Law&Crime Sidebar - Husband Who Went Viral for ‘Reasons I Love My Wife’ List Now Suspected in Her Death

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

A husband who was once a viral Internet sensation for the romantic note he left his wife is now suspected of killing her. Since her death, Timothy Murphy-Johnson was convicted of abducting a 16-year-old girl and holding her captive for weeks. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber delves into Murphy-Johnson’s sordid crimes with criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Anthony Osso.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY 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/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A husband who was once a viral internet sensation for the romantic note he left his wife is now suspected of killing her as the dark secrets behind this seemingly happy marriage emerge. We're going to dive into how 40-year-old Timothy Murphy Johnson went from America's kindest husband to suspected killer. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. 40-year-old Timothy Murphy Johnson earned an international reputation online as possibly the

kindest husband in America when in 2015 he wrote an inspirational message for his wife, Molly, on the couple's bedroom mirror. The message titled, 15 reasons I Love My Wife, was a 15 bullet list that Molly posted to social media. And it even included a whole bunch of Johnson's favorite qualities, including she's my best friend. She makes me laugh every day. And it concluded with, she snorts when she laughs. But two years later, Molly would be dead. Officials have concluded that she died from a self-imposed drug overdose, or at least that's what initially appears.

appears to be because Molly's family now believes that Murphy Johnson is responsible. And it all stems back to another crime that he committed, one that earned him a life sentence behind bars. So in June of last year, Murphy Johnson, along with his girlfriend, Olivia Ashford Hen, abducted a 16-year-old girl and kept her captive for over six weeks. But here's where things get even worse. actually told the driver picking her up that she was his daughter and then managed to convince the driver of that. In court documents that were obtained by law and crime, Murphy Johnson

arranged for this girl to be transported from Texas to Florida. On June 8th, 2023, Murphy Johnson sent Hen a message discussing a female in Texas that could be brought to Florida for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity. Han was aware that Murphy Johnson was attempting to make these arrangements and together they purchased items for the female in anticipation of her arrival. He even paid a driver money to bring her to him. On June 9th, 2023 Murphy Johnson informed driver by tax message that the person to be transported was his daughter and she was 16 years of age. Arrangements were made to transport ASH to Gainesville, Florida for the agreed upon initial price of $480 to be paid through cash app. And this horrific, horrific abuse, he

put this girl through went on for over six weeks. Between June 11th, 2023 and July 25th, 2023, ASH was maintained at Murphy Johnson's residence in Gainesville, Florida. Throughout this period, ASH was subjected to physical and sexual abuse by both Murphy Johnson and Hen. At times, the abuse was filmed by Hen or Murphy Johnson. Authorities investigating, this teen girl's disappearance executed a search warrant at his home, and they discovered her there. And in August, they arrested both Hen and Murphy Johnson. And in a recorded interview, she told investigators everything, from engaging in sex acts to creating images of the sex acts,

even using various objects during these acts that she turned over to police. Murphy Johnson pleaded guilty to charges of interstate transportation of a minor to engage in sexual activity, conspiracy, to produce child pornography, and the production of child pornography. and he was handed down, as I mentioned, a life sentence. So now you might be saying, how does this all tie back into Molly's death? Well, Molly's family began to uncover what they say

are parallels between Molly's marriage to Murphy Johnson and his conviction for child sexual abuse. For one, Molly allegedly confided in her family and friends that her husband had raped her and that he had forced her into prostitution. Molly's father, Bob Gelman, told this outlet, this British outlet called The Times, of this alleged abuse that she had been enduring from her husband. Quote, Molly had to quit her job because of the visible cuts and bruises on her body. She told me he was pimping her out, having her have sex with other men for money.

And then when it came to Molly's friends, they end up finding these horrific sexually explicit photos of Molly on pornographic websites in messages that Molly had sent her. her friend, she said that she was planning to divorce her husband, but that she was scared of him and even sent pictures of her bruises to her friends. One of Molly's childhood friends, Anna Marie Anderson, told the times that she believed Molly's husband had provided her with the drugs that killed her, or even worse, forced her to take them. In other words, debunking this theory that Molly died from just an overdose. She was quoted as saying she was brilliant, extremely educated on medication and drugs. And in my opinion, she would not go out that way. So how did things get so out of control? Well, we're going to look a little bit more into the background of how

these two met. It's being reported that they connected through the dating app OKCupid back in 2012 when Molly was almost finished with her degree in mass communication at San Jose State University in California. She enrolled to get her master's degree, but she apparently dropped all of that in order to move with murder. Murphy Johnson to San Francisco so he could get a job there. And after he ended up getting another job and they moved to Los Angeles, Molly's father told the times that she had checked herself into a mental hospital to get away from him, but she ended up going right back to him.

And then this is where things continued to seemingly spiral out of control, because at some point, Molly had decided that she was done. And then you fast forward to a whole seven months after that viral mirror photo, Molly applied for a restraining order against her husband. But unfortunately, it was not long after that Molly would be dead. In the early morning hours of December 16, 2017, Murphy Johnson called police after discovering Molly unresponsive in their bed inside of their L.A. home, having died from an apparent overdose.

Hours later, he took to Facebook writing, My wife, my best friend, the most amazing, gorgeous, beautiful, troubled soul I've ever known passed away from mental illness on Saturday morning hours after being discharged from a mental health service that failed her. He told friends that she'd even left a suicide note. But Gelman, Molly's father, told the times he was never told by his son-in-law of his daughter's death. And even though he insisted on an autopsy, it almost didn't happen. Quote, Tim tried to have her cremated immediately. I insisted on there being an autopsy. Eventually, she was cremated and Tim took all of her remains.

I never received anything of her to bury. And oddly enough, the coroner's investigation made no mention of a suicide note and the amount of fentanyl that was found in Mali's system was apparently less than half of what's normally found in victims of these kinds of overdoses. So to break all of this down, I want to bring in criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor of a domestic violence division, Anthony Oso, to talk more about this. Anthony, thanks so much for coming on.

Really disturbing case, what we're talking about. When you read this over, what sticks out to you from the get-go that maybe something is not on the up and up? Well, I think from looking at the behavior by Mr. Johnson-Murphy towards Molly, it's indicative of sort of the cycle of violence you see oftentimes in domestic violence relationships. You've got isolation on many different levels, social. taking her away from her friends and family, economically, her quitting her job and moving to a different city with him. So he leads in manipulating her with sort of a love bomb and then slowly

takes control and has her become dependent on him. Let me ask you this. What would it look like? Because we know that you can prosecute somebody for a murder if that's really what the family believes happened here, even without a body. Even if the body's never even discovered, you can prosecute somebody for it. So while the body definitely would help provide new different answers, cause of death, you know, physical answers, physical evidence, they don't necessarily need it. But if there is an investigation to be opened up into Mali's death, how would that even work? How would that even be launched? And what would it even look like? It's a good question, Jesse. So there's really, I mean, just because a filing or charge isn't

filed at a certain time doesn't mean an investigation can't take place. There's no statute of limitations on a murder case. So I think this new sentence for the kidnapping case against Mr. Murphy Johnson is a great reason to reopen investigation. But again, I don't think the autopsy is where the investigators will look. They'll probably look, possibly at her cell phone to look at communications between Molly and Mr. Murphy Johnson or potentially psychological records from the mental hospital she was admitted to before her passing away. And by the way, if that exists, if that actually is what happened. The connection between, because like I said,

the family now sees that he's convicted of horrific crimes and he's now serving life in prison. From a human point of view, of course they might say, we're going to look a little bit further into Molly's death after what he was just found guilty of. But what do you make of this connection between these charges, child pornography, abuse, things like this, and him committing a murder?

I mean, can you equate the two things? Should you be able to connect both things here? So I think from a legal standpoint and how I think the case would play out in trial, if I'm the defense attorney, the first motion I'm filing is to keep any evidence of the subsequent kidnapping and sex trafficking conviction out. I mean, that's part of number one. But I think from the detective's perspective, it calls in the question his story about what happened leading up to her death. And so I do think from an investigative standpoint,

they can use what they found out later about Mr. Murphy Johnson to lift up, you know, under different rugs and take different leads and continue their investigation. So in other words, that evidence about this 16 year old might not come into a murder trial with respect to Molly, but it could lead investigators to take a second look at somebody. That's happened before. you can have a totally unrelated crime about somebody and say, wait a minute, wait a minute, now that he was just found guilty of this or now that he's just been arrested on this, let's take a second look at another crime that he might have been involved in. Absolutely. There's no, like I said earlier, there's no statute of limitations on murder.

And just because an investigation comes to a close doesn't mean they can't reopen it. I think financially police and law enforcement have to at some point close investigations because new crimes occur. But in a situation like this, I think it does give them a reason to go back and reopen investigations. Talk to me about, let's say, for example, that how would he have killed her? If we're really talking about this, so we're taking this allegation as a serious allegation. And again, to be clear, he hasn't been charged with this, right? You know, there's no evidence yet that he killed his wife.

But the coroner ultimately concluded that Molly's death was an overdose. Joseph was accidental, but based on the amount of fentanyl in her system. When we talk about fentanyl, how much does it really take to kill someone? You know, when we think about that level, and is it possible that Molly could have been killed in another way? And fentanyl was in her system nonetheless, but it wasn't the fentanyl that killed her. Well, Jesse, I think that's that question is what gave probably the prosecutors and investigators during the original investigation pause before filing charges. I mean, how can they prove he caused her. debt. If he forced her to take the fentanyl, did he do so with a gun to her head? Did he bound her

and put it in her mouth? Did she have it or take it by injection? These are the questions that those investigators need to be looking at. But if there's no physical evidence in the autopsy, you're going to have to look at the circumstances surrounding the relationship, which is admissible in most murder trials. So again, that's the text message communications. Friends and family are people that observe the relationship and statements maybe by Molly that beat any rules or exceptions a hearsay in the confrontation clause. And by the way, the opposite could be true that really she did have an overdose because there was a relative who spoke to, I think it was the Times that outlet, but I'm going to read

you what this relative said. Molly had a serious drug addiction to fentanyl as well as depression and a history of suicide attempts. Tim saved her life on more than one occasion. So I don't believe he killed her. To be frank, they both thought the other was trying to kill them. It was chaos. It was a sad, toxic mess.

Two people with deadly drug addictions and mental illness for one terrible relationship. He did love her very much, and her death is what led him to descend into madness. I can't make excuses for anything Tim has done. I believe he suffers from serious mental health issues. So that's interesting. This idea of you have two trouble, the allegation, they have two troubled people, that her death is what threw him off. deep end and maybe that's why he ended up committing the crimes that he did but you know you're you're

an expert in domestic relationships what do you take away from a statement like that well i think that that statement to the news and media outlets is is great but she's a family member i don't think she's going to say anything bad about a relative of hers and additionally i don't think she's a good witness to put on at trial because the first question the prosecutor is going to ask is, are you aware of him being convicted for kidnapping and sexually trafficking a young child? I just, I think that that evidence would not vote so well for the prosecution, excuse me, for the defense in a real trial setting. And I already know the answer to this, but I think I have to say it nonetheless.

If he had information, again, I'm assuming here, this is purely speculation, if he had information that he could provide about Molly's death, and he's already locked up life in prison, is there any negotiating power for him? I'll tell you what happened with Molly, but can we work something out here? Because he's already looking at life in prison. If I'm his defense lawyer, absolutely not, because I don't think your confession to a prior murderer is going to, by any means, mitigate or help you out with the parole board in your existing charge, or your conviction, where you're already sent to life in prison. They've got no reason to work with him.

So I don't think so. What did you make of what he was convicted of? It's heinous. And I think that while I recognize it might not come into evidence in a trial setting, if they were able to open up the prior investigation, I think that it's definitely a display of what their relationship might have been like. And it certainly calls into question, And while I'm sure the relationship was toxic, I think it calls into question what his friends

and family had to say about their relationship. Just a really eerie situation. And, you know, I feel I understand the frustration on the part of the family and the need for more questions. So we shall see where this develops. It is quite odd. It's a sad situation, a sad case. And I wish we had more answers right now, but we don't.

But we'll keep a careful eye on it. Anthony Oso, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate you taking the time. It's always pleasure, Jesse. Take care. All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us.

And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.