A class of high schoolers managed to solve the 35-year-old cold case of the Redhead Murders in Tennessee and surrounding states.
It started at Elizabethton High School in Tennessee, where teacher Alex Campbell was looking to engage and inspire the students through an unorthodox sociology assignment.
What started as an experiment on profiling—how can you build a picture about someone based only on known actions taken by them but with no other details—quickly turned into a true crime investigation, based partly on Campbell’s wife’s fascination with the subject which had rubbed off on the teacher.
Pulling out the old case files and looking at 6 of the 11 victims murdered between 1983 and 1985, the students started to use details of the case like the character of the victims, the places they were found, their age, and occupations to try and work out what would the murderer’s demographic details be like.
They determined he was likely a white, male, heterosexual with long hair on the wrong side of 30 or even in his 40s, and perhaps a truck driver.
The culmination of the students’ work was a press conference, attended by 60 people from law enforcement, local media, and community members, where they presented their findings.
Suddenly, police departments in the state began receiving a flood of tips from people who believed they might know the killer’s identity. Further investigations scored a real breakthrough, and soon DNA evidence found on a woman from a separate case was revisited, and it actually confirmed the killer’s identity. The students had done it.
Jerry Leon Johns, who died in prison in 2015 at the age of 67, was imprisoned for the attempted murder of Linda Schacke. Another six potential victims, of similar profile to the five confirmed ones, are associated with Johns’ murder spree which stretched from 1978 and 1992.
Schacke survived when the corner of her jacket got in between her neck and the piece of cloth from her t-shirt Johns was using to try and strangle her, which provided just enough space for blood flow to continue to her brain. Left on the roadside, she was found by a truck driver.
It started at Elizabethton High School in Tennessee, where teacher Alex Campbell was looking to engage and inspire the students through an unorthodox sociology assignment.
What started as an experiment on profiling—how can you build a picture about someone based only on known actions taken by them but with no other details—quickly turned into a true crime investigation, based partly on Campbell’s wife’s fascination with the subject which had rubbed off on the teacher.
Pulling out the old case files and looking at 6 of the 11 victims murdered between 1983 and 1985, the students started to use details of the case like the character of the victims, the places they were found, their age, and occupations to try and work out what would the murderer’s demographic details be like.
They determined he was likely a white, male, heterosexual with long hair on the wrong side of 30 or even in his 40s, and perhaps a truck driver.
The culmination of the students’ work was a press conference, attended by 60 people from law enforcement, local media, and community members, where they presented their findings.
Suddenly, police departments in the state began receiving a flood of tips from people who believed they might know the killer’s identity. Further investigations scored a real breakthrough, and soon DNA evidence found on a woman from a separate case was revisited, and it actually confirmed the killer’s identity. The students had done it.
Jerry Leon Johns, who died in prison in 2015 at the age of 67, was imprisoned for the attempted murder of Linda Schacke. Another six potential victims, of similar profile to the five confirmed ones, are associated with Johns’ murder spree which stretched from 1978 and 1992.
Schacke survived when the corner of her jacket got in between her neck and the piece of cloth from her t-shirt Johns was using to try and strangle her, which provided just enough space for blood flow to continue to her brain. Left on the roadside, she was found by a truck driver.
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