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

DNA students proved the students’ hunch was correct.

via Tennessee Bureau of Investigation

Tina McKenney-Farmer and Jerry Johns.

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?"

‘Bible belt strangler’: How did high school students solve 40-year-old cold case murder? | Dan Abramwww.youtube.com

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.

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An amazing new study shows that youth violent crime is down 78 percent since 1994

The kids are alright.

Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash
women forming heart gestures during daytime

Here’s another positive trend in America that you probably won’t hear on your local TV news, where if it bleeds, it leads. A new report based on FBI data found that violent crime among those ages 17 and under dropped 78% from 1994 to 2020.

The study found a big drop in youth violent crime in 2020 and although some of that can be attributed to the pandemic, violent crime rates were already trending in that direction.

“In 2020, there were an estimated 424,300 arrests involving persons younger than 18—38% fewer than the number of arrests in 2019, and half the number of arrests 5 years earlier,” according to the study. “Less than 1 in 10 (8%) of these arrests were for a violent crime.”

The report may come as a surprise to a lot of Americans, who are inundated with news stories about crime every night on the news. A study by HuffPost and YouGov found that the average American is woefully uninformed about the state of crime in America.

The 2020 poll found that only 10% of Americans correctly believed that crime had fallen over the past decade, while 57% incorrectly believed it had risen.

“If you report crime increasingly, then people will often think it's increasing,” Vincent Schiraldi, a senior fellow at the Columbia University Justice Lab, told NPR. “But there's been about a two-thirds decline in the number of kids locked up. At the same time, we're actually treating the kids when they screw up, rather than just throwing them in these facilities that often exacerbate the crime.”

News of the positive trend should encourage politicians and judges to push for rehabilitation programs instead of long prison sentences for young people.

“These data reflect an encouraging trend—one that has in fact been developing over the last three decades—and offer a welcome counter-narrative to claims that youth crime is on the rise,” OJJDP Administrator Liz Ryan said in a press release. “They also give us reason to be optimistic about the course of juvenile justice reform, particularly efforts in many jurisdictions to replace harsh punishments with personal development opportunities and to design programs that build support into accountability.”

The data also gives researchers more information to make smarter decisions on policies affecting young people.

“The continuing decline in youth arrests overall, and for violent offenses in particular, gives us important information about the volume and nature of arrests that should be considered when developing strategies to support youth and reduce their justice involvement,” NIJ Director Nancy La Vigne said in a press release.

The drop in youth violent crime mirrors the trend in violent crime in America over the past 30 years. In 1991, 758.2 out of 100,000 people were the victims of violent crime. This number dropped by almost half by 2019 (380.8). There has been a slight uptick in violent crime during the pandemic.

The recent increase in violent crime in America has been characterized by many on the right as the result of criminal justice reform in liberal-leaning cities. However, red states have seen some of the highest murder rates of all.

A positive trend with America’s youth bodes well for the country's future. When young people are less violent that means the adults of the future will probably commit fewer crimes as well.

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Health

Breakthrough study says $500 worth of therapy and $200 cash saves men from a life of crime

More proof that therapy works.

via Commander U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Flickr

Chris Blattman shares the results of a 10-year study on crime.

"What if I told you that roughly $500 for therapy + a little cash helped the most troubled young men in West Africa drop their crime and violence by half. For at least 10 years," Chris Blattman, professor of global conflict studies at the University of Chicago, opens a stunning tweet thread introducing the results of a study he began 13 years ago.

Blattman traveled to Liberia in 2009 with his wife as she did research on reintegrating ex-fighters from the war. Blattman had free time so he met up with Johnson Borh.

“He was a combatant in the war and now ran some kind of NGO. He seemed to know everyone and be able to go everywhere. So I asked him to show me around how the crime and drug markets worked,” Blattman tweeted.

Blattman couldn’t get over the fact that wherever they went, men would run over to Borh and give him a big hug. “How do you know Borh?” he asked them and every time he heard a similar response.

“I used to be like them,” and they’d point to the drug den or pickpockets. “But then I went through Borh’s program.”

For 15 years, Borh and his colleagues ran the STYL: Sustainable Transformation of Youth in Liberia program to help transform the most dangerous men in the city. “They met in abandoned buildings, in groups of maybe 20, for a couple of hours a day. Johnson trained some counselors, and they eked out a living on the program,” Blattman wrote.

Blattman got his team of researchers together to do a larger version of a similar program using the cognitive behavioral therapy techniques used by Borh. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an approach for reducing self-destructive beliefs and behaviors and promoting positive ones.

“Things looked really good. So I recruit my coauthors to help run a large-scale study,” Blattman tweeted. “We scaled up, raised a million dollars, and ran a huge randomized controlled trial with 999 of the toughest men in Monrovia.”

The therapy sessions focused on three types of behavioral change. The first was an attempt to get the men to “behave and self-identify as normal society members rather than as an outcast or criminal.” The second was to foster future orientation over present-biased behavior. The program taught skills to “manage emotions, reduce impulsivity, become more conscientious and persevering, and become more planful and goal-oriented in their daily activities.”

Finally, the team worked to teach the men how to deal with anger, interpersonal violence and threatening situations.

The researchers also held a cash lottery where some men were randomly selected to win $200. The men were told they could do anything with the money but were encouraged to use it to start a business or make home improvements.

The team followed up a year later and the results were inspiring.


Those who received the CBT and the cash slashed their antisocial behaviors by 50%. Those who had just therapy saw decreasing results over time, but those who received the cash and therapy had their new, positive behaviors more deeply entrenched.

Ten years later, the team was a little uneasy about seeing if the impact had lasted.

“I was pessimistic,” Blattman said. “We surveyed experts in advance. Almost all expected CBT Only or Cash Only to have no effect whatsoever after 10 years. For Therapy plus Cash, one-third of the experts predicted no effect at all. 2/3 predicted steeply diminished impacts.”

However, the researchers found that crime and violence were still down by 50% with those who got the CBT and cash.

“The therapy helped participants change their intentions, identity and behavior, and provided almost daily commitment and reinforcement,” the study’s conclusion states. “After eight weeks of therapy, the grant provided some men with the cash they needed to maintain their new identity—to avoid homelessness, to feed themselves, and to continue to dress decently.”

Blattman believed that his team’s findings are important and should be put into practice today in America for two reasons. “Gun violence is spiking in the Americas,” he tweeted. “Cities need solutions. They’re searching for ones that don’t involve coercion.”

Second, it works.

“All the evidence suggests CBT-informed programs are fast, effective, hyper-targeted, non-coercive ways to reduce violence,” he wrote.

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The IRS requires criminals to report and pay taxes on their illegal income. Yes, seriously.

@litcapital/Twitter

The IRS requires criminals to report their illegal income.

You know how sometimes you see something come through your social media feed and you think, "There's no way that's real," only to then have your mind blown when you find out it actually is real?

This is one of those times.

Twitter user @litcapital shared a post that appeared to be a screenshot from the IRS website with two entries on it:

"Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Schedule 1 (Form 1040), line 8z, or on Schedule C (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity.

Stolen property. If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless you return it to its rightful owner in the same year."

Yes, you read that right. Dealing illegal drugs? Gotta pay taxes on that income. Stealing property? Gotta report that as income.

Surely this is made up, right?

Nope. Go here: https://www.irs.gov/publications/p17. Do a "Find" search with your browser and enter the word "illegal." Then put in "stolen." You'll find the entries listed under "Other Income," worded just like this.

We can all agree that taxes are overly complicated, and few of us have the time to read through every single IRS publication to figure them out. But requiring criminals to report illegal activity and stolen goods on their taxes? Really?

Someone had to actually come up with this policy. Someone had to say, "Hey, I think we should tell criminals that they have to report their criminal profits on their taxes," and someone else had to say, "Yeah, that's a good idea." Someone had to approve it. Someone had to type it up and publish it, too.

Did they all do this with a straight face? Was it a serious conversation? Did any brave soul say, "Um, that's stupid. No one is going to do that," because it's obviously stupid and clearly no one is going to do that?

That was my first thought upon seeing these tax requirements.

However, as it turns out, there actually is a good reason these policies exist. Illegal income does get reported sometimes, namely when someone has been caught (or thinks they're about to be caught) in some illegal activity and they don't want to get hit with a tax evasion charge in addition to whatever financial or property theft crime they've committed.

According to CNN Money, New England accountant Tom Hughes paid taxes on money he stole from his clients in 1999, 2001 and 2004. "I knew the money was taxable, there was no doubt about that," Hughes told the outlet. "I had already been caught, and I didn't want to face federal tax charges."

He now gives speeches on financial crime and professional responsibility. Go figure.

However, Hughes is the exception, as tax experts told CNN that most criminals don't report their illegal incomes. Duh. According to San Francisco tax attorney Stephen Moskowitz, most of those who do are facing embezzlement charges and are trying to avoid Al Capone-ing themselves. He has helped some of those clients document their illegal gains to avoid doubling their legal trouble due to illegal tax activity.

So basically, we have to have official tax requirements for illegal income in order for criminals to not be able to get away with tax evasion for that income. Still seems like a bizarre policy to actually write out in words, though, even if it makes sense from a legal perspective.

Humans are weird and money is weird and both things just seem to keep getting weirder. Yay us.

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