STRAWBERRY PLAINS, Tenn. — The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Thursday it solved a more than three-decade-old cold case, but there's no evidence at this time that it's connected to a string of similar murders.
On January 1, 1985, the body of a woman was found along I-75 in Campbell County. Fingerprint comparisons helped identify her in 2018 as Tina Marie McKenney Farmer, a pregnant woman in her 20s who was reported missing from Indiana. It has been believed she was a victim in the Redhead Murder killing spree, where six similar victims were found dead along interstates in Tennessee and Kentucky in the mid-80s.
Thursday, the TBI said the man believed to be responsible for Farmer's death died in prison in 2015.
This week, a Campbell Co. Grand Jury found there was enough evidence to indict Jerry Johns of Cleveland, Tennessee, of first-degree murder in Farmer's death, according to District Attorney General Jared Effler.
Brad Nealon, Deputy Director of the TBI said Johns was a suspect when Famer was killed in 1985 because he was under suspicion in a similar case in Knox County, but there wasn't enough evidence. Johns was convicted of felonious assault of a woman in Knoxville and has been behind bars ever since.
Johns was a long-haul trucker and while investigators can't say for certain, it's known that Farmer was seen at a truck stop near her home town in Indiana before her death, so that maybe how the two connected.
For years, Farmer's case has been linked to a number of other unsolved crimes from the time, called the redhead murders, based on the victims' hair color.
But Thursday TBI investigators said at this time, there's no evidence supporting that. However, they will continue to look into similar cases with other investigating agencies to see if there's a link.
A group of students from Elizabethton High School has been working to revive interest in the cases, which they call the Bible-belt murders.
Investigators are also using DNA to help identify another possible victim of the redhead killer, a woman who has only been known as Kentucky Jane Doe for decades.