TBI Special Agent Brandon Elkins (left) answers questions on Thursday afternoon during a news conference where the names of a victim and suspect in an almost 35-year old Campbell County murder case were revealed.  With Elkins at the Knoxville TBI Headquarters are TBI Director Brad Nealon (middle) District Attorney General Jared Effler (right).

By Charlotte Underwood

KNOXVILLE, TN (WLAF) – A decades old murder case came to a close on Thursday when the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation held a press conference announcing grand jury findings in the death of Tina Marie Farmer of Marion, Indiana. She was 21 at the time of death. 

According to the Campbell County grand jury findings, Farmer’s body was discovered on Jan. 1. 1985, near the side of interstate 75 in Campbell County, at Mile Marker 149. She had been strangled, bound by her hands and feet and wrapped in a blanket and “dumped right off the side of the interstate.” She was also pregnant.  Her cause of death was strangulation. Located on the blanket and on her shirt was semen. Due to the lack of DNA Serology in 1985, the semen was not identified.

Tina Marie Farmer’s body was discovered on Jan. 1, 1985, along I-75 in Campbell County.

For more than 30 years she was unidentified as was her killer. That all changed in Jan. 2017 when TBI Special Agent Brandon Elkins re-submitted the blanket and shirt for testing, and it was determined the semen belonged to Jerry Johns, a long-haul truck driver formerly of Cleveland, TN. Johns had originally been identified as a suspect in the mid-1980s and according to Elkins he “was never really ruled out.”

Farmer remained unidentified until August 30 when Elkins, along with the help of other T.B.I agents were able to identify her with a finger print card the agency secured. Agents also compared DNA samples from Farmer with those of her relatives and found a match.  “We were able to use today’s technology to solve yesterday’s crime …” Elkins said. He also gave credit to “social media” and a missing persons website which listed Farmer as reported missing from Indiana and was the “tip that led to the family” and her identification.

Jerry Johns died while incarcerated in a Tennessee prison in 2015.

Jerry Johns died while incarcerated in a Tennessee prison in 2015. At the time of the murder, he would have been 36. He had been charged with felonious assault and attempted murder on another female two months after Farmer’s body was found in Campbell County and was placed into police custody in Knox County on March 6, 1985. The victim was similar in appearance with red hair and according to the indictment, Johns picked her up in Knox County and “proceeded to strangle, bind and dump her body off the side of an interstate in Knox County.” According to old newspaper accounts she was dumped in a storm drain on March 5, 1985. The victim lived and Jerry Johns was subsequently convicted of multiple offenses, including intent to commit first degree murder. He was sentenced to 73 years for his crimes and died while in prison before he could be indicted with Tina Farmer’s death.

Agents believe Farmer had been at a truck stop near her home town in Indiana before her death. “Mr. Johns was a long haul truck driver and we believe the connection lies somewhere in there,” Elkins said. Despite Jerry Johns being a suspect in the 1980’s, “they were limited with DNA technology and there was not enough probable cause to charge him with this murder.” Elkins said. “DNA technology changing is what made all the difference.”  If Johns were alive today, he would be charged with first degree murder, according to District Attorney General Jared Effler.

“While I am extremely disappointed that this case has not concluded in the prosecution of Jerry Johns, I am pleased that this investigation has answered questions for Ms. Farmer’s family that heretofore had gone unanswered for 34 years,” Effler said.

Elkins said the “most challenging” thing for him was not being able to charge Jerry Johns with murder because he is “already dead.”    Elkins has worked on the cold case for over a decade and had it originally assigned to him while he was a Campbell County detective for the sheriff’s department.

According to him, the case had been a lot of “hard work and dead ends,” over the last 12 years.  “It has been rewarding to call and speak to family members and tell them we’ve solved a 34-year old murder. The family was happy to have some sort of conclusion, but like for the rest of us, it’s an odd conclusion because he’s already dead,” Elkins said.

“This is a perfect example of how determination, combined with traditional police work and modern day science can lead to major developments in cold cases,” TBI Director Brad Nealon said.

It is undetermined if this case is connected to several other similar slayings. During the 1980s, Farmer’s murder was thought to possibly be part of a series of murders that at the time were dubbed the Red Head Murders due to the victims all having red hair. Around half of the victims were found in Tennessee and several others near the border in neighboring states.  In 1985, the Lexington Herald Leader did a story on the murders, noting that at least 11 women in areas “spanning several states” had been killed and that most of the victims were unidentified and had red hair. The article lists Jerry Johns as a “possible suspect in some of the slayings” but also notes that he “was in jail” when one of the bodies was discovered in a refrigerator in Knox County, Kentucky, near Corbin on April 1.

During this time, the Kentucky State Police reported “getting 20 calls a day from area residents, mostly from red haired women or families of redheads.” Johns was also questioned at the time by authorities in Crittenden County, Arkansas, regarding an unidentified woman who had been found along Interstate 40 near West Memphis, Arkansas.

Authorities also looked at several other suspects in the 1980s, including a Pennsylvania truck driver who was arrested in West Tennessee for kidnapping a red headed woman and holding her captive. He was not charged in the slayings.

TBI agent David Davenport was quoted in the April 16, 1985, edition of the Lexington Herald Leader as noting that authorities were faced with unidentified victims. “And if they’re unidentified, you can’t go back and see who they were with last,” Davenport said.

According to Elkins, technology is what bridged that gap and helped solve Tina Marie Farmer’s identity and the identity of her killer.  During the investigation into Farmer’s death, the T.B.I. has spoken to other state and local agencies and “tried to see a connection” to the other unsolved murders.  There is currently no connection between Johns and the other murders yet; however, the agency is working with other agencies in other states to see if a connection exists, according to Elkins. “We are open to options on that and are still looking into other possibilities on other cases, but right now, I can’t tell you with any definitive proof that he was involved in other cases. Our hope is now that we’ve come to a conclusion is that this case can help to see if there is a connection with Mr. Johns and other cases,” Elkins said.

“We have more cases like this to pursue, and we will pursue them as time and resources allow because we believe justice demands it,” said TBI Director Brad Nealon said. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 12/20/2019-6AM-PHOTOS COURTESY OF WLAF’s CHARLOTTE UNDERWOOD)

 

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