that was a real tough situation for her to be in to want that stuff to stop and have to have the courage to come forward to tell someone about it. But at the same time, she didn't want to stir the pot. She didn't want to cause too much chaos. She just wanted the activity to stop and for her to be able to. work they're comfortably. And that's where I go back to management, right? That's why it's so important the steps that management takes when they're alerted to

these types of situation. But as much stress and discomfort as this situation with Joshua Johnson caused Riley, she eventually asked management for more hours. She wanted to make more money. Her mom, Courtney, later explained to CBS News that anything Riley ever has taken on. She always got both feet in. Riley had been working at the location for almost a year and a half and was ready to take on more responsibility and earn more money.

To give Riley more hours, though, management had to put her on the schedule with Joshua Johnson. Despite her concerns about him, everyone agrees that Riley seemed fine with this. She accepted the schedule and all seemed well. And this is coming from, you know, people around her that she seemed to be. fine with this. And it's kind of hard to understand exactly what that mean or what people believe that means. Yeah, she accepted the schedule because she wanted to earn more money. But was she really fine with working with Joshua Johnson? That part I don't know. Was it more like she knew that to earn more money,

she was going to have to work with him on occasion, but she really didn't want to. Yeah, and I wonder if it was a case of her just dealing with it. If there was anything still going on, maybe she just tried to say, okay, this is going to go away and maybe she was just trying to work through it. Yeah, it could be that. And it could be that she thought that management had addressed it and that maybe things would get better. It could be that as well.

On June 11, 2022, Jacob dropped Riley off at Walgreens for her shift. At 5.30 p.m., Joshua told another employee Rita Kreider to have Riley take her break. Criter came from the cosmetics department and covered the register Riley was working. At 65 p.m., manager Justin Zunino called 911. He had been called sometime after 5.30 p.m. by another store manager, 37-year-old Crystal Ishmael. He was reporting that Riley had taken a break that day but never returned to work. Zanino got to the store at around 6 p.m., where he checked the cameras to see where Riley went. He didn't see Riley, but he did notice that Joshua Johnson had done something odd.

A surveillance camera had captured him stacking up empty bins until they blocked the camera's view. He stacked them higher than bins were ever supposed to be stacked, and he stacked each empty bin on top of the other's closed lid, instead of opening them and stacking them inside of each other. Also odd was that there was paper or cardboard taped up to cover the windows around, the break room, and there was a sign up stating the bathroom was closed. The sign was put up about an hour before closing each night so that employees could clean the bathrooms, but it was up too early for that. Justin Zanito decided to check the break room since the windows weren't supposed

to be covered. When he opened the door, he saw Riley on the floor, and there was blood everywhere, so he backed out of the room and called for help. At 7.2 p.m., officers responding to the 911 call found Riley with obvious trauma to her head and no sign of life. Her work badge and the earpiece warden by Walgreens employees as part of an internal radio system relying on the ground at her feet. A bloody Gerber multi-tool that would later test positive as having both Joshua Johnson's and Riley's DNA on it was also found on the floor. Crystal Ishmael told officers that when she had been searching for Riley, she checked

the dumpster area in case she was taking out the trash, but when she got to the dumpster enclosure, she could see that someone was standing inside with no shoes on. She also noticed the strong smell of bleach. When she tried to enter the dumpster area, a man's voice called out to her, saying that he was changing. Crystal recognized the man's voice as Joshua Johnson's, and she headed back into the store and locked the door to prevent anyone from coming in behind her. The police report does not name Joshua Johnson, as the man Crystal mentioned, was changing his clothes, but Crystal was sure it was him and told police that right away. After Crystal informed Justin Zanino of her encounter with Joshua, Justin went to check the

dumpster, but Joshua was gone. An empty bottle of bleach had been left behind. So I want to step back a minute and talk about this manager, Justin Zanino. finding Riley on the floor, there's blood everywhere. You know, in these types of cases, one of the thoughts that that always runs through my mind is, okay, you're just going about your day, a normal work day. And then all of a sudden, something like this happened. Nobody's ready for it. Nobody could ever be ready for, you know, walking in on a scene like that. I always wonder what it does. to someone emotionally, the person, you know, who finds the victim, that can't be easy on them. But then, you know, you also have all these things about Joshua, the recognition of his

voice, he's in the dumpster with no shoes on. And then later on he's gone, but there's an empty bleach container found. It's not looking great for him. That's for sure. Yeah, there's really a lot of stuff that needs to be sorted out by the police. And you've even got him stacking all of these bins on top of each other. Just a lot of strange things going on that police can have to sort out in this case. And we said up front, right, that he didn't cover his tracks well. And he really didn't. I mean, again, you know, he's not a mastermind criminal and experienced criminal.

So the stacking of these crates to block the camera view seems like. seems like such an odd thing to do because you're going to be caught on camera stacking the crates. Yeah, you might block the camera for what's about to happen next, but you're caught doing the thing to block the camera. So, you know, that doesn't make a lot of sense. But we're always glad in these types of cases that, you know, the perpetrators aren't that smart in what they're doing because it does normally lead them to being caught fairly quickly. It's clear that he's not some kind of experienced criminal and maybe this was something that happened on the fly and he didn't really plan it out.

But as we'll get into a little bit later, he does try and come up with some hairbrain story about what happened. Investigators believe Riley was attacked at around 5.30 p.m. which is when a 16-year-old customer inside the store reported hearing screaming, what sounded like stall slamming. Doubting that she really heard someone screaming, she finished shopping and completed her purchase before leaving. It was only on her way back past the store, seeing police cars there,

that she knew what she had really heard, and she wanted to make sure that she told police what she had heard. Police reviewed surveillance videos of the witness, and in the video, they saw precisely when she heard the noise and reacted to it. just after this ear witness can be seen reacting to the noises she heard right at 539 p.m. The bins were stacked up by Joshua Johnson. Prosecutors say this is when Johnson ran past the stack crates and out of the store in his way to the dumpster.

Despite his effort in stacking up those crates to keep from being seen, he was still visible on camera due to his panic and bumping into the stack on his way past them. And one of the things that I was thinking morph is that, you know, most of us have been probably inside of a Walgreens. They're not that big of stores, most of them, at least the ones around where I live. It's not like a super Walmart or something where you can't see the other side. Walgreens are fairly small stores.

So I would think that if someone was screaming anywhere inside the store, even in the in the back, it would be heard by someone. And obviously we know that this teenage shopper did hear a screen. And we don't really know the layout of the store, how big the storage area is in the back, the break room, how far it is from the shopping part of the store. But obviously the screen was loud enough for her to react to. So, you know, whatever happened, she definitely caught wind of it. Well, the other thing is the surveillance video, right?

And we talk about that a lot. Anytime you can use surveillance video, tie it to a specific incident. It's timestamped. It just adds that much more to the information that police have. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible.

A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Inside Joshua Johnson's locker, investigators found the sheath for the multi-tool used to kill Riley. Also inside the locker were the social security numbers, locker numbers and combinations, phone numbers, and home addresses of both Riley and Jacob. It's not clear if Joshua was planning on using all of these credentials that he had collected from Riley and Jacob, or if he planned to go after Jacob at a later date. But he never got the chance.

Police put out a be on the lookout for Joshua Johnson as he was. was the prime suspect in Riley's murder. At around 8 p.m., Riley's mom, Courtney, headed the Walgreens to pick Riley up like she did every day that Riley worked when she arrived. The parking lot was full of police cars. And this is when she learned the heartbreaking news of what had happened to Riley. Yeah, this has to be a really heartbreaking moment for her mom to pull up there and just see

those police cars and, you know, many of us maybe have been in a similar experience where something scares us and her heart just immediately starts racing. And I'm sure this is what happened to her. And then she gets the news that this has happened to her daughter. It's devastating. Yeah, absolutely devastating. But also kind of juxtaposed against a routine act. And that's what I always think about, right? How many times had Courtney gone to the Walgreens to pick Riley up? It was routine until it wasn't. And I think that you see that in a lot of cases. People are just doing something that they normally do, but this one time, there's something very different about, whether they're the victim of a crime or they're the family member.

of a victim who comes to pick them up. Either way, I think it's pretty easy for you and I and those listening to feel for these individuals because you can put yourself in their places. And that had to be the beginning of a long, terrible saga for her, maybe a lot of questions. How did this happen? Why did this happen? How did this person get out of the store after this happened? and she undoubtedly just had a million questions.

Joshua Johnson was found walking down Interstate 25 near Trinidad, Colorado, about 100 miles south of the Walgreens later that night. His hair had been haphazardly shaven and was missing chunks, and there were scratches on his face and hands. Johnson was taken into custody, and when questioned, he gave the most elaborate of stories. Joshua said that he had been in the bathroom when he heard Riley scream for help. He saw her already badly injured lying on the ground.

and then an unidentified male who killed Riley attacked him, and the scratches he had on his body he claimed were from trying to fight the man off. Joshua also claimed that the attacker knew things about him, his name and his address, and that he had been so scared after all of this that he fled the store and went straight to the home he shared with his mother. He stayed there just long enough to change his clothes. Despite Joshua's saying that the attacker threatened his life and knew the address of his home, Joshua didn't mention anything to his mother as he left her alone and drove to Walsenburg, Colorado.

Johnson admitted that it was him that Crystal Ishmael had talked to in the dumpster area and that he had changed his clothes, claiming it was because he had slipped and fallen in Raleigh's blood while running from the attacker. Needless to say, police were not buying Joshua's story. And why would they, morph? I mean, could it happen? I guess technically you'd have to say it could have happened that way. Does it seem likely? No, especially paired with the surveillance video and, and, you know, the changing of the clothes and the bleach and all that. And there's a couple of things that stand out. Number one, if he's so scared that this killer knows where he lives, then why would he drive home, not say anything to his mom and leave her?

there alone. For what? The killer to come find her? And that's where, you know, these stories that suspects tell. I don't want to call them entertaining because that doesn't sound right in the context of a murder having taken place, but they're just grasping its straws. That's kind of how I take it. I'm in big trouble. I have to figure out how to explain. How to explain. How to explain things so that the police will buy my story. And it just very rarely ever comes out that that works. Number one, the facts are against you. And number two, most of these people are not smart enough to craft something that is fully believable. They might think they are, but they're not. I think this goes back to the fact that maybe this was all spur of the

moment. He didn't plan this out. He didn't have a, you know, he didn't plot out a story ahead of time, what he was going to say, something that would make sense or be more believable. And, you know, the police saw right through it. You know, I worked with a guy who was a habitual liar and with a straight face, he could tell you things like he was a professional wrestler for the WWE and not bad an eye. But we all knew he was lying. It was just such an elaborate story. But he, would just stick to it and spin off another lie after another lie, until the story was at the end was just totally unbelievable. And that's what I think police were dealing with in this case.

Joshua Johnson's car was found about a quarter of a mile down an unlit road. From where he was picked up, it had been hidden beneath a railroad trestle and had a few interesting things inside. There were bloody tissues and bandages as well as multiple disposable razors. inside the car. The car's formats had been removed. The location where he stashed his car also seemed pre-planned as he had purchased UV flashlights

using Crystal Ishmael's Amazon Prime account. It seems as if he may have bought these items to try and make sure he cleaned up all the blood, but if this was the reason, he must have been anticipating a much cleaner crime scene with less resistance from Riley. He apparently underestimated that Riley would fight for her life. At the crime scene, there was blood on the counter, the cabinets, and the floor, and Riley put up a ferocious

fight against Joshua, scratching his hands, face, and even ripping out his hair. Though the break room in the dumpster area, both smelled heavily of bleach. It doesn't seem like he was actually able to clean anything up. Blood was visible at the store and on his close that he left at his home. So some of the things you just mentioned sort of fly in the face of this not being pre-plan. Earlier I had mentioned the ridiculousness of the story and the fact that it just didn't seem logical at all sort of clashes with these things that he's found with, the flashlights,

the bandages, the razors, and the other stuff. It seems like he did possibly have a plan with some of that. or he just quickly grabbed them from someplace, maybe at home and just took them with them and didn't really have a plane. Well, I think the UV flashlight being purchased, that's obviously something that had to have happened beforehand. I just wonder if he had a plan to kill Riley, but he wasn't exactly sure when it would go down, how it would go down and where it would happen.

And maybe that's the part that wasn't really thought out or pre-planned, but he did have it in his mind that he was going to do something to her. And this whole plan or lack of plan, however you want to describe it, is just very strange in general because why would he do this at a store where he knows there's cameras, there's witnesses, there's coworkers. it just seems like if he wanted to kill her, if that was his ultimate plan,

he could have waited to try and catch her alone someplace around her home, someplace where he wouldn't be seen or be caught on camera. And he might have a chance of getting away with this. It's very bizarre that he would choose this place if it was a pre-playing crime to do this. Yeah, because, you know, he worked there. He would have known where the cameras were. And obviously he did. We talked about him.

trying to stack up these crates, but again, that didn't make a lot of sense. Yeah, and police presented their theory to Joshua that he stacked those crates up to obscure the view of the surveillance camera, blocking the camera's view of the break room and the warehouse exit. This prevented the area from being seen and police accused Joshua of doing it so that he could use the story of the unknown man killing Riley, knowing that surveillance footage wouldn't be able to reveal that he was lying. Despite officers telling Joshua that this action of stacking the bins was caught on camera. He denied stacking any of the bins. Also in the footage, Johnson can be seen following Riley toward the break room. No one else is caught

on camera. Other obvious signs of premeditation, like Johnson parking his car out of the view of the Walgreens security cameras for his shift that day, and telling co-worker Rita Crider to cover for Riley at 5.30 p.m. Sharp can also not be ignored or explained away. According to Denver 7 News, assistant district attorney Brent Nelson said the stars would have needed to align for someone else to have had the opportunity to kill Riley that day and to not be seen on the cameras. Joshua Johnson seemed to try to implicate one of Crystal Ishmael's friends. Alan Wise, who worked at A&M Otto on Fillmore, was known to look through the Walgreens dumpster, to look for usable merchandise.

He visited Crystal at the store. earlier on the day that Riley was killed and noticed that Joshua Johnson, who he didn't know, was acting weird. According to K-O-A-A-A news, he said that Johnson was staring at him and following him around the store. That day when Wise was at the store, Joshua asked both Riley and Rita Kreider to go check on Crystal because he saw her being followed by a strange man. The strange man following Rita Kreider was her friend Alan Wise, who was there to bring her a coffee. And to look in the dumpster for anything he could use, he wasn't up to anything sinister. When Joshua was confronted by police about his interactions with Riley, he told him he no longer had a crush on her because he was

interested in their other co-worker, Crystal Ishmael, and the two had become intimate, according to him. For her part, Crystal Ishmael denied anything other than a kiss that happened between them. But she did confirm that she and Joshua had plans to go to the movies together the night Riley was killed. So here again, Morph, we see Joshua trying to, you know, explain things away. He no longer had a crush on Riley. So he wasn't interested in her. Therefore, why would he kill her? He was interested in Crystal. And then you have this kind of strange insinuation, I guess, about this guy, Alan Wallace. he was kind of stalking around the store. Well, maybe he killed.

He's just trying anything, right? At this point, which is what we see from a lot of killers. What can I say that we'll throw police onto a different track? Well, usually not much because all of the evidence is mounting up and it's pointing straight at you. So you can say whatever you want, but it's not like for the most part, police are going to buy it. I think they're following the evidence and the clues and it's blatantly pointing towards Joshua Johnson. Riley's autopsy revealed just how brutal the attack on her was. She had suffered 42 different sharp force injuries, most of them to her face, neck and chest.

There were also multiple defensive wounds on her hand. as well as blunt force trauma to her head and chest. It was determined by the corner that Riley's death was a result of multiple sharp force injuries of the neck as well as an exphyxial component. This was obviously a crime of passion. It was clear that someone had a lot of rage and anger that they focused on Riley during the course of her murder and police had no doubts that that someone was Joshua Johnson. And with everything pointing directly at him, he was arrested and booked for Riley's murder.

I think this was a little bit anticlimatic. There was no mystery man. The police weren't full. They weren't out there looking for some guy who slipped in and killed Riley and then slipped away somehow. They weren't looking at this guy, Alan Wise, that frequented the dumpsters there to look for stuff. They were focused the entire time on Joshua Johnson. At trial, multiple voice messages that Riley sent to a friend of hers were played as evidence.

She talked about Joshua Johnson and how she felt creeped out by him, and that she didn't want anyone to get in trouble. He made gross comments and did gross things to me, the jury heard her say in her own voice. She said a few times that Johnson would respect her boundaries and that things would be fine, but it seemed clear to many that these messages sound like a scared young girl, asking someone to help asking someone to tell her if she's wrong or overreacting. Riley also told her friend that she was nervous to try and talk to management because of how close Joshua and Crystal had been getting. And I think this is another component to this story, right? We've talked about Riley not wanting to get

anyone in trouble. She did talk to management at one point, but now we find out that Joshua and Crystal, maybe we're, you know, getting close. They were going out a little bit. And Crystal was part of management. So then how does that play in the decision making process for Riley? Is she going to be even less comfortable going to management, knowing the relationship that is maybe developing between Joshua and Crystal? And I think this is exactly why, you know, companies have rules against managers, dating, subordinates, and things like that. It just causes so many different types of problem. On October 4th, 2023, a jury found Joshua Johnson, guilty of the first degree murder of Riley

White Law, it seems like it took the judge longer to read deliberation instructions to the jury than it did for them to come to their unanimous. decision of guilt. Multiple times during testimony, store employees said that Riley's issue with Joshua had been addressed. But looking back now, do we really think it was? Riley's friend Anna testified that she had told her not a lot was done.

After she informed management about what Johnson had said to her, Riley was not old enough to sell cigarettes to customers. So anytime someone came through her line, looking to buy them, Riley had to call over another older associate to complete the transaction. This never should have been Joshua Johnson, given the difficulties between them. But often, Riley found herself relying on his help to do her job. On at least one occasion, Riley had expressed concern to a friend that she and Joshua would be closing the store alone together.

She was clearly afraid of him. One of Riley's friends testified that Riley had once told her work was her happy place, and Joshua Johnson had to ruin that. So again, I think we have to break this down a little bit. You know, as I said before, Walgreens isn't a huge store. So, you know, now we hear that maybe only two people are closing the store. And at some points, it was Riley and Josh. That's not a great situation, given what we know had transpired. But for me, it's kind of this

idea of what people perceived as going on or, you know, some people perceived it, you know, Riley was okay with everything. But, you know, we're hearing from her friends that it really wasn't. She thought that management didn't really do anything to address her concern. And yes, she had to work with Joshua to get more hours, but that doesn't mean she was comfortable with it. And, you know, there is that question. Could management have done more? Should they have done more to address her concerns? And I don't know specifically what the employee rules are at Walgreens. but to me it seems obvious that as soon as an employee physically touched another employee inappropriately, we mentioned that one of the things he had done was he had slapped her butt.

To me, that should be an immediate termination. And why that didn't happen, again, we can talk about the management, not putting it up the ladder in the right steps, not getting to HR, but it seems like he should have been gone from this place and not working there and maybe she'd still be alive. Yeah, I think you can definitely make that case. There are some interactions that, that maybe you would call in the gray area where it's not quite up to the level of termination.

Maybe it's a, it's a write up, it's a talking to, it's a probation, whatever it is. But smacking the rear end of a female, employee to me is not a gray area. Now, you can argue did somebody else see it? Is it one person's word against another? And those are all things that you have to factor in. But, you know, if that happened and it was able to be corroborated, that's not a gray area to me. That, that is something

you should never do. And that's a person that you don't want working in your store, shouldn't be working in your store. Fresh air, longer days, a chance to reset. This season, let therapy be part of your spring cleaning. Clearing mental clutter, shaking off stuckness, and building something better. Grow therapy helps you get there. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 15th, grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around.

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Walgreens issued a statement to CBS News in September 2020 saying, we're deeply sad and horrified by this crime and continue to extend our condolences, thoughts, and prayers to Riley's family and loved ones. We have been working closely with authorities in their investigation, conducting a thorough internal review and supporting our team members during this very difficult time. the safety of our customers and team members is our highest priority. And we take this obligation very seriously. And I understand, you know, a company like Walgreens has to put out that type of statement.

And I'm sure as a company, they do take that stuff very seriously. But I've worked in a lot of big companies. And the issue is always, as I've experienced it, you know, how does it translate from, From corporate who develops the policies and procedures down to independent store managers and then even lower level managers to how they implement those policies and procedures and how they address issues. Having a good system in place isn't good enough if the people, the team members that are supposed to elevate it and see that it's carried out properly.

if they don't do their part, then that policy goes out the window. I think it's clear that a lot of questions remain about whether there is any further responsibility or liability from Walgreens in this situation. Well, it's obviously going to be any employer's response that an employee has a responsibility to make their concerns known to management and that they can't possibly prevent or take action on something they're unaware of. Riley did speak out. She just wasn't fully hurt. Nothing was ultimately done to separate her from Joshua Johnson. And furthermore, despite his inappropriate behavior towards a coworker, he was never

terminated. Labor attorney Ian Kalmanowitz told KRDO news that Riley did everything right and the company did not. According to him, once Riley reported the harassment by Joshua Johnson, It was Walgreens job. It's their requirement to keep her safe. Obviously, that did not happen. This is a situation where she's a high school student working with a bunch of adults. I think there's an added responsibility there to ensure that the more vulnerable populations in the workforce are protected. Riley's mom, Courtney, told K-O-A-A-News.

I hope that people will recognize from this that, no means no. And when you have a child working for you, that child safety comes before anything else. And that's the subject that we haven't fully broached yet, right? You have a bunch of adults in various capacities at this Walgreens. Some are co-workers, some are in management roles. Riley's a teenager. She's not an adult. And so you would think that her concerns, would be taken just as seriously, if not more so than anybody else's. At the very least, you would think her age should factor in, right? We can't have a 20-something-year-old employee inappropriately touching a 16-17-year-old girl.

Or touching anyone, for that matter. Well, yeah, absolutely. Good point. The proper procedure by Walgreens would have been to first document the entire situation between Riley and Joshua. It seemed that Justin Zanino gave Joshua a verbal warning, and it ended there. Any sexual comment toward a coworker would be inappropriate, but the one Riley reported included talk of physical violence. Why was HR not notified? Why was there no official strike on Joshua's record?

Why wasn't he either suspended or terminated? These are all nagging questions that remain. Perhaps if he would have been fired, Riley may still be alive. Trying not to schedule the two together is really not enough effort on behalf of the staff or the company. It should have been guaranteed that any shift Riley worked would overlap with at least one, if not two, other employees, who could do the age verifications instead of Johnson for cigarette purchases. Perhaps Joshua should have been transferred to another store. It would have been much easier for him, an adult who could drive his own car,

to transfer to a different work location, than it would have been for. for Riley, who was still attending a school and had to rely on others to drop her off and pick her up from work. And after all, it was Joshua Johnson who was to blame for all of this. In early October, 2003, employees at multiple Walgreens locations in at least three states plan to walkout over patient safety. According to kake.com, organizers of the walkout released a statement that read in part, we don't believe that Walgreens is allowing us to give our patient safe care on a daily basis. Walgreens isn't responding.

They're not fixing those things. A lack of response to safety concerns is really nothing new here. So again, I don't want to bash on Walgreens here, but this was reported. This is very recent. It's not the exact same scenario. It's more about patient safety, but it is an instance. of employees not believing that Walgreens is responding to their safety concern. And I think it shows that if there's problems in one area, perhaps there's problems in other areas, too.

So they really, I think they should look over the way they run their stores and take care of their employees and customers and do a total accounting or audit of all of that and see what can be changed to make it safer. and a better experience for everyone involved. At trial, during her victim impact statement, Riley's mom, Courtney, said to Joshua Johnson, I hate the fact she took all the right steps. We will see to it that she is remembered for what she is, not what you did. She also referred to him as a monster during that statement.

Riley would have graduated from Air Academy High School this spring. She was planning to study genetics in college, which was one of her many interests. Courtney White Law has always been clear. that she believes Riley, who she calls an old soul, would prefer to stay out of the spotlight and to be remembered for who she was, not what happened to her. So in that spirit, we thought we would talk about the positive change that has happened because of Riley since her passing. In May, the Colorado governor signed Riley's law or Senate Bill 23-075 into law. It will go into a fact

next year. The law will require the identity of minors who are witnesses to or victims of a crime to be redacted in any documents released to the public. The decision to protect a minor's identity in official documents was previously made on a case-by-case basis and often wouldn't happen unless the child's legal guardian successfully requested the redaction. When news of Riley's murder hit the media, she was first only described as a Walgreens employee. Days later, articles were updated and her name was included because, despite being a minor, her name was not redacted in the affidavit when it was made public. So was the name and birth date of the 16-year-old who was shopping for a deodorant in the store when she overheard Riley's screams. In

In 2024, when Riley's law goes into effect, minors won't even have to make that choice. Their name will be redacted based on their age, and no one will be able to access their information without going before a judge and proving that they have a very good reason to need it. The Riley-I White Law Memorial Fund, started by her mom Courtney, aims to continue Riley's legacy of kindness and help other students by lessening their financial burdens of college or other vocations that helped them thrive into adulthood. There have been two recipients of the Riley-Ia-Wight-Law Memorial Fund Scholarship, both going to CU Boulder and four recipients of the Riley-I-Wight-Law Art Grant.

All six recipients were Air Academy High School students in the class of 2023. Courtney Whitel told CBS News, Every breath I take is very much for Riley, and trying to make her proud, and trying to make sure she's not forgotten in all of this, and that she made an impact and will continue to make an impact. District Attorney Michael Allen told KRDO News, evil absolutely exists in this world,

and it preys on the light of innocence and goodness that exist in people like Riley White Law. Colorado law allows only one sentence for first-degree murder, life in prison without the possibility of parole. Joshua Johnson will die in prison. A little bit more about Riley White Law. she was born on January 20th, 2005 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She was artistic. She loved music. And she had just started to volunteer with the Humane Society, even though she was looking for more hours at work.

Her mom, Courtney, told CBS News, we need more Rilies in the world. And I absolutely agree with that. We need more Rilies and less Joshua Johnson. And we need more ways to protect the Rileys of the world from people like Joshua Johnson's. Yeah, that's absolutely true as well. And I do think it's a central point in this case. You know, by all accounts, Riley seemed like she was a great person. She was going to high school. She was making plans for college, but just like a lot of people her age. She wanted to work. She wanted to make some money. She should have been able to do that in an environment. where she was free from being harassed.

And that doesn't seem as though that was the case based on everything that we know. I think one of the other big questions, and we've touched on the little bit, is that what could have been done, what should have been done to protect Riley. Now, there's nothing in my mind that makes me think any of these people involved. managers, co-managers could have ever thought that Joshua Johnson was going to murder Riley White Law. But that's not really the point. To me, the point is when you're made aware that something has happened, what do you do about it? And I do believe in a lot of instances, There are some people who take what I would call the path of least resistance or, you know,

maybe the easier path. Because let's face it, it is easier to sit down and with someone and say, hey, don't do that again. That's, that's easy. The tougher call is to look at it and say, you know, what you did violates policy. I'm sorry, we have to terminate you. That's tougher to do for a manager. But sometimes it's, it's the right call. Now, with that being said, we don't know every bit of information that these managers had to work with.

And I want to make that part very clear. Were they able to corroborate what Riley said? If they were, then I do think this is very egregious, not taking a more appropriate action. But even if they weren't able to corroborate it, I still do think there are some things that could have been done, should have been done to separate them more, to limit the interaction. Now, would that have stopped what happened? I can't say for sure, but I think it would have been a better course of action to take. I can say that. Yeah, even at least having some kind of statement, employee's statement on file to where they got Riley's side of the story,

and then they got Joshua's and documented. That would be a start. And who knows, maybe it wouldn't have stopped her from dying. Maybe he would have eventually attacked her outside of work. But at the very least, work should have been a safe haven for her, and it turned out not to be. And I think this really hits home for both of us. You know, you mentioned problems your daughter had at work,

with a fellow employee. My daughter, who turned 13, is already plotting out her first job. So that's going to be here before I know it. And I'm worried that she's going to have to deal with people like Joshua Johnson. Yeah. And the one thing that I can say as a parent, having gone through this with, you know, both of my daughter, at what point as a parent do you get involved? You want them to be independent.

you want them to be able to learn to navigate in the real world. But if they're coming to you and saying, this is happening to me at work, and I'm not talking about Courtney at all, I'm not putting any blame on her. I'm just talking about my own experiences. At what point do you step in? Because I thought about it. I thought about driving to the store and talking to the manager at one point, but my daughter didn't want me to do that. And maybe that wasn't the right thing for me to do. But you know, you're just so worried about your kids in certain situations. Ultimately, that situation worked out. Yeah, just a very tragic case. A young life taken needlessly. And maybe it could have been prevented, but unfortunately it wasn't. Yeah. Tough, tough all around. And I'm sure there are

some individuals who were involved in this, maybe some of the managers who have to live with some of the decisions they made. That can't be easy for them as well. But that's it for our episode on Riley Whitelaw. If you love the show, it haven't done so yet, go out, take a minute, give us a five-star rating, you can leave a review, but also keep telling your friends about criminology. That word of mouth really helps us out. want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle at criminology pod, or you can find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of criminology. But Morp and

I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.