Naman Shrestha
In Prime Video’s ‘Murder 101,’ a high school sociology teacher named Alex Campbell led his students at the Elizabethton High School to investigate the Redhead Murders, which sent shockwaves across multiple states in 1984 and 1985. One of the homicides that took place during that time period was that of Tina Farmer, a married Indianapolis, Indiana, resident and a mother of one. Although the primary focus of their investigation was on Tracy Sue Walker, they also explored and dug deeper into Tina’s murder.
Tina Farmer’s Remains Were Not Identified Until 2018
On March 7, 1963, in Indiana, Tina Marie McKenney Farmer entered her parents’ world as a little bundle of joy. Described as a kind and compassionate woman, she knew how to light up even the dullest of rooms with her mere presence. In 1984, at the age of 21, she married the love of her life, Richard Lee Farmer, looking forward to spending the rest of her life with him. The couple’s love deepened with the birth of their daughter, Dana Renee Farmer, whom Tina doted upon. Residing in Indianapolis, she led a content life, surrounded by her friends and family. In 1984, the 21-year-old mother of one became pregnant and was looking forward to welcoming another child into the world. When she suddenly went missing that same year, her family filed a missing persons report.
While the police and her family continued to search for her, the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office received a call about the remains of a woman on January 1, 1985, found along Interstate 75 near Jellico, Tennessee. As the authorities reached the site, they noticed that the remains were badly decomposed and wrapped in a blanket, which had seminal fluid on it. The medical examiner conducted an autopsy, concluding that she had been killed about three days prior and was strangled to death. Since the deceased woman didn’t have any identification on her, she was referred to as Jane Doe for the time being. Decades later, on September 6, 2018, the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office determined that the remains found along Interstate 75 near Jellico belonged to the missing wife and mother, Tina Marie McKenney Farmer, by comparing finerprints.
Tina Farmer’s Suspected Killer Had Died in Prison Before Evidence Led to Him
As the police dug deeper into Tina McKenney Farmer’s life and retraced her movements before her disappearance, they learned that she was allegedly with a trucker, heading from Indianapolis to Kentucky. Once her remains were identified in 2018, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation revisited the case with renewed hope. In 2019, the detectives linked a man named Jerry Leon Johns to the homicide through DNA evidence found at the crime scene. However, Jerry had died in prison in 2015 at the age of 67 while serving a sentence for an unrelated crime. In 1987, he had been convicted of aggravated kidnapping, assault, and other crimes in connection with the 1985 attack on Linda Schacke in Knox County, Tennessee.
It was alleged that Jerry could be responsible for several other murders around 1984 and 1985, as the detectives found plenty of similarities, including the fact that the deceased women had red hair, just like Tina Farmer. Finally, on December 18, 2019, the grand jury ruled that Jerry would have been indicted for Tina’s homicide had he still been alive. Years later, when the sociology teacher and students at the Elizabethton High School dug deeper into the cases, they theorized that Jerry could also be the perpetrator who killed Tracy Walker, Michelle Inman, Lisa Nichols, and Elizabeth Lamotte.
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