Sole survivor of serial killer speaks out after high school students with podcast help crack 40-year cold case
Gerrard Kaonga
Featured Image Credit: WBBJ TV/ X/@ElizCitySchools
The sole survivor of the 'Bible Belt Strangler' has spoken out for the first time and detailed her experience following the conclusion of the cold case.
In a surprising turn of events, high school students were able to shed light on a 40-year-old cold case thanks to the help of their Tennessee sociology and history teacher, Alex Campbell.
In 2018, Campbell decided to have his students to solve a series of cold case killings and recently spoken out about their success.
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More than 20 students worked on finding a potential connection between a long line of redheaded, white women who were murdered in the surrounding area in crimes that became known as the ‘Redhead Murders’
The killings involved up to 14 possible victims whose bodies were found abandoned along major highways, some of the women were also believed to be prostitutes.
The group were able to agree that six of the victims were potentially connected to the same killer, known as the ‘Bible Belt Strangler.’ The class also identified a potential suspect, trucker Jerry Johns.
Johns died in prison in 2015 after being found guilty of strangling a prostitute in Knox County, Kentucky, back in 1985.
These students are now revealing their astonishing findings in a ten-episode podcast, Murder 101. A victim of Johns, only referred to as L, spoke to Campbell while on the podcast.
“There’s no reason for me to be alive except the good Lord let me live,” she said on the podcast, according to a report by the New York Post.
“I didn’t even know Jerry Johns had died, but [an FBI agent] called me and told me that they used DNA and proved that he killed this other girl,
“They questioned me when it happened and [one of the girls] looked very similar to me.”
Tina McKenney-Farmer was linked to Johns in 2018 through DNA evidence.
“There was a whole bunch of them that they questioned me about,” she continued.
“We sat at this big, huge, long table and there were photographs of all these women and some of them looked like photographs of me.
“There were dozens of girls that looked a lot like me, and they called them the Redhead Murders.”
Campbell praised L for her bravery in speaking out and began to well up with tears.
“This is a terrible, tragic story for a lot of people and a lot of families, but if there’s a hero, it’s you,” he said through tears.
“Your will to live is what got him arrested and kept him off the streets.”