Cleveland man identified as murder suspect in 1985 cold case slaying

Jerry Johns
Jerry Johns
photo Jerry Johns

A grand jury on Wednesday implicated a now-deceased Cleveland, Tennessee, man in a slaying that has remained a mystery for more than three decades.

The Campbell County Grand Jury found that if Jerry Leon Johns, who died in prison in 2015 serving time on a conviction for aggravated kidnapping and assault, were alive today, he would be indicted on a charge of first-degree murder in the death of Tina Farmer, according to a news release from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

"While I am extremely disappointed that this case has not ended 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 over thirty-four years," the release quotes District Attorney General Jared Effler as saying.

The jury finding came after TBI Special Agent Brandon Elkins, who had been investigating the case for more than a decade, resubmitted in November 2016 the victim's clothing, along with a blanket that had been wrapped around her body, to the TBI Crime Lab for testing, the release states. When the items were analyzed, semen was detected. A DNA profile was then entered into the Combined DNA Index System, resulting in a match with Johns.

"We hope this will help provide long-sought answers for Tina Farmer's family," said TBI Director David Rausch. "We also want this case to provide hope for other families in our state who are still waiting for answers. Our team will never give up on unsolved cases like this one as long as there are viable leads to follow."

photo Tina Farmer

On Jan. 1, 1985, TBI special agents were requested to investigate the homicide of a female whose bound body was found along Interstate 75 in Campbell County. Autopsy results revealed the victim had been strangled and likely died several days prior to her body being discovered. Investigators were unable to determine her identity and she was listed as a Jane Doe. All leads were exhausted, and the case remained unsolved.

Farmer was identified as the victim in August 2018, after agents were made aware of a blog that focused on missing persons cases. One of the people listed on the site was Farmer, who was reportedly missing from Indiana. She matched the description of the Jane Doe discovered on the side of the road in 1985. TBI Intelligence Analyst Amy Emberton was able to track down a fingerprint card on Farmer from the early '80s, according to the release. Those fingerprints were compared against the postmortem prints of the Campbell County Jane Doe, resulting in a positive identification.

"During the course of the investigation, Agents learned that two months after Ms. Farmer's body was located in Campbell County, Jerry Johns picked up a woman in Knox County and proceeded to strangle and bind her before dumping her body along Interstate 40. The woman resembled Tina Farmer, and the circumstances in both cases were strikingly similar," the release states. "The victim in that case miraculously survived, and her statement led to the arrest of Jerry Johns on numerous charges, including aggravated kidnapping and assault. He was convicted on those charges in 1987. Johns died in December 2015 while in custody, before new leads were developed in the Tina Farmer case."

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