What happened to Jessica Johnson?

37 year old jessica johnson was always ready for her close-ups she was always dressed up and really pretty and she knew it she's fancy glammed up diva a beautiful woman who never went unnoticed she was the life of any gathering whether it's just you and her or a room of a hundred jessica was energetic outgoing loved people not judgmental at all she was just fun to be around jessica especially loved her two kids son mclean and daughter eden when she found out she was pregnant with maclean she was nervous i was nervous for her um she was excited too for the single mom her two kids were her everything anything that had to do with her kids jessica was always there for him and so were their grandparents jessica and her kids lived with her mom and dad they've been part of our life just like she has she was a good mom when she was doing good and then you know of course she had her her problems some of those problems her family says were hanging with the wrong crowd i was disappointed in her in the choices she was making what she was doing and according to her sister kayla jessica's new taste in men she was normally really picky on guys so it was surprised her last two boyfriends that she had were pretty mean and controlling and kind of narcissistic what was she attracted to about these guys well i don't know i can't explain how what she was attractive i mean the crazy thing is jessica's never been attracted to men but it was tattooed up neither one of my girls have ever had any tattoos piercings or anything like that michelle bland believes she knows why her good friend was attracted to bad boys i think some women just think they can save certain men but in early june it would be jessica who needed saving the first sign of trouble her mother couldn't reach her thursday i kept trying to get in touch with her and said this is very unusual for jessica she always made sure that she you know text and most times she even sent me her locations this time jessica didn't text or send her location instead linda learned of her daughter's whereabouts from the county coroner he told me that my daughter had committed suicide and i'm like it's not possible it was a dark discovery on a sunny mississippi day jessica's body found in the most bizarre of circumstances literally tied to a mailbox at a home less than five miles from her parents house the male lady found her she freaked out and she called to get help and anyway another mailman come there and he he took pictures that's the pictures that we got the disturbing images show the mother of two on her knees with her legs curled under shoe strings fashioned into a noose around her neck her purse open on the ground placed between her legs there's no way she's going to have herself displayed out for the world to see her like that she had no makeup on or that's not her even before seeing the horrifying candid images jessica's family and friends didn't believe she could commit suicide let alone by hanging herself her drug of choice was xanax she would have went to sleep and believe me jessica would have had herself fixed up she would have looked like sleeping beauty why are you so certain that it could never be suicide she loved her babies she loved her babies she would not they're all she had and they're all that they had the gruesome photos convinced them even more that jessica had not taken her own life the way that they they put her out there only people that are not in their right mind would do something like that and say this is going to look normal it was like a display she was put on there for display but on her death certificate desoto county coroner jeff pounders ruled her death a suicide caused by asphyxiation the certificate stated no autopsy was performed but a private forensic scientist named dr maurice godwin now working for the johnson family to investigate the case says a partial autopsy was performed police ruled jessica johnson's death a suicide do you agree no a gruesome roadside display the body of a mississippi woman found tied to a mailbox you can clearly look at that and say there's something not right did the beautiful mother of two do this to herself to hang yourself right here at this location you would have to do amazing things or was it an attempt by a killer to cover up the crime looking at the photographs and everything i just knew there was something suspicious for david johnson losing a child was heartbreaking enough they took my daughter but his pain was made even worse for two reasons my granddaughter my grandson they don't have their mom he lost one of his two daughters his grandkids lost the only parent they've ever really known how do you explain this type of death to her dad well this is why i want to make sure that my grandchildren aware that their mother did not take her own life despite what the medical examiner put on their daughter's death certificate the johnsons don't believe jessica committed suicide he could have checked undetermined or pending investigation as they they're claiming now with the final medical examiner's report still months away and desperate for answers now the johnsons turned to forensic scientist dr maurice godwin it should be homicide but at least at the minimum it needs to be changed undetermined dr godwin has two decades of experience working on high profile murder investigations is it possible from your expertise to successfully hang oneself from a 38 inch post in a shoelace well i've stopped using that term hang and prefer to use the term tied to dr godwin recently met with linda to explain why he doesn't believe her daughter took her own life this should be sent to the crime lab and the strange scene certainly is hard to explain the body found on the ground with bent knees and her neck tied to a waist high mailbox fashioned like a noose with two shoe strings based on the way the string is around her adam's apple here she would never passed out anyway because i don't think there's enough pressure to put her to cut off the air he says the positioning of her body against the mailbox also doesn't make sense the majority of the force and the pressure was on her cheek bone in that position he tells me jessica would have been in excruciating pain she's alive supposedly when she sits down there so she has to put up with that pressure on her jaw from the edge of that four by four post until she dies never happened not possible never happened and if the shoelace could cause enough pressure to strangle her he says there would be a very noticeable scar left behind how much indent do you see that string making compared to her jaw little something else he finds suspicious in my opinion she didn't she didn't tie this the knot used to tie the shoelaces together it is so precisely tied really close to the end so to me that would be difficult to tie this without a proper lighting too i don't think that jessica will be capable of doing that former memphis police officer rome marino has also been looking into jessica's death as a favor to her family he agreed to meet us at the mailbox where her body was discovered by the mail carrier someone that's coming and erratically trying to hang themselves in the cover dark and look here we're in a this is a rural area so it's very dark no street lights anything not going to be as precise or not and that's important it was late at night in addition to it wasn't a long string just two shoe strings tied together that's right andy says complete darkness would not have been jessica's only obstacle keep in mind when i'm down here it looks clean okay this grass was up here the former police officer doesn't believe the mailbox which stands just over three feet would have held up under the weight and force of someone's struggle i'm just barely touching it and you see how it's almost coming out of the grass right mourinho has investigated many crime scenes during his years in law enforcement and like dr godwin he doesn't think jessica committed suicide to me and to anyone with some common sense would know this is not a suicide by hanging she was placed here that was a staged crime scene what else about it indicates it was staged the purse if jessica had hanged herself dr godwin says her hand would not have remained resting on top of her purse if you are being suffocated in the air and life is going out of you your hand would not be in that position and he questions her hair which appears to be entangled in the shoelace well she has to get adjusted right right will the female just flip it on top there and what that allows it to do be closer to the skin when visiting the mailbox for himself something else didn't add up for dr godwin if you did want to hang yourself there's plenty of trees around i've looked at them there's there's some low lying limbs why are you going to choose the u.s postal service mailbox if she would have been suicidal jessica would never done it that way based on statistics jessica's mother is right women are far more likely to commit suicide by taking pills if they would have told me that she had overdosed on xanax i think i might have believed that but for now asphyxiation by hanging is the cause of death listed on her daughter's death certificate the final report from the state medical examiner is expected by the end of the year her body should have been given to a known forensic pathologist for detailed autopsy dr godwin says he isn't expecting the report to reveal much new information since only a partial autopsy was performed jessica should have never been cremated let's make it clear who made the decision that a cremator in their grief and confusion jessica's parents made the heart-wrenching decision to cremate jessica due to financial issues and they also believe the police had the necessary evidence to investigate it's a decision they regret now they're convinced jessica needs justice [Music] a male carrier makes a disturbing discovery a dead mother tied to a mailbox with a shoe string with her face right here like this did what happened next help a killer get away with murder they know that they had contaminated this investigation evidence alleged to have been mishandled what is the family doing with the shoes or is now missing so basically the evidence is now disintegrated gone common sense goes a long way in law enforcement the horrific death of jessica johnson left her family and friends filled with unimaginable grief and what's happened since has only made it worse i'm hurt because there's people on that force we went to school with that know her um and i don't know why they're not doing anything i've never been so disappointed in the police they say this case is open but they will not investigate anyone why do you think a homicide investigation initially wasn't even acknowledged or initiated in any way well i think it's uh her lifestyle and who she was hanging with although her family admits the young mother had battled drug addictions for years they say she had been trying to fight those demons dr godwin believes her drug use likely changed the direction of the investigation though she did not overdose the coroner says she did have meth and xanax in her system when she died and if this had been a college female or a housewife you know with no background or anything found in the mailbox oh you wouldn't ever hear the end of it our request to the horn lake police department for an on-camera interview was declined but in a statement to crime watch daily captain nikki lanfer says tips and information that we have received have been investigated as far as we are concerned this is still a death investigation but if the investigation into jessica's death is still open forensic scientist dr maurice godwin doesn't understand why potential evidence has already been returned to her family this should be in law enforcement's hands dr godwin found what he believes could be evidence pointing to a possible murder her blood shouldn't be there including what appeared to be a blood spatter on her shoes in my opinion that's what it looks like it all needs to be processed and on her purse something that until now jessica's family hadn't noticed this is completely broke the metal connecting the strap to her purse had been ripped off what kind of force does it take to break this off of here he believes it's a clear sign that jessica was involved in some type of altercation there was somebody else with her that night and there was some there was a struggle it's what her family first suspected after seeing her body at the funeral home there were holes in her hand holes not all of the potential evidence has been returned to the family some of it is gone my suggestion was to take this shoelace and swab it for touch dna but the shoe strings that had been fashioned into a noose are missing that's evidence how do you lose evidence also gone the clothes jessica was wearing the night she died they returned her purse and not the clothes she was wearing in the photo we were calling the funeral home and the medical examiner nobody could find her clothes her clothes were burned destroyed according to the family the funeral director said jessica's clothes were sent to him in a biohazard bag but dr godwin doesn't understand why as far as i saw there was no blood on the clothing something basic that you learned in the academy how to correctly preserve a crime scene former memphis police officer roe marino believes critical evidence was destroyed from the start of the investigation they wrote on top of here like it was nothing he says photos show cop cars parked too close to the body he also claims potential witnesses were ignored now this neighbor right here was never questioned by the police but marina believes the most erroneous oversight by detectives involves security video from the actual home where jessica's body was found it requires a pass a passcode to get into them and they didn't ask for a passcode police did not ask the homeowner for the passcode to look at the security video that could have captured all of this that's correct and it turns out in the days before her death jessica had been hanging out at that home with her boyfriend who lived there on occasion the home is owned by his best friend we wanted to ask him about the supposed security video he didn't want to talk on camera but off camera the man confirmed there was a camera facing the mailbox but that police never got the passcode to access it i would expect him not to to give over the code freely you know or to say no i haven't looked at it but the police i expect more from but oddly the homeowner had many changing stories about the video first he told me he's never looked for the video when i asked if i could he said he didn't know the passcode he then said the camera may not have been on or that it may have been recorded over already and there's another critical piece of evidence no one has been able to look into either it's jessica's cell phone do you think that holds answers i know that helps answers but the phone is locked and no one has the code they could have used jessica's fingerprint too but they didn't think about doing anything like that on the day her body was found jessica's family says her teenage son received a text from his mom's phone at 3 29 a.m based on the reported condition of her body dr godwin estimates jessica had been dead for at least eight hours when the mail carrier found her that would mean the text was sent right around the time she died or perhaps even after either somebody had her phone somewhere else and sent that message or they were standing at the mailbox around 3 30 a.m sent the message to try to throw off everything and then they just put it in a purse and walked away either way jessica's family says eight hours before she was found dead she certainly didn't sound like somebody ready to commit suicide in the message she said she would be spending the day with g referring to her on-again off-again boyfriend of more than two years garland hart i seen the pictures of him and she showed me the picture i'm like how far down do these tattoos go linda johnson says she never could understand what her daughter saw in him she claims the relationship was toxic i think that there was times in their relationship where they enjoyed each other and have a little bit of fun but the bad at way the good in their relationship jessica's friends agree they all paint a very dark picture of the relationship he was mentally abusive he was physically abusive she said specifically she knew he was able to hurt her she was like a possession to him there were times where i'd have to go pick her up you know because they had gotten into an argument or altercation and she'd be so hysterical and she'd be like this guy is gonna kill me so why didn't she leave him i think she just wanted to save him you know i think some women just think they can save certain men friends say they tried to convince her to call it off i really urged jess to get away from him and i would always ask them why do you why are you there but anytime jessica did get away she'd go right back you know with jess you could give her advice but she was going to do what she wanted to do and friends say two nights before her death she wanted to go with garland to his best friend's house she went over there to meet garland because he told her well he lived there if jessica johnson didn't commit suicide then how can anyone explain this she was put there to make it look like that she did that to herself the pictures of jessica johnson that fill her facebook page are a far cry from the ones taken by the postal carrier who found her tied to a mailbox nothing about that looks normal jessica's family doesn't believe she committed suicide they believe she was murdered how why and when are all unanswered questions but friends and family can now piece together some of her movements in the days and hours before her death linda johnson says the last time she talked to her daughter was two days earlier jessica was at my house on wednesday afternoon she says that's when jessica had gone shopping with her on again off again boyfriend garland hart my granddaughter said that wednesday that they were at the thrift store they were getting some clothes for him some jeans linda claims the couple had a volatile relationship that at times turned violent i begged her please you know stay away from them despite the pleas from her mom and close friends jessica kept going back and late wednesday night is exactly when jessica and garland went to his best friend's house across town i'm melissa with crimewatch daily remember he is the man we questioned about supposed surveillance video at the home where garland sometimes lived and where jessica was later found hanging from the mailbox did she frequently go to that house was she comfortable there with the homeowner yes she was but jessica's good friend michelle bland was not how would you describe that house and the people in it a place you don't want to be we'll put it that way when we spoke to the homeowner he said he'd need to talk to a lawyer before showing his face on camera which never happened but in an earlier interview with our memphis affiliate wmc he says he hadn't seen jessica and garland together in months and claims something seemed off when they arrived at his house that evening from the time they showed up wednesday to thursday she seemed out of her normal self by thursday he says the couple had gotten into a big fight according to her friends that's when jessica called for help she was locked in the bathroom with her cell phone afraid of garland she wanted a girlfriend to come pick her up and get her out of there did she when she got there she was stopped by garland who said jessica was the one that was irrational and causing all the problems he told her that he couldn't handle her anymore maybe she should get her out of there after about 45 minutes leanne moreno claims jessica's friend left jessica ended up not leaving the homeowner says he didn't think much of the fight or a text he claims jessica sent him later that night after she was no longer in the house i got the text message from her talking about you know she just didn't want to feel the pain anymore jessica's childhood friend summer ledbetter saw the text to me it was just she was just frustrated not that she wanted to leave this world meaning be with ex-boyfriend but the homeowner claims someone did see jessica threatening to kill herself that night before the text was sent one of my roommates told me she was out in the driveway and pulled the shoestrings out of her shoes and was threatening it and he basically kind of just shrugged it off and told her you know get out of here with that i don't want to hear it he shut the door on her he says that was around six o'clock thursday evening after that nobody reportedly saw jessica again until the mail courier found her tied to the mailbox 16 hours later after 6 pm she just vanishes and no one sees or hears from her again until she's found it's just not possible that's not jessica he says there were at least a half dozen people at the house coming and going on both wednesday and thursday it's hard to believe that she sat out there from 6 p.m on thursday till what 9 30 or 10 30 friday morning without anybody seeing it that's why he says jessica's body may have been placed at the mailbox shortly before it was found whatever happened to her it didn't happen here he admits there's something suspicious about jessica's death the way she was tired too that was kind of unsettling you know what i mean that kind of gave you the feeling that she didn't do it to herself but he doesn't believe his good friend garland had anything to do with it i wouldn't let anything happen to her you know anybody do anything to her if i could you know help it linda johnson isn't so sure i've prayed about this and prayed about this that if i'm wrong for god to take this out of my heart but she says whatever happened to jessica she believes garland knows more than he's telling so we decided to ask him ourselves do you know where he is or where he's staying after first ordering us off her property a woman who claimed to be garland's girlfriend agreed to an interview if we didn't reveal her identity there's no way he could have hurt that girl you said he loved her very much so they loved each other she claims on the eve of jessica's death garland was with her i know that he arrived here before the sun went down and he was here for days after that she also told us where we could find garland ironically enough at court where he was wanted on a charge of domestic assault against her i'm with crime watch daily can i ask you a few questions about jessica before facing a judge garland hart faced our cameras and stopped to talk i love jessica anybody that knows me would know i could never do that to her he says he voluntarily went in for police questioning and has fully cooperated with the investigation police have never named him or anyone else a suspect in jessica's death garland believes the truth will eventually come out anybody that's accused me of that that and when they see that it had nothing to do with me as i've been cleared already i willingly went down there myself because that was my best friend so i don't expect an apology because it would anger me what he said next we didn't expect to hear but yes i do feel like something happened to her because i don't think she would do that to herself even though some of jessica's friends and family accuse him of being involved in her death just like them he doesn't believe she committed suicide i don't want my name clear because i don't care i don't give i don't care that doesn't mean anything because in the end jessica's still not gonna be here but if somebody did do something to her i want to know who did it because her son her daughter deserves to know he clearly has heard the accusations her family has been making against him if her mother wanted to know the truth though why would she spread lies about me that she knows to be lies they have to have somebody to blame i understand that that i'll be that dude but i'll never apologize for something i didn't do especially to somebody that i love do you have any idea who would have harmed her and do you really think i don't know i don't know i don't know what to think and i don't want to pass accusations because that's what everybody's done to me and i just don't know but you understand why the family is so confused i'm not mad at them in any way it was the first time garland had spoken publicly about jessica's death he admitted it probably wasn't the best thing to do i'm not a lawyer i don't know i shouldn't be doing this right now it's not wise on my behalf but i don't care i would die in prison as an old man just to know that who did that to her but before anyone will face that fate jessica's death needs to be investigated further how do you convince police to look at this differently not as a suicide two ways word of mouth somebody talking if she was killed forensic scientist dr maurice godwin says someone needs to snitch but without that further pursue forensics and that's exactly what horn lake police say they're waiting for before the investigation goes any further he says jessica's cause of death needs to be changed in a statement to crime watch daily captain nikki landfield says the state medical examiner will be the individual who determines the cause and manner of death that report she says will take roughly four to six months to complete in the meantime tips and information that we have received have been investigated and she tells us right now they found nothing linking garland or anyone else to jessica's death i want the police to do their job i don't think it's too much to ask the johnsons say until they find justice for jessica they'll never stop searching for the truth what would you say to that person who may have harmed her and thought they got away with it we're not going to stop do we find out who you are i just want my grandchildren to know that their mama did not take their own life anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the horn lake police department at 1-662-393-6174 jessica's family is determined to find out the truth about her death but what will that take here to break down this story is attorney rachel coogle thanks rachel for being here so much with so much evidence pointing to a potential homicide why do you think the suicide ruling was made yeah i think that the police made an assumption based on the call that came in initially reporting a hanging reporting a suicide they made an assumption and they stuck with that assumption and never deviated they never looked at this evidence as anything but they never looked at whether it was actually possible for her to have done this to herself physically whether it was possible to tie that knot for example it's not easy to hang yourself from something that's short to be clear why do you think law enforcement handed over potential evidence to the family like shoes that had blood off that's crazy to me to me these are the kind of mistakes that were made in this case is that they just assumed it was a suicide and so they acted accordingly gave back property that should never have been done short of somebody coming forward and saying i saw jessica being murdered is there a chance we can reopen this case i mean i think there is i think the family is moving forward with their own investigation and i think unfortunately they've had to do that they've had to take the reins in this regard i think as they find out more information it gets media attention you might actually see the police start looking back into it rachel coogle thank you so much as always for insight into this case

Channel: undefined

Views: 1,586,317

Rating: 4.7603235 out of 5

Keywords: Jessica Johnson, Kayla Mancil, Mississippi crime, DeSoto County Coroner Jeff Pounders, Dr. Maurice Godwin, DeSoto County Mississippi, Horn Lake Police Department, Garland Hart, Crime Watch Daily, True Crime Daily

Id: yiGmLLMV1yI

Length: 31min 34sec (1894 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Marserina]

There's several things about this case that just don't add up to me. I don't think it was suicide and I think there should have been a deeper investigation.

[u/Special-bird]

There are too many questions and inconsistencies to right off rule this a suicide. And like her mom said, I find it so hard to believe if she really wanted to kill herself she’d do this and not overdose.

[u/HoneyMinx]

I'm having trouble reconciling the timeline from the night she was last seen. It seems her and her boyfriend arrived to the friend's house Wednesday night, they got into a huge fight some time Thursday, and she's last seen/heard from Thursday night around 6 P.M.

The boyfriend's new girlfriend, Barefoot Betty, says he came to her house that night and stayed for several days. So he just bounced from the friend's house and left Jessica there? A roommate just happened to see her removing shoelaces from her shoes and thought "Oh okay NBD"???

Suddenly she dies of "suicide" after she was scared enough to barricade herself in a bathroom and call a friend to pick her up in the hours before she was last heard from?

She very spontaneously kills herself at the house of a friend of her boyfriend?

None of that makes any sense, and quite frankly, this "suicide" with shoelaces reeks of some type of quick "jailhouse" type of staging and ingenuity.

[u/JustTryinToBeNice]

Yes, this case is very strange. I believe the home where she was found had security cameras but for whatever reason there was no footage of the incident, although there should have been.

And while you can hang yourself from anything if you're determined enough, the way the shoelaces were wrapped around her, even over her face/mouth I believe, just doesn't seem quite right.

Tragic case either way.

[u/idk_seriously]

I agree! Something is fishy with the boyfriend & his friend they were staying with.

[u/idk_seriously]

I live in the same county & Jessica is a friend of friends. I agree you technically can hang yourself from anything but in this case it doesn't make sense. The investigation here is awful to say the least.

[u/primalprincess]

Missouri is one of my favorite states, mad love for Missouri but some of the creepiest/weirdest explained deaths come out of the state!

[u/experiencedesign]

You can hang yourself from anything that has enough strength to hold a cord that will put pressure in your throat.

[u/Toadie9622]

Robin Williams hanged himself from a door knob.