A group of high school students.

High school students.

Elizabeth and high school students started a project to research a string of unsolved murders. Their research led to the identification of the killer.

Investigators now have an answer to a 34-year-old question.

Once you start getting a few tips or a few leads or a few identifications, then the cold case isn't so cold anymore.

There's a pretty good chance he's still alive. Everything that the student predicted through their profile turned out to be accurate. Redhead killer profile. Male, Caucasian, 5'9 to 6'2, 180 to 270 pounds.

Unstable home, absent father and a domineering mother. Right-handed, IQ above 100. Most likely Heterosexual.

There is no profile of this killer except for the ones the students created.

Just because some of these women no longer have people to speak for them does not mean that they deserve to not be spoken for.

What if this guy is still alive?

What if he comes after us?

I said, Are you going to kill me?

He said, Yes.

This is murder 101. Season 1, Episode 4, Major Breaks. I'm Jeff Shane, a television and podcast producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lidecker, Courtney Armstrong, and Andrew Arnault. The semester may have been over, but the mystery was just beginning to unravel.

So what happened was the students had tried to bring the case back up. It had this media blitz. It had been featured all over the nation. They have a name for the killer. They have a way to separate these six out from the rest of the victims. And I think It just really got a media firestorm really going, and it brought up a lot of attention back to these cases.

In the fall of 2018, with the Campbell County Jane Doe identified as Tina Farmer, Mr. Campbell got incredible news that officials were retesting the DNA of yet another case.

I'll tell you what was so crazy is that we knew they were testing the DNA of the Knox County Jane Doe. We knew that they had collected the DNA because we talked to the woman who they felt was her daughter. So we talked to her and I'd talk to her, and she'd written us letters. So we communicated with her. So we were just waiting on that DNA because the Kentucky State Police were like, We submitted it. It's going to be any day. We don't know when. They're like, It could be today.

The alleged daughter of the Knox County Jane Doe, a woman named Elizabeth Pilgrim spoke about how she felt about the whole situation.

I think it's her.

The necklaces, my brother recognizing the birthmark, the stain, the tooth, the scar, it just fits into place.

Not knowing is the worst part. And then you got to keep being put on hold and put on hold. It's It's heartbreaking a little bit.

Knowing that it's her is a major part, but I don't think that's going to be fully all my closure.

As it turned out, Elizabeth's mother, Epsie, was in fact the Knox County Jane Doe.

You have two identifications in rapid succession. And now what happens is the media frenzy is going even more, right? Because, of course, people start calling the TBI, and they start calling the local police agencies, and they start saying, Well, what does this mean? Are we looking at other cases? Are these related to any others? Could she have been killed by the same person as somebody else?

Within six months of the press conference, we now have four of the victims identified.

Here's what we know about each victim, according to Mr. Campbell's class's research.

On October first, 2018, the Knox County Sheriff's office announced Once this woman had been positively identified as S. B. Regina Black Pilgrim of Western North Carolina. A DNA match was made between her and her grown daughter, who said her mother disappeared when the girl was six weeks old. Pilgrims also had four older children. A friend of Pilgrims had noticed the case when the Kentucky State Police posted about unidentified victims on social media sites, and she contacted the daughter saying she felt it was her missing mother. They both contacted authorities with the information. As he was a stay-at-home mom, the husband came home for lunch only to find his wife missing and the youngest child crying in the crib. The husband went to authorities, but it appears it was not taken seriously as she had left the home many times before. The Green County Jane Doe was not identified until November 2018 when officials announced that the victim was New Hampshire native, Elizabeth Lamotte. She was 17 at the time of her death. Lamotte had disappeared on April sixth, 1984, after gaining leave from her youth facility to attend a football game at the local high school, but never returned to the group home where she resided in Manchester.

She was identified through a DNA match.

But identifying the victim wasn't the biggest break in the case. Mr. Campbell spoke about the investigation into Tina Farmer's murder.

Once she's identified, of course, there's this renewed interest, and maybe we should look at things, and they resubmit, or maybe for the first time they submitted, because DNA really wasn't much of an investigative tool at that time. But they submit some of the evidence from her case, in this case, it was a blanket, and they find DNA on it that's in the database for offenders. When they found out that he was the killer, man, the case just went crazy because now, instead of all of us having all that we had was victimology, now we actually have a suspect. So not only can we look at the victims and say, Where were they? When were they there? We can begin to look at the suspect and say, Where was he?

Investigators now have an answer to a 34-year-old question.

The TBI says it knows who killed Tina Marie Farmer.

In December of 2018, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigators, otherwise known as the TBI, held a surprise press conference.

Good afternoon. I am Jared Effler, the elected district Attorney for Tennessee's eighth Judicial district, of which Campbell County is a part of. On January the first, 1985, an unidentified female body was discovered murdered along Interstate 75 in Campbell County, Tennessee. At that time, an investigation was launched by the TBI to determine two things: the identity of the unknown female and who was responsible for her death. Yesterday, the results of that investigation were presented to the Campbell County Grand Jury. The grand jury found that the unidentified body was that of Tina Marie Farmer of Marion County, Indiana. Additionally, the grand jury found that there was sufficient proof to believe that Jerry Johns of Cleveland, Tennessee caused her death Let's stop here for a break.

We'll be back in a moment. Murder 101.

I'm Brad Neelen, Deputy Director for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. We'd like to thank General Effert and his office for their efforts and support on this case. This hasn't It's been easy, but we never gave up. And that represents our commitment to all cases, even those deemed cold. Our agency exists that guilt shall not escape, nor innocence suffer. And we're gratified that we can now provide some answers to the family of Tina Farmer. Dna was found on items that was analyzed. As a result, a DNA profile was entered into a combined DNA index system resulting in a match. That profile match that of Jerry John's.

It's a major break. Tbi agents say they now know who killed Tina Farmer in 1984 and then dumped that redhead on the side of I-75 in Campbell County. Investigators today named a suspect in the death of Tina Farmer. It could also be the break agents need to close a half dozen other murder cases.

This is a key step an investigation spanning more than three decades. Since these students started connecting the dots, the name of another victim was identified, and TBI investigators now say Jerry Leon Johns is believed to be the killer of at least one of the victims. I don't know the killer behind an infamous three-decade-old murder in Campbell County. The TBI says Jerry Johns from Cleveland, Tennessee, killed Tina Farmer and dumped her body along I-75.

During the press conference, a reporter asked the connection between Tina Farmer and Jerry Johns.

How does she come to know Mr. Johns? How did this end up happening?

Or is there any insight you have on what might have happened to lead to this?

We know that she had been at a truck stop near her hometown, and Mr. Johns was a long haul truck driver, and we believe the connection lies somewhere in there. Everything that the students predicted through their profile turned out to be accurate. What jumped out to us immediately is that Jerry Johns was a trucker.

So And now that really blew the case wide open because you're not just working it from the angle of the victim, you're working it from the angle of the perpetrator as well.

During his investigative work on the story, Shane Waters was able to track down Jerry Johns' ex-wife. She provided shocking details about the man that would eventually become the Bible Belt Strangler. The following is based off of Shane's recollection of his conversation.

Well, when I met with Jerry Johns' ex-wife, she tells me this story about when they first met, he was, I think, 21, and he was AWal from the military, hiding out in her parents' attic. They were his neighbors, his parents' neighbors. So he was AWal from the military hiding out in her attic. When she was very young, I think she said that she was 12, and they end up having a sexual relationship. When she told me that, I I had this moment where I thought he may be even more of a monster than I realized. So they end up getting married. He ends up getting her pregnant. And she's only at that point when she gets pregnant. She says she was 13. And she goes to her dad and she tells him that she's pregnant. And that is when Jerry Johns and her learns that they're actually half brother and sister, because Jerry Jones' mom She was a prostitute, and she slept with her neighbor's dad. And because of that, Jerry Johns was actually his son. So when they learned that her dad was trying to convince them to have an abortion, to abort that child, they refused to do that.

And so what they ended up doing was moving down to Texas with his mom. For a few reasons. One, because she was so young, even in Tennessee at that time, that was not acceptable for him being over 21 and her only being 13.

To clarify, Jerry Johns' ex-wife told Shane that she had inadvertently married and gotten pregnant with her half-brother's baby. To avoid punishment, the couple moved to Texas to raise their child.

He ended up having to go to prison because of going AWal from the military. And during At that time, she told me that his mom would take her to different bars in places and prostitute her out to help make ends meet. His ex-wife told me he developed a lot of resentment for his mom.

Shane learned another seemingly important detail during his conversation with Jerry Johns' ex-wife.

His mom and his wife was a redhead, and Jerry Johns was a redhead.

Over the years, we learned that Jerry Johns had been arrested for a variety of infractions, everything from auto theft, carrying a concealed weapon, obstructing an officer, and all the way to arson. So during our research, we were able to find what a lot of law enforcement and medical officials said about Jerry Johns. And let me tell you, the things that we read, it was just chilling how accurate they would come to be. Johns is conniving. He's a manipulating type of individual whose own self-interest has played a large part in his arrival at this situation. Now, Jerry Johns is viewed as immature, disocial individual who admits to the use of depressants and hallucinogenic drugs. He has demonstrated a pattern of having escaped from the brig at Camp Pendleton, and then escaping from an armed guard and plotting to escape from a county jail. Mr. Johns demonstrated inability to profit from experience, making him a prime candidate for continued criminal activity. He is considered by this writer to be criminally oriented, and a good prediction would be that this man will continue to be involved in law violations for a number of years to come. It is believed that Johns is just beginning a long career as a law violator.

It is this writer's impression that John's is capable of serious crimes. However, it is noted that this opinion cannot be documented. It should be noted that he is considered a definite escape risk. John's is a very immature and responsible individual with a hot temper. He openly verbalizes anger and hostility toward authority figures. His prognosis for community adjustment is guarded.

The TBI's press conference revealed an update that would change the investigation.

Obviously, the most challenging thing for me is just the fact that we're not able to charge this individual because he's already deceased.

He died in prison in 2015, serving time for the attempted murder of another redhead.

Despite knowing her killer, agents say they can't charge him. The suspect died four years ago. Jerry Johns was serving time for trying to kill someone else. Both women had red hair, and he tried to kill them in the same way, leaving their bodies on the side of the interstate.

Jerry Johns died in prison in 2015, where he was serving time for the attempted murder of another redheaded woman, a woman named Linda. More on her later.

Had Mr. Johns If he had been alive at the time the case was presented to the grand jury yesterday, he would have been charged for the first-degree murder of Tina Marie Farmer. We are extremely disappointed that we're not able to prosecute Mr.

Johns.

Jerry Leon Johns is dead, so they can't have a trial for a dead man. But the best thing they could do to consider the case closed was to take the information they had to a grand jury. And if the grand jury returned a true bill, then they would consider this a closed case. When you go to a grand jury, they They either return what's called a true bill if they feel there is enough evidence to proceed to a trial, or they return a no bill where there is not enough evidence that they think it should proceed to a trial. Then once that is returned, it's up to the DA's office to decide if they want to continue with charges. So it has happened at times that a true bill has been returned and the DA did not decide to take it to trial. That, for example, happened in the John Banet-Ramsey case, in case you're curious. But normally, that is why DAs take it to a grand jury to see if a jury of the peers would think that was enough evidence to go ahead and move forward with the trial. That's what they did in the Tina Farmer case, and they could presumably do that again in some of these other cases as well.

Getting a true bill from a grand jury, especially against someone who's already dead and they can't be punished in any way, may not feel like a priority for maybe law enforcement, but for these families to know who is responsible for taking their loved one away. That would be very important for them. And then, of course, also we have two victims that have not even been identified yet. So continuing to work on those cases and get their identifications would be very important for those families as well.

The TBI's press conference also led to more questions.

There's people who have drawn connections between farmers, murderer, and others. Is this potentially the person who did all of these crimes? We're open to options on that. We're still looking into other possibilities on other cases. Right now, I can't tell you with any definitive proof that he's involved in any other cases.

Despite Mr. Campbell's class having just presented their findings months earlier that helped lead to Tina Farmer's identification, the TBI made no mention of them during their press conference.

I'd like to recognize Special Agent Brandon Elkins, an intelligence analyst, Amy Emberton, for the work on this case over the years. Agent Elkins has been working this case for the last 10 years. He was assigned the case as a detective while working for the Campbell County Sheriff Department and continued to work on the case after he was hired by the TBI. In 2016, Agent Elkins resubmitted evidence in this case to the TBI crime laboratory for examination.

As a reminder, Mr. Campbell's students presented their findings in May of 2018.

In August 2018, Agent Elkins was made aware of Bettina Marie Kenneth-McEnny Farmer, who was reportedly missing from Indiana. Ms. Farmer matched description of the unidentified female found in Campbell County. Tbi intelligence analyst, Amy Emerson, was able to track down a fingerprint card on Farmer from the early '80s. Those fingerprints were compared against the postmortem prints of the Campbell County Jane Doe, resulting in a positive match. Since that time, Agent Elkins has been working diligently to put the missing pieces of this case together. This is a perfect example of how determination combined with traditional police work and modern day science can lead to major developments in cold cases. We have more cases like this to pursue, and we will pursue them as time and resources allow, because we believe justice demands it.

The TBI did all they could to make sure that Alex and I did not show up to that press conference. So what happened was late the night before the press conference that the TBI was putting together, they put out a little thing to the local media in Tennessee, letting them know that early the next morning, I think it was eight o'clock, there was going to be a press conference in regards to Tina Farmer's case. Well, one of the local reporters who still had my number called me to let me know. He's like, This is very unusual that they did this. But he's like, I have a feeling that it's to keep someone from coming there. I was like, Well, I wonder who that is. I called Alex to let him know, and he's like, Well, I'm going to try to go. Alex was able to maneuver himself to be able to get there in time the next morning to get to this press conference. They get to the end, they allow people to ask questions. So then I hear a very familiar voice.

Thanks, guys.Thank.

You.thank you. One more question.

Will those documents be made available to the public?

Yes. Our PIO has a copy of those, and that's a public record at this time, and she will distribute those at the conclusion of this conference. Okay.

And do you know the name of the family members that you spoke with that had include her sister, Liza That's a question for Agent Alvarez. I don't feel comfortable releasing that information right now.

Let's stop here for another quick break. Murder 101.

Immediately, I think that they realized that Alex was with the podcast group. And so they shut the whole thing down. The director of the TBI steps in and he's like, All right, we're going to end this here. Everyone have a good day. And they all walk out. And as they walk out, the director walks up to Alex and he's like, You must be with the podcast group. And Alex is like, Oh, I'm with the students, but yeah, we work with Shane with the podcast. And it was a very weird confrontational moment. And Alex leaves, and he gets back to the school. But there was a threat that came to him from the director of the TBI that basically told us that we needed to back off, or basically, or else, which is crazy to me. Why Why are they scared of some high school students who are just trying to help spread the word of what happened to these women and to help prevent it from happening? Nowhere have we tried to tarnish the reputation of TBI. Nowhere did any of us deserve to be threatened. And to be honest with you, I'm not sure Alex will want to tell you about that threat because it did scare us.

But I'm a firm believer of sharing these things and talking about it.

We've reached out to the TBI, and they've declined to participate in this podcast.

Maybe it's an ego thing. Maybe they just have these huge egos, and they are so scared of people thinking that this little podcaster in Indiana and these high school kids did something that they couldn't do. Or maybe that they are worried that it's going to look bad on them because they, for so many years, didn't work on the case because it did sit with them for so long. They could have worked on this for all this time, but no one did.

I mean, look, they're the cops. They test the DNA, they get the fingerprints, they go knock on the doors. They do very important work that the students can't do. But keeping this in the media spotlight out there in the public and on true crime websites and blogs and podcasts, that is actually how they got the tip about Tina Farmer from a woman who was looking at these true crime missing persons blogs So we know that that's keeping it out there. It just seems disingenuous to say, We want the public to help us. And then you have these people that have probably worked harder than anybody except law enforcement, and they're not really recognized for that help that they request. So much had happened, and we had so much new information to look at. It seemed like the perfect time to dive back into these cases. We really just needed to look at all the information trickled out over the last five years, put that together and see, are there some of these victims that need to be excluded? Redhead victims, yes, but maybe not victims of the Bible Belt Strangler. Or maybe there's some new victims that need to be included.

Lots of new information had come out, and it needed to be reanalyzed in light of these new developments.

I mean, there's still victims out here that have not been identified. So there's still families that do not know what happened to their loved ones. We also find out that maybe we need to relook at our list. So our list of six, for example. We just used open source information. We had nobody on the inside. The police department's given us information. As the heat began to get turned back up on these cases, more information comes out. That needs to be investigated. This class did this work four or five years ago, but I have students now that could do the work, too, and they want to do the work. I'm sitting here in the back of my mind thinking, I've already got the project. I know exactly what we would do and where we would pick up.

More on that next time.

I did not ever do it.

Murder 101 is executive produced by Stephanie Lidecker, Alex Campbell, Courtney Armstrong, Andrew Arnault, and me, Jeff Shane. Additional producing by Connor Powell and Gabriel Castillo. Editing by Jeff Thouard and Davie Cooperwasser. Music by Vanicourt Music. Murder 101 is a production of iHeartRadio and KT Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Hey, this is Dana Schwartz. You may know my voice from Nobleblood, Halewood, or Stealing Superman. I'm hosting a new podcast, and we're calling it Very Special Episodes. A very special episode is stranger than fiction.

It sounds like it should be the next season of True Detective, these Canadian cops trying to solve this mystery of who spiked the chowder on the Titanic set.

Listen to very special episodes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, this is Susie Esman and Jeff Garland. I'm here. And we are the hosts of the history of Curbier Enthusiasm podcast. Now, we're going to be rewatching and talking about every single episode, and we're going to break it down and give behind the scenes knowledge that a lot of people don't know. We're going to be joined by special guests, including Larry David and Sheryl Hines, Richard Lewis, Bob Oetker, and so many more. We're going to have clips, and it's just going to be a lot of fun. So listen to the history of Curve your Enthusiasm on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you happen to get your podcasts. At one of the most famous restaurants in the world, there's a table in the corner where the most incredible conversations on the planet are happening every week with owner Ruthie Rogers and amazing guests like Martha Stewart. I did have an affair with one of his best friends. Jimmy Fallon. You want a zip line over your dad while he gets attacked by alligators. And Paul McCartney.

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We've saved you a seat. Ruthie's Table 4. Listen to Ruthie's Table 4 on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.