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subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for [Music] details [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever
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you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who built
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this garage with sticks and stones and elevator bones and rock and roll he is the captain yeah nothing's going to stop
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us now it's it's good to be seing and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a
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[Music] friend this week we are featuring Paradise Lost by Southern prohibition brewing in Mississippi garage grade 4
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at true Crim garage.com that's enough of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some
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true [Music] [Music] crime [Music] [Music] Horn Lake Mississippi June 2017 it's a hot morning and early summer
00:04:29
in a town of about 26,000 located just about 5 minutes from the Mississippi border and fewer than 15
00:04:37
Mi south of Memphis a US Postal Service mail carrier is delivering the mail on Angel Drive
00:04:47
she nears a black metal mailbox mounted on a sturdy wooden post but as she was about to reach in to drop the mail the
00:04:56
mail carrier draws back in horror sitting on the ground below the mailbox tied to the post with what
00:05:04
appears to be Sho strings is a woman she is clearly dead her head is tilted upwards at an
00:05:13
angle her mouth is open authorities are alerted and told that they would find a young woman tied
00:05:21
by the neck and jaw to a rural mailbox post how long had she been there how many cars passed by the mailbox and
00:05:31
never noticed a sight that none of us would forget if it weren't for all the Tall
00:05:38
Weeds up by the road and surrounding the mailbox someone would have spotted her hours
00:05:45
before who could have done this how did this happen and why this week we discussed the case of
00:05:54
Jessica Renee Johnson [Music] Jessica Johnson was 37 years old when her body was discovered on June 2nd
00:06:16
2017 Jessica was a brunette and she was 5' 3 in tall 115 lb with greenish hazel eyes even though Jessica was in her mid3
00:06:28
she lived at home in Horn Lake with her parents Linda and David Johnson this was
00:06:34
largely because Jessica was a single mom with two children a daughter who was just 8 years old when Jessica died and a
00:06:42
son who was 19 until a few months before her death Jessica worked at a logistics service in
00:06:50
Memphis but lately she was unemployed her parents helped out with child care her son lived with Jessica's
00:06:57
grandparents whose home was just y yards away when we talk about who Jessica was
00:07:03
as a person there's a lot to talk about but one thing that is very often said is
00:07:09
that Jessica was very pretty yeah and you often see this in cases where they talk about the victims looks or whatever
00:07:16
but in this case it's it's like a 100% consensus yeah she's described by all as exceptionally beautiful according to her
00:07:27
family and friends she knew it and worked it she was always dressed up and really pretty and she knew it said her
00:07:34
sister Kayla her friend summer said Jessica loved to quote Glam herself up and wear pretty clothes and go out yeah
00:07:43
just like the colonel and in fact she would not generally go out without being done up
00:07:50
according to friends and family now Jessica tended to change her Facebook profile picture constantly updating it
00:07:57
with a new filtered selfie or or lighted head shot her public posts were largely
00:08:03
peepy inspiring quotes from glamorous women like Coco Chanel or Audrey heurn Jessica was very social and had lots of
00:08:12
friends her page shows that she was quote Facebook friends with over 1900 people she loved to go to clubs and hang
00:08:22
out with friends and Friends describe her as the life of the party unfortunately in the few years before
00:08:29
before her death Jessica's parents say that Jessica started to fall in with the wrong crowd while she was a good mom as
00:08:37
long as she was in a good place she had her problems her father David said right
00:08:43
but you often see this with people that stay in the town that they went to high school in MH where they start going out
00:08:50
and partying and yeah it's like mid 20s great late 20s not so bad get into your 30s and now the only people that are
00:09:00
showing up to these bars are are people in their 20s mhm you see what I mean it's like you know it's fun for a while
00:09:08
but those scenes always have some shady characters as far as I can tell this all
00:09:14
seems to have started about 5 years earlier when Jessica began dating lesie Taylor uh this guy was bad news and used
00:09:22
Jessica's car as his drug dealing Hub finally he was busted Jessica's car was confiscated and the drug dealing
00:09:31
boyfriend went to prison but the damage was done and around this time Jessica started being involved in the drug scene
00:09:40
in fact we know that Jessica was arrested on October 10th 2013 by Horn Lake PD the charges listed in the arrest
00:09:49
record are one felony possession of a controlled substance and a possession of paraphernalia did she uh post her mug
00:09:57
shot as her Facebook profile I don't know I don't think so uh the charges ended up being dropped Jessica was
00:10:05
caught with some male friends from high school in possession of a bag of meth but the cops could never prove who it
00:10:12
belonged to so it seems that Jessica like to party and some of that involved drugs she would have had periods where
00:10:22
she had her act together in other times where she wasn't as reliable and was using Al substances that had a negative
00:10:31
effect on her life right even worse she was participating in drug deals working as a middleman between her friends and
00:10:40
the dealers going on drug runs and scoring some for herself to use as well as making a little cash right at the
00:10:49
time of her death quote I was disappointed in her in the choices she was making and what she was doing said
00:10:56
her father David David and Linda did not agree with their daughter's choices of late but they did all they could do to
00:11:05
support her and help her when she needed it well I'm sure they loved her and I'm
00:11:09
sure they loved their grandkids and that's why they allowed her to live there but that also allows her to go out
00:11:15
because she constantly has like a live-in babysitter well let's get to the time frame in question this is May 31st
00:11:23
to June 2nd so starting on the afternoon of Wednesday May 31st 20 17 Jessica left
00:11:30
her parents home with her on again off again boyfriend his name is Garland Hart Jessica told her mom the two were going
00:11:39
shopping at a thrift store to get Garland some clothes we know that on that Wednesday night the two went to a
00:11:45
club called canvas where there was some something of a drug scene going on on Thursday the 1st of June Jessica
00:11:53
facetimed with her daughter Linda Jessica's mother participated in the call as well well Jessica was calling
00:12:00
from the front yard of a house she was at in this call Jessica said she was coming home but she didn't at 3:29 a.m.
00:12:10
on the morning of June 2nd so this is now late Thursday night turned into early Friday morning yeah Jessica's
00:12:17
teenage son received a text to his phone from Jessica's phone it said that Jessica would be spending the day with G
00:12:26
and that G and I will see you later this afternoon according to Linda the G refers to Garland yeah which if you look
00:12:36
up this Garland heart guy uh he looks like he smells like garlic farts I get a kind of a shady Vibe just from his
00:12:43
picture around 11:00 a.m. on the morning of Friday June 2nd a US postal worker was making her rounds in Horn Lake she
00:12:53
approached the post-mounted mailbox at number 7520 Angel Drive the mailbox was one of
00:13:00
those cheap black metal ones you can get at any hardware store with the stick on
00:13:05
numbers and it was mounted on an unfinished grayish 38 in wooden post that was sunk into the ground do we know
00:13:14
if the mailbox post was encased with concrete or not uh I I don't know that it that it did but from witness accounts
00:13:24
it was sunk into the ground but it still wiggled a little if you were to pull off
00:13:28
on it right this mailbox belonged to a house that was set back a few hundred yard from the road this is down a dirt
00:13:37
or gravel driveway the Box itself was partially enveloped in Weeds and tall grasses that had grown up around it this
00:13:48
wasn't a home that someone was carefully Landscaping right when the mail carrier
00:13:54
neared the box to her horror she saw someone sitting at the base of the post but this was not someone sitting there
00:14:02
taking a break or waiting for a ride what she saw was the death stricken face of a young woman her head and neck tied
00:14:10
to the mailbox post and when we say sitting there she wasn't sitting on her on her butt she was on her legs it's
00:14:20
like a squatting position yeah the Male carrier panicked and backed away from the mailbox she parked her truck and
00:14:27
called a colleague who was delivering mail nearby saying she didn't know what to do uh before the Horn Lake PD arrived
00:14:35
on the scene this second Male carrier arrived and snapped a photo of the grizzly scene which is the photo that uh
00:14:44
all we have to go off of here regarding the the the scene itself we're going to talk a lot about this photo so it might
00:14:50
be something that you want to Google image we are not going to post this on our social media page or on our website
00:14:59
no but but it's easily found right if you Google the victim's name Jessica Johnson yeah because I don't want
00:15:04
anybody to go to our website looking to buy a t-shirt or something and see this and be disturbed so it's not a it's not
00:15:12
a pretty sight it's it's U look at it at your own risk yeah it's tough to it's one of those things you can't unsee it
00:15:19
and well here's what the the photo depicts Jessica Johnson is sitting at the base of the mailbox post away from
00:15:27
the street side on her knees her feet tucked under her and out of view she is sitting in 3ft Tall Weeds crushing them
00:15:37
down beneath her she is wearing jeans and a gray camo t-shirt a gray leather purse is propped between her knees it is
00:15:46
open and a pink phone charging cord is visible Jessica's right arm is dangling down between her legs and it appears her
00:15:55
right hand is touching or even hold holding a black leather pouch that that may be a wallet a small black cord from
00:16:05
this wallet like item seems to be draped over her right thumb Jessica's other arm
00:16:11
her left arm is tucked behind the mailbox post with her left shoulder leaning on the post the left side of
00:16:19
Jessica's face basically her cheekbone is against the corner of the mailbox post and horrifyingly around her neck
00:16:28
entangled in her hair is a cord or string that later would turn out to be two white shoelaces tied together
00:16:36
Jessica's head is facing upwards at an angle the shoelace winds around her neck once disappears into her hair and then
00:16:46
another part of the shoelace is visible coming out of her hair at her jawline and stretching tightly across her face
00:16:54
running up between her nose and mouth so that it pulls her upper lip aside her upper teeth and gums are visible the
00:17:04
shoelace stretches up from her face around the post and is embedded in the crack where the parts of the wooden post
00:17:11
are joined the scene is horrible and the photo that we we have from the mail carrier although partially blurred out
00:17:20
is equally horrible and it raises so many questions how did Jessica end up tied to a mailbox post on a quiet stre
00:17:28
in Horn Lake who did this to her how long had she been there and and whose house was it the Horn Lake PD was
00:17:37
dispatched to the scene at 11:29 a.m. after the second mail carrier called the police upon observing the cord around
00:17:45
Jessica's neck the cops and the doto County coroner arrived according to Jessica's family and friends they
00:17:54
initiated a complete sham of an investigation according to Linda Johnson police made up their mind about this
00:18:02
case before they even looked at the evidence the police report which was filed on June 3rd States right up front
00:18:10
quote no crime says that the scene involved a young white woman hanging from a mailbox and she was already stiff
00:18:18
the report notes that Jessica's purse was located between her knees like it been sat there and Jessica's hand was
00:18:26
resting on it officers collected Jessica's driver's license from the mail carrier who had already rifled through
00:18:33
Jessica's bag and pulled it out compromising any evidence compromising the scene Linda tells us that police
00:18:41
cornered off the property but neglected to protect the mailbox area another retired Memphis police officer who
00:18:49
worked with the family on this case has said that photos from the scene show police cars parked too close to the body
00:18:57
potentially destroying evidence well like you said this is a very small town so you would assume that there's not too
00:19:03
many crimes like this happening or scenes like this happening yeah yeah I mean this is a very unusual scene and I
00:19:13
forget about small town this is an unusual scene for you and I who've already looked at over a 100 cases since
00:19:19
we've been doing this garage thing here yeah it's one thing for somebody to commit suicide maybe in their house but
00:19:27
the fact that they're trying to say that there's no crime and that they believe that she committed suicide by hanging
00:19:33
herself from somebody else's mailbox mhm very strange well and continuing down the road of evidence or lack thereof or
00:19:44
failing to collect certain pieces of evidence because that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg what we're getting at
00:19:51
one major thing and I think this is a huge thing here Jessica's phone was found inside her purse that had been
00:19:59
propped between her knees but the phone was locked and nobody knew the code Linda her mother says that the code had
00:20:07
been changed and she believes that whoever killed her daughter if someone did kill her daughter had changed the
00:20:14
code possibly after sending the 329 a.m. text to her son Jessica's fingerprint would have unlocked the phone but the
00:20:27
police department clined to use this method to this very day the family Jessica's family does not have access to
00:20:36
the contents of her phone that is absolutely ridiculous mhm that is that is beyond
00:20:45
irresponsible yes and because they can get phone records obviously if they lived with her there it's a possibility
00:20:52
that they even paid for the phone records or if they're going to pay the remaining bill they might be able to get
00:20:58
a phone log as far as um you know who she called but who calls people now you have to be a complete psychopath to pick
00:21:08
up the phone and actually call somebody everybody texts now you called me last Thursday I call you call you every
00:21:16
Thursday cuz I'm a complete psychopath but this text message this is the stuff that's the most important now I'd also
00:21:23
wonder if if it was an iPhone or something like that was it hooked up to another device and you know like all my
00:21:31
text messages go to my computer so if something happened and you and you found me uh dead and you couldn't get into my
00:21:39
phone while you can get into my computers and see my text messages through that way so I wonder if the
00:21:45
family has looked into those angles but like you said there's no information that they have from that that cell phone
00:21:52
well and the short answer is they have they they've attempted to figure out what could be on this phone using every
00:21:59
Avenue they could think of uh even with the help of a retired uh law enforcement
00:22:04
member right uh the other thing too is it was determined as we said earlier that the cord well but hold on a second
00:22:13
I just want to throw this out because I'm assuming that they're the ones that were responsible for the funeral and if
00:22:22
they were did they have the contacts did they have the phone at that point where
00:22:27
they could have used her fingerprint to get into the phone during that time I believe this is
00:22:34
I I don't have that answer you see what I'm saying right my guess is I do know some of
00:22:40
the items that was found with Jessica were returned to the family but we don't know when right I don't think that was
00:22:49
right away you know um this would these things would have been collected and after this scene if they would have if
00:22:56
they had properly secured the scene cataloged everything once that was done at some
00:23:04
point they could have used her finger to open up that that phone yeah sounds so morbid and I understand that you know
00:23:14
there are other ways of getting that information if you're law enforcement but that would have gave it
00:23:20
to you right away you know we we we hear so many times about the first 48 Hours of an
00:23:26
investigation we know that current day well that's when there is an investigation right but when somebody's
00:23:34
showing up and going no crime here nothing to see well and and when we talk about the first 48 hours we know that in
00:23:43
current day investigation the first thing that they're looking for on on somebody is a phone yeah you know where
00:23:50
where's that phone who were they communicating with what was said what was supposed to be going on before this
00:23:58
happened this crime happened and that's going to get more and more important as we turn more and more into zombies just
00:24:04
staring at our phones all day but back to the cord that was determined to be two white shoelaces tied
00:24:12
together the immediate question is did these laces come from Jessica's shoes uh would there have been any touch DNA on
00:24:20
them you know if someone had tied her up right or used that to strangle her you'd
00:24:26
think there might be some touch DNA the problem with the DNA on the the shoelaces is we don't know if there was
00:24:32
any DNA on them because at some point the shoelaces have disappeared oh right right because there's no no need to
00:24:39
investigate because if you show up to a scene and it looks like it's suicide and
00:24:42
you have these shoelaces test the shoelaces if it comes back that it's just her DNA on the shoelaces and nobody
00:24:50
else's well look then we go hey it looks like a suicide there's evidence that it's just a suicide but if it comes back
00:24:58
with multiple forms of DNA and multiple people of DNA not meaning that they actually tied it but that gives us
00:25:07
probable cause to say hey there was a crime here and now we need to investigate it well at least gives you
00:25:13
somebody else to talk to and you know the the shoelaces they were in the possession of
00:25:20
the police department at some point but but they they've vanished now the same thing goes for the cloth that Jessica
00:25:27
was wearing that day it's believed that they were burned by the funeral director
00:25:32
who handled Jessica's body well we'll get more into the inadequate investigation was that a common thing
00:25:40
for them to do whatever clothes are going to be put in if they know that they're not going to uh
00:25:46
be buried in those clothes that they burn the clothes that they came in yeah I would think that that's fairly common
00:25:53
yes okay uh some more evidence came to light that makes the this whole situation even more confusing when
00:26:01
Jessica's Family went to view her body in the funeral home they were horrified to observe Jessica's left arm remember
00:26:08
this is the arm that was hidden from view in the picture that we have the one that was sort of smooshed behind the
00:26:16
mailbox post right this arm is in rough shape to put it plain and simple for one
00:26:23
thing there's a visible indentation or print of some kind running across Jessica's forearm that looks to have
00:26:32
been made possibly after death there are dark bruises on her wrist some people believe that there is indication that
00:26:41
she may have been bound at some point or at least restrained right and there are
00:26:46
mysterious scabby holes peppering her lower arm all over the back of her hand they look almost like she was burned or
00:26:55
spattered with acid there is blood visible in her fingernail beds particularly her pinky nail the photo of
00:27:04
the arm taken by family members is visible online released by the family because they believe it shows that
00:27:11
something very bad happened to Jessica yeah but I think the whole jumping to the conclusion that her hand was burned
00:27:19
with acid I mean her hand could have been burned by grilling something or cooking other things but this idea that
00:27:27
it was just burnt with acid well that's not an idea that's just me describing what it looks like okay no nobody has
00:27:35
suggested what these unusual marks have come from um that's just my easiest way to describe it to people who have not
00:27:43
seen this photo despite all these strange circumstances and the bizarre unexplained injuries to the body an
00:27:50
autopsy on Jessica Johnson was never conducted in fact the doto county coroners office issued its report on
00:27:58
July 12th 2017 stating that the cause of death was expiation by ligature hanging and the
00:28:06
manner of death was suicide doto County coroner Jeff Pounders said that Jessica's was one of the strangest cases
00:28:14
he had seen and he had been a coroner for 35 years but based on evidence and the toxicology results he gave the
00:28:23
official explanation of death by expiation when Jessica was found around 11:00 a.m. on June 2nd rigger mortise
00:28:31
had set in and it appeared she had been there since the early morning hours ponderers said he acknowledged quote I
00:28:39
don't know how many people drove by the mailbox and not seen her the weeds were so tall a Toxicology test was done and
00:28:48
according to the death report revealed meth and xanx intoxication despite this corner
00:28:54
Pounders told the media that Jessica had not ODed Horn Lake Police have investigated this death in great detail
00:29:02
said Pounders quote I've talked to the crime lab and she died from asphixiation hornlake police have not been able to
00:29:09
find anything other than she hanged herself end [Music] quote this show is sponsored by better
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it's a [Music] GameChanger all right we're back cheers mates cheers to you Captain yeah let's get back to
00:31:32
the case that they didn't want to investigate well Johnson's family uh the Johnson family and Jessica's friends
00:31:40
were shocked at this determination according to Jessica's Family the Horn Lake PD basically looked the other way
00:31:47
when it came to investigating this case they were familiar with Jessica's past and the people she associated with and
00:31:55
chocked her death up to just another junkie Dying In fairness they did do the toxicology report so they did
00:32:02
investigate that part but I think it led them to a conclusion of a lot look a lot
00:32:08
of these small towns are dealing with a lot of deaths by drug addicts mhm and so
00:32:16
and record numbers particularly uh heroin right and so you do the toxicology report and this is happening
00:32:25
all over the country and you go okay but we have a piece of evidence like I said with the shoelace that you
00:32:32
could have just tested and that would have got us further down one of the rabbit holes suicide or Foul Play well
00:32:41
Leeanne Marino this was Jessica's good friend she became a spokesperson for the family she told the website heavy that
00:32:49
Horn Lake PD were quote grossly negligent and clearly had no intention of investigating Jessica's death as a
00:32:57
possible crime once they got wind of who was dead they believe coroner Pounders declared it was a suicide the cops were
00:33:06
relieved of further work and the case was closed but Jessica's family and friends State flat out that she would
00:33:13
never ever have committed suicide for one thing she was a good mom and lived for her kids she never would have left
00:33:23
them alone she told her mom via Facebook that she was coming home and texted her
00:33:29
son that she would see him the next day none of this added up to someone who would kill herself but even more
00:33:37
convincingly Linda Johnson said that no way would her daughter kill herself this
00:33:43
way saying quote my daughter was too vain Jessica's sister Kaylee said there's no way she's going to have
00:33:51
herself displayed out for the world to see her like that she had no makeup on that that's not her if she were going to
00:33:59
kill herself Linda said Jessica would have glammed herself up and taken pills she would have went to sleep and believe
00:34:07
me Jessica would have had herself fixed up she would have looked like Sleeping Beauty Linda said if I'm the head
00:34:15
detective or I'm a part of this law enforcement team I'm taking into account what they're saying I'm not saying that
00:34:23
I'm going to believe it look there's plenty of times where somebody takes their life and and then somebody says
00:34:28
hey they never would have done this and all the evidence points that they did so
00:34:34
but I'm not going to dismiss that and so we have the toxicology report but we got
00:34:40
this weird hanging on the mailbox now you got the family coming forward saying look if she if she was going to kill
00:34:46
herself we don't think it would be this way right right and at some point they even cite a uh something that took place
00:34:55
when when friends and Jessica were watching a movie called 13 Reasons Why MH the group discussed that they would
00:35:05
never inflict violence on themselves they all agreed that if they were to take their own lives pills would be the
00:35:12
way to go so the the problem with this whole scenario to me is I agree I agree with what you said I
00:35:23
I agree that you take those statements of she would have never killed herself and if she would have she wouldn't have
00:35:29
done it this way you take that you take that into account and and you have to play that and apply that to everything
00:35:37
that you're seeing and the information that you're collecting right now now you could push back on the family too well
00:35:44
did you ever think that she was going to be taking drugs as as hardcore as methamphetamines well yeah but what what
00:35:54
I was getting at is that I I understand that we have a whole bunch of people saying well she would have never have
00:35:59
done this I don't know what state of mind we can say she would have been in regarding what we now know with the
00:36:07
toxicology results right so we do have some more information about what happened or may have happened that day
00:36:15
although partially from sources who might have less than honest motives the house that Jessica was found out the
00:36:23
mailbox that she was tied to was owned by a very good friend of her boyfriend Garland's named Jesse Isaacs in fact
00:36:32
Garland had occasionally lived at this house which was less than 5 miles from Jessica's home and Jessica stayed with
00:36:40
him for periods of time Jessica was very familiar with the house and with the homeowner Jesse she seemed comfortable
00:36:48
being there although her friends her girlfriends say they were not and this was a known Party House Jess and Garland
00:36:57
ended up over there we believe sometime Wednesday night May 31st right Jesse said that he had not seen Jessica and
00:37:06
Garland together in some time until then and also that Jessica seemed off he said
00:37:12
she was being even more dramatic than usual at some point on Wednesday night or Thursday June 1st Garland and Jessica
00:37:20
had a big fight Jessica locked herself in the bathroom and called a friend to come and get get her this is backed up
00:37:28
by Jessica's friend Leanne Marino who says that Jessica hit in the bathroom because she was afraid of Garland but
00:37:36
when this girlfriend arrived Jessica was nowhere to be seen and after waiting for
00:37:42
45 minutes the friend then left we know that sometime before 4:30 on Thursday Jessica facetimed her daughter and
00:37:51
mother from the yard also a girl who served as Jessica's driver for her drug deals as well as the girl's
00:38:00
mom showed up at the house and witnessed a big fight between Jessica and Garland
00:38:06
or the aftermath of a fight M this was around 4:30 Jessica was distraught and left the
00:38:15
house this is because she was supposed to pick up her friend Katie Jackson from work at 5:00 but Jessica did not arrive
00:38:23
there until 5:15 Katie says that when Jessica arrived at Katie's work she was almost
00:38:29
hysterical saying that someone had told her that Garland was in the house in the
00:38:34
back room with two women Katie gave Jessica two Xanax and drove back to Angel drive back to that house well I'm
00:38:43
a little confused so the when she shows up to pick up her friend she's telling her friend well I'm I'm pissed off
00:38:52
because Garland was in the back with two women she she's telling her friend that
00:38:57
someone told her that at some point Garland was in the back room with two women so garlic fart is getting it on
00:39:04
with two women in the back or that's the rumor once back at the angel Drive house
00:39:09
Katie told Jessica to stay in the car while she was going to go inside and collect Jessica's things Katie went
00:39:16
inside and confronted Garland who was just emerging from the bedroom with two girls Garland told her that Jessica was
00:39:25
irrational and he couldn't handle her and Katie should take her home or take her
00:39:31
elsewhere Katie returned to the car and told Jessica that they were leaving but then Jessica jumps out of the car and
00:39:39
she's running around she said she she had to talk to Garland Katie later said that Jessica was not only running around
00:39:48
but behaving irrationally right Katie left and never heard from Jessica after that now no one knows what happened at
00:39:58
this point Garland's friend Jesse told the media that Jessica left the house around
00:40:04
6 the next time anyone that we know of saw her she was dead yeah this is confusing though too because Jessica
00:40:12
went to pick up her friend right then they drive back to this house that they're partying at right this is the
00:40:21
house that they also found her hanging from the mailbox mhm same house mhm so Garin is in the
00:40:31
back doing something with two women and that's the rumor that's why she's pissed
00:40:36
off that's why there's a fight but then at some point her friend leaves well how
00:40:41
does her friend leave is there a car there for her friend to leave or does Jessica have to get in the car and drive
00:40:47
her somewhere because she was her friend's ride right so that's kind of confusing
00:40:54
yeah yeah that's that that is interesting um but of course Jessica's acting a little strange because we know
00:41:03
from the toxicology report that she's on some kind of drug that night and also her on again off again boyfriend is
00:41:12
rumored to be cheating on her so yes she's going to act a little emotional mhm well and regarding the vehicle I
00:41:20
don't have confirmation of this but I believe that the vehicle in question that Katie left in may have been Katie's
00:41:27
car all right so Katie goes to work and says Jessica you can use car borrow my car that's why she needs a ride from
00:41:33
from work and also that makes more sense too because if if it wasn't your car and
00:41:38
somebody was 15 minutes late picking you up you wouldn't really care so much but
00:41:42
if they're baring your car you're like you should be back here right at 5:00 well one thing about this house
00:41:50
though it's equipped with a video camera which does face the mailbox but any footage that may have been taken by the
00:41:57
camera has never been released and we don't know whether if it was ever even viewed by
00:42:03
the police Jesse why would it be viewed there's no crime well Jess Jesse the homeowner was evasive as to the footage
00:42:13
he told True Crime daily that he's never looked for the video then that he didn't
00:42:19
know the passcode then that the camera may not have been on or that it may may have
00:42:27
been recorded over already so he's been asked directly by someone regarding this
00:42:34
footage right but this is again a huge misstep if you know that there's a camera again you can assume all you want
00:42:42
that this is a somebody committed suicide or that this is some kind of you know accidental uh drug death that
00:42:50
they're going to cause suicide but now you have somebody saying that there is a video camera
00:42:57
recording the scene of the suicide or Foul Play and and you're not going to take one or two
00:43:06
steps to get that information so you can review it I mean how lazy are these people right right well let's let's
00:43:15
discuss the two major theories at work here right because law enforcement has determined that Jessica committed
00:43:20
suicide and the family is convinced that she was murdered so let's try to break down the evidence for each Theory first
00:43:30
could Jessica have committed suicide her family says there's no chance her friends say no Jessica was full of fun
00:43:40
and life but we know from some of the celebrity suicides lately that family members are sometimes the last to know
00:43:49
that their loved one was suffering right and we can never really know who is likely to self harm often it is those
00:43:59
you would least expect so I know as I'm saying this some of you are thinking of someone out there statistically drug
00:44:08
addicts are more likely to kill themselves than non drug addicts are and there is some indication that Jessica
00:44:16
was a tortured Soul her Facebook page is full of quotes that are a little dark some examples she posted in the 18
00:44:26
months before her death are quote this shade of black really brings out the color of my soul and quote we're not
00:44:33
broken just bent on the other hand some of her quotes are more upbeat quote positive mind Positive
00:44:42
Vibes positive life but it seems that those are in the minority and may have been her way of trying to lift her
00:44:51
spirits someone who knew her commenting on in online form after her death said that Jessica was so kind talented funny
00:45:02
but she was a very very sad person she hit it well but she had a troubled life of course she had troubled life for all
00:45:12
indications she's a meth user yeah and and and I would venture to say very likely addicted to
00:45:22
Xanax uh a meth user and addicted to would be my my guess here and you have one kid that's living with your
00:45:30
grandparents and then you have a 8-year-old and but but he's 19 though that's a little different it's not like
00:45:36
he's five well my question would be how long has he lived there because if he's lived there since he's five then
00:45:44
something's been going on I don't get that Vibe I get the vibe that he probably he's an adult and that's he's
00:45:50
choosing to live there and if that's the case that's fine but again my point being is here's somebody that was you
00:45:57
know a beautiful person everybody says so and she's seems to be full of life she has one kid that she raises then she
00:46:08
has another kid and she has a lot to live for but you know once you get addicted
00:46:14
to these things a lot of people can't shake that and that even puts you more into a spiral of depression so a lot of
00:46:22
times family members would say the the Jessica I know wouldn't kill herself well the Jessica you also really know
00:46:29
and love she wouldn't be using methamphetamines well yeah I mean from the outside looking in here's what you
00:46:36
have the most convincing argument for Jessica possibly committing suicide is it's a whole bunch of things that are
00:46:45
going on in her life that that we can see from the outside looking in right she's a struggling unemployed single
00:46:52
mother she's an addict and with a meth habit as we said she has mood swings we know this from the witness eyewitness
00:47:01
reports regarding the timeline of those three days and she's possibly in a an abusive relationship at this time well
00:47:10
and the other thing too about them saying she's too vain well if she was really that vain
00:47:16
she wouldn't be using methamphetamines mhm we've seen the before and after pictures of that mhm doesn't go so well
00:47:24
well and according to her friend and family that in the recent years leading up to this Jessica made some bad choices
00:47:31
especially when it came to her love life um she started dating men that were less
00:47:36
than desirable in her family family's mind yeah a note to all the wom out there again there are nice guys out
00:47:43
there it's possible to find one well regarding this relationship so this this is what we do know and what has been
00:47:50
said Jessica and Garland were dating on and off for over two years and Linda Johnson describes the relationship as
00:47:58
toxic Jessica's friends say that Garland was emotionally and physically abusive stringing her along and going back and
00:48:06
forth between Jessica and other women Garland was known to do heroin and deal heroin but it said that Jessica was
00:48:15
unquestionably in love with Garland but the dramatic swings of the relationship these are obvious even to
00:48:23
us looking at this because you have things like a Facebook post that say the heart gets confused when it's constantly
00:48:31
told I love you by the same person who destroys it this was from April of 2017 then there's a post December of
00:48:39
2016 that says I don't hate you I love you but loving you is killing me so this is goodbye even if I don't want it to be
00:48:47
which clearly that wasn't goodbye since we know in June of 2017 Jessica was still
00:48:55
right or again you know with Garland now Garland's friend Jesse the homeowner says that after Jessica left the house
00:49:05
on June 1st which keep in mind where we aren't even sure is factual right that Jessica sent him a text saying
00:49:14
essentially that she didn't want to feel the pain anymore now Jessica's friend summer Leed better saw the text and says
00:49:24
that to her that it just meant that Jessica was frustrated and that she not you know not that she wanted to leave
00:49:32
this world but she didn't want to be with her boyfriend anymore right and that's a possibility the other
00:49:38
possibility is is it a text of I don't want to feel the pain anymore of this relationship or is it I don't want to
00:49:46
feel the pain anymore of being addicted to these drugs or is it a combination of
00:49:52
all that well so Jesse did give some more information that may point to Suicide as being likely okay I if this
00:50:00
information is to be believed he did tell a local news station that quote one of my roommates told me Jessica was out
00:50:08
in the driveway and pulled the shoe strings out of her shoes and was threatening suicide and he basically
00:50:16
kind of just Shrugged it off and told her you know get out of here with that I don't want to hear it and he shut the
00:50:24
door on her that's what he's saying he was told by somebody else right he says that this would have went down around
00:50:31
6:00 p.m. according to Jesse now after this he said he didn't see Jessica again until she was found 16 hours later dead
00:50:42
at the mailbox well again he's pointing all these things towards suicide but he had a piece of equipment in his house
00:50:51
recording that mailbox and we could have had those answers if Jesse he would have
00:50:55
turned those over well he was not that's the tricky thing though according to his
00:51:02
answers we don't know if anything was recorded on that right you know what I mean we we don't know if it was working
00:51:10
you know he gives multiple answers so only one of them can be correct now but if Jesse is telling the truth about that
00:51:18
statement about what he said a friend of his witnessed in the his front yard essentially and we only have his word
00:51:26
for this because we have no indication that the police backed this story up with any other Witnesses right but if if
00:51:34
he is telling the truth then that means that Jessica pulled the laces out of her
00:51:38
Converse sneakers and killed herself now to do that she would have had to carefully tie the laces together to make
00:51:44
a large Circle the small knots are very close to the ends of the laces so then she would have had to Loop the knotted
00:51:54
lace around her throat twist it into a figure eight and loop the other end over the top of the mailbox post and then
00:52:03
lower herself down onto the ground the mailbox is only 38 in tall at its highest point it is doable but seems
00:52:13
very strange it's it seems like a very strange specific plan for a distraught woman that is high on meth to see a
00:52:23
mailbox and figure out how to hang herself from it rather than a tree it's also a shoelace so you'd question the
00:52:29
strength of the shoe string itself could is this even possible to kill myself using this right you do have to question
00:52:37
the the the strength of it now it wouldn't be required to to support her weight just a portion of it right so
00:52:44
there is one major argument against suicide in this case and that people believe that no woman would commit
00:52:53
suicide in such a public place in such a public Way by hanging herself from a roadside mailbox for the whole world to
00:53:02
see generally women commit suicide in a private setting by using pills and alcohol now this is would be just what
00:53:11
Jessica's mom said would be more likely for her to if she chose to commit suicide and even if Jessica were
00:53:20
hysterical high and determined to kill herself the property she was on had lots of trees on it with with accessible
00:53:27
branches yeah well you need a tree but then you normally need rope so maybe shouldn't have access to the to rope
00:53:35
yeah well unfortunately there is a very public Trend right now of people killing
00:53:42
themselves using low hanging you know tying themselves to door knobs and and things like that so it's not completely
00:53:49
out of the question so if Jessica didn't kill herself then someone else did the Johnson family is convinced that Jessica
00:53:58
was murdered and the Horn Lake authorities are not interested in finding out the truth in fact the police
00:54:05
report filed on July 3rd States specifically and clearly quote the the positioning of Jessica in the method use
00:54:14
sparked some concern that maybe there was more to this incident and that detectives advised they would do a more
00:54:22
thorough death investigation but nothing came of this and the family was permitted to view only three pages of
00:54:30
the seven page police report so a few months after Jessica's death the family started working with Dr Maurice Godwin a
00:54:39
forensics expert who has provided his consulting services in several high-profile cases Dr Godwin analyzed
00:54:47
the evidence in this case and came to the conclusion that Jessica was murdered and the death scene at the mailbox was
00:54:54
staged so let's look at the evidence that points to possible murder here right Jessica was found tied up with shoelaces
00:55:04
the shoe the shoes that the laces apparently came from a pair of brownish gray Converse Allstars were found either
00:55:12
inside or near the police report is unclear about this or near the house where Jessica was found hanging we can
00:55:20
only assume that they were hers although Linda says it was almost unheard of for
00:55:27
Jessica to wear shoes of this type so they may not have been Jessica's shoes no one thinks it's very likely that
00:55:34
Jessica would have pulled the laces out of the shoes in the driveway or inside the home and then walk Barefoot all the
00:55:43
way to the roadside to kill herself remember we said the house in the mailbox are separated by a few hundred
00:55:51
yards Dr Godwin suggests testing the laces for touch DNA but as we know unfortunately the laces have been lost
00:56:00
or they were destroyed so therefore not testable yeah furthermore Jessica's clothing that she was wearing that night
00:56:08
also destroyed burned any evidence on those clothes or potential evidence is lost forever Linda Johnson does not
00:56:17
recognize the clothes that Jessica is wearing in the death photo as belonging to Jessica she says Jessica always wors
00:56:24
spaghetti strap tank tops in summertime not camo t-shirts and in fact Jessica was wearing such a tank top when she
00:56:33
left Linda's house that Wednesday the clothes Jessica was wearing when she was found by the mailbox where did they come
00:56:40
from who did they belong to and where did Jessica's real clothes go Dr Godwin pointed to a tiny pin siiz St stain or
00:56:50
mark on the sole of one of the sneakers that he says should be tested for blood but since the shoes were returned to the
00:56:58
family clearly this was not done by law enforcement well the family making the statement before saying that she wanted
00:57:04
to kill herself again I I don't put a ton of weight to something like that because we don't know what other people
00:57:11
are struggling with what the struggles are inside and like you said which is a a great point is a lot of times the
00:57:18
family is the last to know how bad a family member is struggling but the fact that they don't
00:57:24
recognize her clothes at all and she lives with them yeah is is something strange there now it could be a simple
00:57:34
explanation but I don't know if we're going to get it from Jesse or Garland right right and and as you said earlier
00:57:41
the shoelaces being a weird thing to to be used in either a suicide or a murder for that matter right and we both agree
00:57:50
that that it's shoelaces are a strange thing to to use here well here here's what I wonder though is to me a shoelace
00:57:59
is more likely to be a murder weapon than it is a something that somebody use to commit suicide but see you know what
00:58:05
I go back and forth on that because I almost wonder like I don't know I I just I just feel like it I question when and
00:58:14
where did the shoelaces come out of the shoes is the whole thing for me right it
00:58:18
makes it actually makes more sense to me that the person intending to use them for suicide might have removed them from
00:58:25
their own shoes that's just the way the way that I lean um some of the items that were found with her so we have
00:58:34
Jessica's purse that was found between her legs the the purse was open and you can see that it contains a pink charging
00:58:43
cord a phone charging cord her black wallet is near her hand with a cord of some sort over her thumb yeah why would
00:58:52
she kill herself with her hand hands on her belongings like this it it just it looks much more like someone placed
00:59:01
those objects there afterwards now one thing I want to make sure that we point out here because this is very fishy this
00:59:08
is very suspicious Linda Jessica's mother says that as part of the drug deal that Jessica did that
00:59:18
day Jessica would have had over $500 in her possession or should have had over $500 in her
00:59:27
possession only $80 was found in Jessica's wallet right and that's something that they should look into but
00:59:35
we don't know her whereabouts we don't have every detail of where she went so was were there multiple drug deals that
00:59:42
took place did she buy more drugs did she give the money to somebody else there's a lot of details that were
00:59:51
missing yes she she I I think the word should have that money um we we don't know if she should have that money or
01:00:00
not Dr Godwin noted when the family got Jessica's purse back the clasp on the side the the piece of metal attaching
01:00:10
the long purse strap to the bag right was broken as if there was some type of struggle you maybe two people were
01:00:19
pulling at the bag in some kind of fight maybe there was some kind of robbery is
01:00:24
is what getting at with there she may have had or should have had $500 in her possession well that's what's so
01:00:31
frustrating with all these little points of evidence that point to possibly it not being a suicide it least warrants an
01:00:41
investigation an investigation into what actually [Music] happened and make sure you head over to
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