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And then what are you going to do? >> On the morning of February 20th, 1989,
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something terrible happened to Janice Johnson, a 35-year-old housewife and mother of two children.
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>> Uh, Claire, I got to go. I'll talk to you later. Okay. [Music] The investigation into that morning's
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events would raise questions that persist to this day. [Music] Clayton and Janice Johnson lived in the
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tiny coastal fishing village of Shelurn, Nova Scotia. It's a close-knit community where town's
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people all know one another. For the Johnson's, Shelburn was the ideal place
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to raise their two young daughters, 11-year-old Darla and 9-year-old Dawn. >> We had two lovely girls and you know,
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perfect as far as I was concerned. We were always together. Like even ask anybody around the community whenever
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they seen us, we were the four of us were usually always together. Very, very rarely we ever went anywhere
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individually. Clayton was an industrial arts teacher at the local high school. Janice was a
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homemaker. The Johnson's were a deeply religious family and very active in their church, volunteering much of their
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free time to church activities. >> We were always out visiting people and doing this and that. My mom was the type
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of person that she didn't like to just sit around and do nothing, so we were
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always busy doing something. Um, and like we never went anywhere without doing it as a family.
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>> The morning of February 20th, 1989 was a typical one for the Johnson family.
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After the children left for school, Clayton carried some laundry to the basement for his wife.
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>> All right. Very good. >> Moments later, the telephone rang. Clayton answered on the basement
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extension. >> Sure. Just right here. >> Okay, great. Thanks. >> Hi.
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>> It was Claire Thompson, our next door neighbor. >> Throw on a load of laundry.
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>> She wanted to answer. She took the phone. >> What? >> And I went out and got my coat and come
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back in and told her I was going to give her a kiss goodbye and I left. >> Really? Do you think your husband's got
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a mind? >> We got to go. >> Oh, okay. Bye. See you later. >> See you tonight.
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>> Mhm. >> Okay. Yeah. Clayton then left for work, stopping along the way at a local gas station.
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>> Janice Janice. A few minutes later, a neighbor stopped by the Johnson's home.
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He discovered Janice at the bottom of the stairs. She was bloody and unconscious, but still alive.
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Clayton heard the news when he arrived at work and rushed to the hospital. >> When I first seen her, I I didn't
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recognize her because of like all the tubes and and the swelling. So, and I'd
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look almost twice to realize it was her. And it's just one of those things that you
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don't want to see every day. Janice had sustained severe head injuries from what was assumed to be an
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accidental fall down the basement steps. Despite the best of medical treatment, Janice died of her head wound several
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hours later. She was just 35 years old. >> I think it was the first time I ever
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seen my father cry. My first reaction was that it wasn't it wasn't real. like you want to believe it
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didn't happen. >> That's one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life is to tell the two
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girls that their mother passed away. >> The small community of Shelurn rallied
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around Clayton Johnson and his two daughters as they paid their last respects to a loving wife and mother.
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But that support soon crumbled when Clayton Johnson started dating a woman 30 years his junior.
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[Music] After Janice Johnson's death, the chief medical examiner, Dr. Roland Perry,
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performed an autopsy. He was hampered to some extent by the fact that there were
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no photographs of the accident scene. In a misguided effort to be helpful, two family friends had washed the blood from
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the basement before photographs could be taken. This is a police video shot later
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as the women described the blood stains. They said there was a small blood stain
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on the floor at the bottom of the steps and a blood stain with bloody hair on the concrete wall next to the third
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step. [Applause] This recreation shows the position of Janice Johnson's body when paramedics
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arrived. Her head was on the floor, her leg was above her head on the step. In her left
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hand, she was holding her car keys. Although Dr. Perry found Janice Johnson's wounds to be unusual. He ruled
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the death a freak accident, concluding that she had fallen forward down the steps to her death.
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He suspected that her skull had become wedged in a 5 and 1/2 in space between the wooden steps and the adjoining
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concrete wall, which crushed both sides of her head. When she landed on the concrete floor, she sustained the wound
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to the top of her head. Since Janice Johnson was thought to be in the house alone at the time of the incident, foul
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play was ruled out. Janice was on the telephone with Claire Thompson, who said she heard Clayton
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kiss Janice goodbye before leaving for work. >> You think so? I don't know about that.
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Well, you better look for me. >> Claire Thompson said they talked for 10 minutes and that the call ended around
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750. >> Can I call you later? >> Oh, sure. Okay. Talk to you then. Bye.
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>> This morning? Yeah. >> Witnesses saw Clayton Johnson at the gas station at the same time.
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>> Got myself a diesel. [Music] A minute or two later, a neighbor found Janice in the basement and called
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paramedics. The call was logged in at 752. >> That was, so to speak, the end of that.
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Of course, Clayton and his daughters had to deal with uh the great loss that they
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had suffered. Um, it was only uh after some 18 months had passed that Clayton really made what might be called a
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dreadful mistake. Clayton Johnson's mistake was to fall in love. Soon after Janice's death, Clayton
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started dating and later married 22-year-old Tina Waybritt. She was a member of the Johnson's church
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and was 30 years his junior. In the close-knit conservative community of Shelburn, this new relationship
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raised a few eyebrows. Police also discovered that Clayton Johnson had purchased a $120,000 life insurance
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policy on Janice 2 months before she died. A background check revealed that Clayton Johnson was also having
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financial difficulties and that utility services were sometimes cut off in their
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home for nonpayment. >> And pretty soon uh fact became confused with rumor, rumor was fact. And the more
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people talked, the more people wondered whether this lovable teddy bear Clayton Johnson was a wife killer.
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So, police decided to reopen their investigation into Janice Johnson's death.
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Homicide investigators went back to reinter the woman who cleaned up the blood after Janice Johnson's death. To
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their surprise, two years later, one of the women recalled seeing more blood in the basement than she originally
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reported on the walls, across the length of the floor, and on piles of lumber along the far wall.
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Investigators took this new information along with the autopsy photos to two of Canada's most respected pathologists.
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3 years after his wife's death, Clayton Johnson was arrested and charged with
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firstdegree murder. Johnson pleaded not guilty to the charge. Prosecutors introduced the new
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blood spatter testimony and also raised the issue of Johnson's new love interest.
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>> Clayton Johnson was on trial for events that happened after the accident. He was
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on trial for the insurance monies that he collected. He was on trial for this uh new girlfriend that he that he that
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he had lived move in with him. >> Clayton Johnson was found guilty of firstdegree murder and was sentenced to
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life in prison. >> I don't know how yet I stood up. I could feel my knees and everything get weak
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and I took all my power was to keep standing up, not falling down. It just it was a shock, I'll tell you.
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Have you ever felt like you were reading a book? That's what it seemed like. It didn't
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seem like it was it could be happening in my life. >> Johnson was ordered to serve his
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sentence in the Atlantic Maximum Security Institution. From there, he contacted the Association
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in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted in Toronto. His story caught the attention of the director of the
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organization, James Locker. >> As you go back through the miscarriages of justice in both our country, uh, in
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the in Canada, that is in the United States and in England, very often, probably as often as 40 to 50% of the
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time, a bad science has played a significant role in a wrongful conviction. But the first thing Locker noticed
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wasn't just questionable science. It was a problem with the timeline. >> Clare Thompson said she was on the
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telephone with Janice Johnson on the morning of her death. >> Yeah. Elseie and I.
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>> In her original statement, Thompson said she heard Clayton kiss Janice goodbye at
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approximately 7:40. >> Oh, sure. She said the call with Janice lasted 10 minutes until about 7:50.
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A witness said Clayton Johnson was at the gas station at the same time, 7:50, when Clare Thompson said she was ending
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her call to Janice. >> 911. >> The neighbor found Janice's body and
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called paramedics at 7:52. >> Clayton was aware that Janice was expecting company that morning. any
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theory that he would kill his wife uh in a time span of seconds or or minutes when he could legitimately expect three
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different people to show up at the house uh in that very time that he was supposedly assaulting his wife. You put
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all that together, the theory he killed his wife was, in my view, completely ridiculous.
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>> Blood spatter expert Herb Macdonald was also skeptical. He believes that the
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witness's original statements were probably the most accurate. >> The neighbors at that time reported that
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the blood was consistent with an accident. Now, obviously, they're not qualified to interpret blood stained
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patterns, but had they seen a lot of spattering, or if they'd seen blood up on the walls and ceiling, I think at
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that time, even though they were cleaning it up, they would have a clear recollection of what it looked like and
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especially where they washed it up. Another story that changed was Claire Thompson's. In her original statement,
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she said she called Janice around 7:40 and that the call lasted for 10 minutes. >> Two years later, she said she may have
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called closer to 7:30. This created the window of opportunity for Johnson to have murdered his wife.
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James Locker asked two forensic pathologists to review the forensic evidence independently.
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Dr. Linda Norton of Dallas, Texas, and Dr. James Ferris of Vancouver. They both examined the case file and
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autopsy photos, and it was what they didn't see that they found most intriguing.
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>> There are no defense wounds. And in a bludgeoning of this nature, considering
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the location of the head wounds, one would expect to see defensive wounds if this were an actual bludgeoning death.
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>> During an attack, most individuals instinctively raise their hands to protect themselves. As a result, their
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hands and forearms sustain injuries. There's absolutely no evidence that any
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of the injuries were as a result of some form of homicidal assault. >> Janice Johnson's car keys were in her
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hand when paramedics arrived. The lack of arm wounds and the car keys also cast doubt on the original forensic
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report which stated that Janice fell forwards down the steps. What occurred is that she slipped at the top of the
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stairs and she fell backwards instead of forwards. And of course, most falls down
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the stairs or forward falls. Backward falls are uncommon. And I think that's
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what led to an awful lot of the misinterpretation that occurred in this case. >> Clayton Johnson's new defense team now
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had two major hurdles. first to prove to the court that Johnson was innocent and
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also to show how Janice Johnson really died. [Music] By the time Clayton Johnson's new
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defense team gathered their information, he had spent 6 years behind bars. It was a life Johnson had no choice but
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to get used to. It's a whole new ball game as far as your change of life style, the whole thing. You know, it's
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it's a rude awakening. >> Johnson's team of forensic experts did not believe that his wife's injuries
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were consistent with the bludgeoning death, and they did not think that she had fallen forwards as was originally
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reported. They believed that Janice had fallen backwards. To get Johnson's conviction overturned, his lawyers
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needed to find a way to show how the accident really happened. They turned to blood spatter expert Herb Macdonald. But
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after studying the case file, Macdonald couldn't figure out a way to recreate an
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accidental fall down the basement steps. the very night that I was about ready to
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call James Lock here and advise him that I just I could not do my recreation and
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I've done many of these reconstructions or recreations if you like. Uh I was
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very disappointed and I told him I was about to tell him that I I just couldn't
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do it. And that night I read the morning paper. I frequently don't read the paper
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until a day late. And on the front page here's Peter Pan at West High School.
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And of course I thought, hey, >> look at me up highen. I'm flying. >> In the production of the musical Peter
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Pan, various characters fly across the stage in a harness. Macdonald called the high school,
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borrowed the transom and the operator, and hired a model the same height and weight as Janice Johnson.
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Macdonald then built a replica of the Johnson's basement steps. He videotaped
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the entire procedure and put blue chalk on the wall and step where witnesses saw
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the blood with the model at the top of the steps. She fell backwards. [Music] When her head fell into the gap in
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between the third step and the concrete wall, the chalk marks on the model's
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head were consistent with the injuries found on Janice Johnson. >> There's no question that that is a good
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explanation for how the wounds on Janet Johnson occurred over her right ear. It's remarkable when you see it because
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the blue marks appear on the model's head exactly where the injuries are found on Janice's left and right
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temples. >> James Locher believes that Janice Johnson was still on the telephone when
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Clayton was at the gas station. >> And then what are you going to do? and that the call ended at 7:50 just as her
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neighbor was arriving at the house. >> Uh, you know, I've got to go. I'll talk
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to you later. [Music] >> She grabbed her car keys, ran up the steps, and lost her footing.
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As she fell backwards, her head became wedged in the 5 and 1/2 in gap between the step and the cement wall. Her feet
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pulled her head from the gap, flipping her body over onto the basement floor, producing the gash found on the top of
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her head. When all of this information came to light, Canadian prosecutors took the unusual step of releasing Clayton
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Johnson from prison. He had spent 6 years behind bars. I'm just very happy to be back with my
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family. I'm very pleased with the decision of Justice Freeman and I couldn't ask for a
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better legal team than what I've got. and I just want to get back with my family.
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>> I'm really happy right now because that means my dad's actually going to see me
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graduate. I've got my father back in my life. >> Although authorities have made no final
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decisions about the case, and there's always the chance of a retrial, many believe it will simply be dismissed.
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for a crime forensic experts say didn't happen. Six years in prison is enough.
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>> That's quite right. Indeed, Clayton Johnson wasn't convicted of a murder uh
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that he didn't commit. He was convicted of a murder that never happened. >> We've made an error. So once you
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recognize you've made an error, you do the best you can to rectify it. And the
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best way to rectify this case is simply to acquit this man, exonerate him, and let him go on with his life.
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>> Well, I was given all a different opinion as far as, you know, the justice
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system is concerned because I mean, I've always been brought up right from the
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time I most walk around that, you know, the police were your friend, that you held them on a certain level. And uh
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just after going through this, it makes you think twice. [Music] Why? [Music] Heat.
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[Music]