To catch the killer: classroom edition!
When Tennessee sociology and history teacher Alex Campbell decided to ask his students to try to solve a series of cold case murders in the spring of 2018, he never thought they would end up identifying suspects — and land a true crime podcast six years later.
In fact, he told his original student group to “be prepared” to fail because top law enforcement officials have been “working on this for years and they’re getting nowhere,” Campbell told The Post Wednesday.
All Elizabethton High School students want is to identify one of the women and spread the word.
“My students have never let me down, I’ve given them some hard things to do,” Campbell said in a phone interview. “But when they know they’re helping people, they work really hard.
“They never cease to impress me.”
Now the students reveal their findings in a 10-episode podcast called Murder 101, sharing how they obtained their evidence.
When sociology and history teacher Alex Campbell decided to ask his students to try to solve a murder in the spring of 2018, he told them to “be prepared” to fail.
In 2018, more than 20 young people went to find the connection between the long trail of red-haired white women who had been murdered in the surrounding area and how they might be related.
Dubbed the Redhead Murders, the puzzling crime involved up to 14 possible victims whose bodies were found abandoned along a major highway in the South. It is believed that some of these women are prostitutes.
Cynthia Louise Taylor was murdered in 1983.
What Campbell’s class did was originally simple on paper: try to see how many women could be connected to a single killer.
And in that one-semester sociology class, they agreed six of the potential victims were connected to the same man, whom they called the “Bible Belt Strangler.”
The women have been identified as Lisa Nichols, Michelle Inman, Tina McKenney-Farmer, Elizabeth Lamotte, Tracy Walker, and one – from DeSolo County – remains unidentified.
As part of the class, Campbell brought in former FBI behavioral analyst Scott Barker, who told students to verify their relationship, they needed to identify four things: time frame, geography, modus operandi – better known as “MO” – and signature.
Tina McKenney-Farmer was identified by students as the victim. TBI
All six women were found between 1983 and 1985, Campbell said, and in nearby areas and states. Three from Tennessee and the others from West Virginia, Kentucky and Arkansas. They also all died from close range conflicts and were dumped on the highway.
One of the women was found naked and in a refrigerator, a student revealed on the podcast. Another was just a skeleton when he was found by a driver after his body had been decomposing for months. A third were found over a fence, beaten and strangled and 10-12 weeks pregnant at the time.
The women have been identified as Lisa Nichols, Michelle Inman, Tina McKenney-Farmer, Elizabeth Lamotte, Tracy Walker (pictured), and one — from DeSolo County — remains unidentified.
What surprised Campbell the most was the “empathy” her students built for the women who died over the course of the semester.
“You as a teacher plan what you want your students to learn,” said the 23-year-old educator. “But you can’t predict what students are actually learning… And they’re learning more than I ever imagined.”
The “proudest” moment came when his students began referring to the victims as “their six sisters.”
Although the woman’s real family did not reject the police, the students decided it was their duty to continue to fight for their justice.
Michelle Inman was also identified.
“For a 14- to 17-year-old to think like that, it really amazes me how mature my students are,” Campbell said.
Parents are also on board, including a father who is a former police officer, who hopes his daughter will learn to avoid situations similar to the woman’s.
But Elizabethton High students are doing more than just learning about the “real world,” they’ve even identified Jerry Johns as a potential suspect. Johns died in prison in 2015 after being convicted of strangling a prostitute in Knox County, Kentucky, in 1985.
They have also identified Jerry Johns as a potential suspect. TBI
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation later announced the late truck driver as a suspect, not crediting the student or podcast producer Shane Waters, who Campbell said he took harder than them.
The TBI is investigating to see if Johns can be tied to the other Redhead Murders.
Although he doesn’t have students actually working on the case at the moment, since the class is only taught once a year, Campbell thinks the students’ work, both from 2018 and last semester, could lead to justice.
“I really think we’re going to get justice for this woman,” the teacher, who has taught at the school for 15 years, told The Post.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
