Madison Meeks 

Editor in Chief

mvm7037@psu.edu

ELIZABETHTON, TN– After a cold case has stumped investigators since the late 1970s, a group of high school students in Tennessee have cracked the case. These murders were called the “Redhead Murders” due to all of the victims having reddish hair. According to People Magazine, “The victims, most of whom were unidentified, were found dumped along major highways in Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.” Law enforcement believed that the killer was likely to be a truck driver who had picked up women at truck stops and then disposed of the bodies in nearby states. The investigators tried to solve the murders in the mid-1980s, but their efforts never were successful. 

A group of high school students at Elizabethton High School in Tennessee started working on the case as a part of their sociology class in the spring of 2018. The teacher of the class, Alex Campbell, said in a statement to People Magazine that he likes “projects that get the students interested, projects where we can apply what we’re learning in our classes. 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 on whether there was a person responsible for more than one of them. Was there a serial killer active?”

He stated that the goal of the project was for the students to uncover if the killings were the work of one person. The students even had gotten assistance from a former FBI agent, who had helped them learn how to profile a case. People Magazine stated that “they saw a potential pattern in six of the 12 to 14 murders attributed to the spate of killings and even helped identify one of the victims, Tina McKenney Farmer.”

McKenney-Farmer was found strangled and bound alongside Interstate 75 in Campbell County on January 1, 1985. DNA that was found at the crime scene was able to be linked by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to Jerry Johns. He died in prison in 2015 after being convicted in 1987 for attempted murder of a woman that he picked up, strangled, and dumped along Interstate 40. 

The students firmly believe that there is evidence that whoever killed McKenney-Farmer also killed the other victims, Lisa Nichols, Michelle Inman, Elizabeth, Lamotte, Tracy Walker, and Jane Doe, who have yet to be identified. 

According to People Magazine, “ A Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesperson tells PEOPLE that the investigation into the murders of Michelle Inman, Elizabeth Lamotte, and Tracy Walker ‘remain active and ongoing’”. They also stated that there is no sufficient evidence indicating that Jerry Johns is responsible for the deaths of Elizabeth Lamotte or Tracy Walker. 

The students are continuing their investigation into the murders. They have even started their podcast called “Murder 101,” hoping to bring attention to the cases.