High school sociology students identify suspect in 40-year-old ‘Redhead Murders’ cold case

A group of high school students in Elizabethton, Tennessee , did something local law enforcement couldn’t do in 40 years. They identified a suspect in the murder of Tina McKenney-Farmer, one of the 14 victims in the “Redhead Murders,” an unsolved series of murders in the south in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

All of the victims were white women with reddish hair who died similar deaths. They were strangled and disposed of on the side of major highways in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia.

The students’ work was part of a sociology class taught by Alex Campbell in 2018. The class's goal was to uncover whether the killings were the work of one man . The students’ incredible detective work on the case was documented in a popular 10-part podcast, Murder 101 by iHeart True Crime.

Campbell assigned the project to his students because he enjoys "projects that get the students interested, projects where we can apply what we're learning in our classes,” he told People . “I had never heard about the murders even though I've lived here my entire life. They had these murders, but nobody had ever come to a consensus whether there was a person responsible for more than one of them, was there a serial killer active?"

Over one semester, they determined that 6 of the women were likely to have been connected to the same murderer and labeled him the “Bible Belt Strangler.” They also helped identify one of the unidentified victims, Tina McKenney-Farmer.

The class also brought in a former FBI agent, Scott Barker , who taught the 20 students how to profile a case. He told the students that to connect all of the murders to one killer, they needed to identify four things: the timeframe, geography, signature and the M.O. or modus operandi.

The students came to the conclusion that McKenney-Farmer was murdered by Knoxville trucker Jerry Johns, who died in prison in 2015 after being convicted of kidnapping and attempted murder in 1987. Johns picked up a woman, strangled her and left her along Interstate 40.

“If we look at Tina Farmer’s case and how she was killed, do these other cases match the M.O., the signature, the time frame and the geography is all the same and we have five other murders that match it completely. So, we know who killed her. He should be the primary suspect in the killing of all these others,” Campbell told CBS 12 News.

DNA evidence later proved that the students were correct by linking Jerry Johns to the McKenney-Farmer crime scene. Investigators now believe that Johns may have been responsible for more of the Redhead Murders.

By the end of the year, the students had also identified 6 victims in the Redhead Murders.

Tennessee State Legislature commended the students for their work. However, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has never publicly credited them with the discovery.

“It’s things that law enforcement haven’t been able to do in 30-40 years. That just gives me so much confidence that when you’re passionate about something, and you’re willing to put in the work, you can get it done and you can really go above and beyond any expectations you have,” student detective Reiley Whitson told CBS 12.