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The Murder of Schoolteacher Jana Carol Simpson · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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  Speaker 1: Gone Cold. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. August nineteen eighty nine, the air
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  Speaker 1: in southeast Fort Worth was heavy, thick with late summer
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  Speaker 1: heat that made the pavement radiate and the portable classrooms swelter.
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  Speaker 1: Teachers at Glen Park Elementary were back on campus getting
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  Speaker 1: rooms ready for their students who were arriving back to
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  Speaker 1: school the following week. Inside the temporary portable buildings behind
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  Speaker 1: the main structure, boxes of textbooks waited unpolished floors, hopeful
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  Speaker 1: little stacks for a new school year. But on the
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  Speaker 1: steps of one of those portables, just after noon, a
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  Speaker 1: teacher was found lying face down. Colleagues thought she had
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  Speaker 1: fainted from the heat, then they turned her over and
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  Speaker 1: saw the blood. From that moment, a realization and began
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  Speaker 1: to echo through Fort Worth. Someone had stabbed twenty four
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  Speaker 1: year old Jana Carrol Simpson. She was pronounced dead at
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  Speaker 1: John Peter Smith Hospital at around two pm. It was
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  Speaker 1: her first day at work at Glen Park and it
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  Speaker 1: was supposed to be the beginning of a life she
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  Speaker 1: had intentionally arranged to be closer to home and family. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: it became a crime scene in broad daylight at an
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  Speaker 1: elementary school in a city that suddenly had to reckon
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  Speaker 1: with just how unsecure normal could be. Jana Carol Simpson
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  Speaker 1: was born on February sixteenth, nineteen sixty five, in San Antonio, Texas.
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  Speaker 1: She was the middle child of Mike and Sue Simpson.
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  Speaker 1: She had an older sister, Cindy, and a younger brother, Chris.
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  Speaker 1: Her father's work in the oil business meant the family
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  Speaker 1: never stayed in one place for too long. Mike Simpson
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  Speaker 1: had worked his way up from the oil fields into management,
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  Speaker 1: eventually serving as president of Cherco, a company that manufactures
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  Speaker 1: gas compressor rigs. That job meant transfers San Antonio, Houston
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  Speaker 1: small towns in Oklahoma. The family grew used to packing
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  Speaker 1: up and starting over, but it wasn't always easy for
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  Speaker 1: the kids. Jana was naturally shy, and uprooting every couple
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  Speaker 1: of years only made her quieter. Still, her gentle manner
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  Speaker 1: drew people in. Her mother remembered that Jana never raised
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  Speaker 1: her voice, never picked fights. Her peers described her as
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  Speaker 1: kind but reserved, the kind of girl who might sit
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  Speaker 1: quietly until you get to know her and then reveal
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  Speaker 1: a dry sense of humor, but when she was around children,
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  Speaker 1: the shyness melted. Kids were her element. By the time
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  Speaker 1: Jana was in high school, the Simpsons had settled in
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  Speaker 1: Longview in East Texas. She attended Pine Tree High School,
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  Speaker 1: where she graduated in nineteen eighty three. At Pine Tree,
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  Speaker 1: she was active, but not flashy. She played soccer and
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  Speaker 1: ran cross country, and was a member of Junior Achievers
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  Speaker 1: and Future Homemakers of America. Friends remembered her as book smart, modest,
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  Speaker 1: and tall five foot nine, with an athletic build and
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  Speaker 1: long stride. Tatures at Pine Tree also noticed how Jana
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  Speaker 1: seemed to thrive in structured environments. She wasn't the type
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  Speaker 1: to lead cheers or chase popularity, but she was steady,
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  Speaker 1: always on time, neat handwriting, and good grades in yearbooks.
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  Speaker 1: Classmates described her as sweet and serious. It wasn't lost
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  Speaker 1: on her peers that she gravitated toward younger children, often
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  Speaker 1: helping with church, nursery or babysitting jobs in the neighborhood.
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  Speaker 1: Looking back, it seems obvious she was preparing for the
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  Speaker 1: classroom long before she knew it. At first, though her
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  Speaker 1: parents dot Jana might pursue medicine, she had the grades,
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  Speaker 1: the steady temperament, and the compassion to be a pediatrician,
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  Speaker 1: but she had other ideas. Jenna wanted to teach. The
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  Speaker 1: classroom did something for her. Her mother explained years later,
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  Speaker 1: she felt alive when she was helping children, whether it
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  Speaker 1: was tutoring, babysitting, or just listening to them. After graduating
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  Speaker 1: high school, Jana enrolled at Stephen F. Austin State University
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  Speaker 1: in Nacadocius. There she found her place. She studied education,
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  Speaker 1: earned her teaching certificate in nineteen eighty seven, and spent
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  Speaker 1: her college years laser focused on her goal. Professors described
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  Speaker 1: her as conscientious, never cutting corners, always willing to stay
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  Speaker 1: late to polish a lesson plan or practice teaching strategies.
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  Speaker 1: Jena wasn't chasing a paycheck, she was chasing a calling.
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  Speaker 1: College friends remembered her dorm room walls covered with construction
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  Speaker 1: paper cutouts and teaching posters, where others decorated with band
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  Speaker 1: posters or movie stills. Jana kept early childhood lesson plans
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  Speaker 1: tacked up during student teaching rows. She stayed late, tidying
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  Speaker 1: classrooms long after supervising teachers had gone home. She wanted
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  Speaker 1: every kid to feel seen. One classmate said. Her first
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  Speaker 1: teaching position was in Potit, a small town about twenty
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  Speaker 1: five miles south of San Antonio. Potit was famous for strawberries,
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  Speaker 1: not for stability. Classrooms were crowded, resources were thin, and
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  Speaker 1: Jana was learning on the job, but she excelled. She
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  Speaker 1: poured herself into her students, staying late to grade papers
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  Speaker 1: and making personal connections. Parents and Potit remembered her as
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  Speaker 1: warm and approachable, someone who listened even when she didn't
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  Speaker 1: have answers. But Jana longed to be closer to her family.
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  Speaker 1: She talked often about her parents, about wanting to spend
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  Speaker 1: more time in Longview, and about how important family were
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  Speaker 1: to her. Later, she accepted a second grade position at
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  Speaker 1: Effie Morris Elementary in lake Worth, just northwest of Fort Worth.
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  Speaker 1: Effie Morris was a Title I school serving children from
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  Speaker 1: working class families. Jana fit right in her Fellow teachers
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  Speaker 1: said she was always smiling, someone who brightened the lounge
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  Speaker 1: even on long, hard days. She wrote to students who
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  Speaker 1: had moved away. She sent postcards while visiting her brother
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  Speaker 1: Chris and Frankfurt, West Germany in June of nineteen eighty nine,
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  Speaker 1: he was stationed there with the US Army. Jana celebrated
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  Speaker 1: birthdays with cafeteria cake. She never forgot a child's face.
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  Speaker 1: She was the teacher who volunteered for the messy jobs
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  Speaker 1: supervising recess in August, staying with children whose parents were
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  Speaker 1: late to pick them up. Jana wasn't loud or dramatic.
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  Speaker 1: She was reliable. Parents trusted her, students adored her. She
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  Speaker 1: was popular among faculty. Two friends remembered how she loved
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  Speaker 1: silly practical jokes, like swapping out chalk with a piece
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  Speaker 1: of soap just to see the look of surprise when
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  Speaker 1: a colleague tried to write on the board. Jana joined
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  Speaker 1: her church choir in Longview. When she went home on
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  Speaker 1: the weekends, she wrote long letters to her college roommate,
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  Speaker 1: updating her about her students. When her contract was renewed
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  Speaker 1: in lake Worth, the district hoped she would stay, but
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  Speaker 1: Jana received an offer she couldn't pass up, one that
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  Speaker 1: came with the better pay and benefits. When fort Worth
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  Speaker 1: ISD offered her a position at Glen Park Elementary, she accepted.
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  Speaker 1: She found an apartment in Haltam City and had already
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  Speaker 1: arranged to move into a new place in South Arleaneington.
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  Speaker 1: Once school started, boxes were stacked in her current apartment
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  Speaker 1: waiting for moving day. She had plans, career plans, family plans,
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  Speaker 1: life plans, all of it just beginning, and then came
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  Speaker 1: her first day at Glen Park Elementary. The morning of Monday,
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  Speaker 1: August twenty eighth, nineteen eighty nine began like any other
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  Speaker 1: back to school day for faculty. Teachers across the district
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  Speaker 1: gathered at Will Rogers' Memorial Center for the annual convocation.
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  Speaker 1: Superintendent Don Roberts gave his pep talk, reminding teachers of
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  Speaker 1: their mission, encouraging them to make a difference in their
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  Speaker 1: students' lives. It was equal parts pep rally and ceremony
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  Speaker 1: to set the tone for the year. The event wrapped
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  Speaker 1: up at around eleven fifteen am, after teachers headed to
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  Speaker 1: their campuses to begin the real work of setting up classrooms.
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  Speaker 1: Jana drove with her map tucked beside her, guiding her
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  Speaker 1: to Glen Park Elementary, a campus she had never visited before.
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  Speaker 1: Glen Park sat on Pacas Street in southeast Fort Worth.
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  Speaker 1: The neighborhood was modest, full of small frame houses, some
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  Speaker 1: ranch style and some bungalows, chain link fences, and patches
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  Speaker 1: of overgrown weeds. Crime rates in the area were higher
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  Speaker 1: than average. Neighbors knew not to leave their doors unlocked,
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  Speaker 1: but the school itself carried a reputation for being relatively safe,
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  Speaker 1: at least compared to others in the district. Fort Worth
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine was a city of contrasts. The
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  Speaker 1: oil bust of the early eighties had left scars, job losses,
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  Speaker 1: and shuddering businesses, but it was also growing. Expanding south
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  Speaker 1: and west southeast fort Worth, where Glen Park stood, was
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  Speaker 1: a community often overlooked. Poverty rates were higher, police calls
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  Speaker 1: for burglaries and assaults were routine. Teachers assigned to campuses
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  Speaker 1: there knew they were serving children from struggling families, and
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  Speaker 1: they often went above and beyond to provide stability. Like
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  Speaker 1: many campuses in the late nineteen eighties, Glen Park was overcrowded.
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  Speaker 1: The district relied heavily on portable classrooms to handle the overflow.
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  Speaker 1: These weren't modern modular buildings. They were wooden barracks style
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  Speaker 1: portables with rickety steps and poor insulation. In the summer,
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  Speaker 1: they baked in the winter. They chilled. Teachers assigned to
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  Speaker 1: them often felt isolated, cut off from the main building.
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  Speaker 1: Jana's third and fourth grade classroom was in one of
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  Speaker 1: those portables, tucked at the back of the property. That morning,
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  Speaker 1: teachers bustled about, some hauled bulletin board paper, some unpacked
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  Speaker 1: boxes of workbooks, and others arranged desks. At all needed
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  Speaker 1: to be done. At around eleven thirty, most of the
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  Speaker 1: faculty left for lunch, chatting as they piled into cars.
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  Speaker 1: Jana stayed behind. She was new to the building and
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  Speaker 1: wanted to get a head start. She carried supplies into
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  Speaker 1: her classroom, sorting them into neat stacks, and wrote her
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  Speaker 1: name across the chalkboard. Witnesses later said she was smiling
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  Speaker 1: that morning, introducing herself to colleagues and thanking the custodian
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  Speaker 1: who helped carry in her boxes. She seemed eager, even
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  Speaker 1: a little nervous, like any t t about to start
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  Speaker 1: with a new group of kids. When the other teachers
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  Speaker 1: returned from lunch at around twelve forty, they rushed into
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  Speaker 1: action when they saw Jana. She was lying on the
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  Speaker 1: steps of her portable, face down. At first, it looked
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  Speaker 1: like she had collapsed. The heat was brutal, and fainting
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  Speaker 1: seemed like the most plausible explanation. A teacher grabbed ice
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  Speaker 1: and rushed forward. As they got closer, their hope crumbled.
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  Speaker 1: Jana wasn't unconscious, she was covered in blood. Chaos broke out.
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  Speaker 1: Teachers screamed, some sobbed so hard they nearly collapsed. Teacher
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  Speaker 1: Joan Guess later described the scene. I tried to hold
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  Speaker 1: onto a couple of ladies that were crying so hard
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  Speaker 1: they were almost sick. Someone quickly made it to a
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  Speaker 1: phone and dialed nine to one pint one. Paramedics arrived
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  Speaker 1: and tried desperately to save Jana's Simpson. They performed CPR
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  Speaker 1: applied pressure to wounds, but the injuries were catastrophic. Jana
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  Speaker 1: had been stabbed repeatedly in her chest, neck, and head.
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  Speaker 1: One wound severed her spinal cord. She was rushed to
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  Speaker 1: John Peter Smith Hospital, but by two pm doctors pronounced
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  Speaker 1: her dead. The attack was savage and senseless. It happened
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  Speaker 1: in broad daylight on school grounds, with others just a
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  Speaker 1: few hundred feet away. The murder of a young teacher
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  Speaker 1: on her very first day sent shockwaves through Fort Worth
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  Speaker 1: At Effie Morris Elementary, where Jana had taught the year before.
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  Speaker 1: Principal Janis Miller fielded call after call. Parents wanted reassurance
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  Speaker 1: was their beloved Miss Simpson really gone. Teachers wept in
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  Speaker 1: the hallways. One colleague remembered how Jana had phoned the
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  Speaker 1: night before asking which third grade teacher had received her
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  Speaker 1: old students. She recalled how deeply Jana cared about her kids.
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  Speaker 1: As she struggled through tears. In Longview, her family leaned
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  Speaker 1: on the church. Gregton United Methodist Pastor Emmett Borrow said
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  Speaker 1: the Simpsons were crushed, but their faith anchored them. Friends
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  Speaker 1: and neighbors dropped off food, wrote cards, filled pews at
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  Speaker 1: prayer services. Meanwhile, the school district scrambled. Superintendent Don Roberts
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  Speaker 1: called the murder devastating. Beginning the very next day, off
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  Speaker 1: duty police officers were stationed at Glen Park. Plans were
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  Speaker 1: announced to hire campus monitors once classes began. Assistant Superintendent
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  Speaker 1: Dan Powell explained the urgency when you have someone out
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  Speaker 1: there with no more regard for human in life than that,
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  Speaker 1: you have to take every precaution. But parents and neighbors
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  Speaker 1: were already rattled on Pakas and Moberly Streets and all
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  Speaker 1: the surrounding roads. Fear spread like wildfire. Seventy seven year
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  Speaker 1: old Edwin Siebert admitted he now kept a gun under
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  Speaker 1: his pillow and relied on his dog Sandy to protect him.
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  Speaker 1: Eighty year old Clyde Honeycut said bluntly, if I had
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  Speaker 1: anywhere else to go, I'd move. Parents promised to walk
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  Speaker 1: their children to school each morning and pick them up
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  Speaker 1: every afternoon. Teenagers cut their curfews short, making sure to
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  Speaker 1: be home before dark. Women stopped going out alone at night.
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  Speaker 1: It exposed a troubling contradiction. Glen Park was officially considered
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  Speaker 1: a low crime campus, which meant no monitors or stationed security,
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  Speaker 1: but the neighborhoods was plagued with burglaries, assaults, and thefts.
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  Speaker 1: Teachers working in the portables now knew how vulnerable they were.
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  Speaker 1: Security was minimal. At emergency school board meetings that week,
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  Speaker 1: parents packed the room. Some shouted at administrators, asking why
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  Speaker 1: teachers were left unprotected in isolated portables. Others begged for
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  Speaker 1: metal detectors, locked gates, or escorts to parking lots. The
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  Speaker 1: idea that campuses were sacred ground, safe from the outside
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  Speaker 1: world suddenly seemed like a naive illusion. The sense of safety,
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  Speaker 1: already fragile, was shattered. What had happened to Jana could
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  Speaker 1: have happened to any of them. Fort Worth Police detectives
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  Speaker 1: faced a puzzle. Jana's purse was untouched, her jewelry still
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  Speaker 1: in place. She hadn't been robbed, she hadn't been sexually assaulted.
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  Speaker 1: Both the motives were off the table. Her wounds told
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  Speaker 1: a story. Jano was stabbed more than seventeen times. Some
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  Speaker 1: were defensive, as if she had fought desperately. Others were deep,
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  Speaker 1: aimed to kill. Whoever had attacked her had done so
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  Speaker 1: with startling ferocity. Police canvassed the area. Neighbors reported seeing
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: a teenager near the school that afternoon, described as a
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  Speaker 1: black male, maybe thirteen to fifteen years old. Homicide Sergeant
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  Speaker 1: Paul Kratz said they wanted to speak with him, though
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  Speaker 1: they stopped short of naming him a suspect. Officers scoured
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  Speaker 1: the field across from the school, mowing tall weeds and
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  Speaker 1: sweeping the ground with metal detectors. They hoped to find
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  Speaker 1: a knife, any trace of the murder weapon. They found
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  Speaker 1: no days passed. Detectives interviewed colleagues, neighbors, and parents. They
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: checked Jana's background, looked for any sign she had been targeted.
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  Speaker 1: They came up empty handed. For a time, investigators even
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  Speaker 1: considered whether a transient might be responsible. Glen Park sat
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  Speaker 1: near several busy thoroughfares, and it wasn't unusual to see
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  Speaker 1: drifters cutting through the neighborhood, but no one turned up.
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  Speaker 1: Police looked into Jana's short time and fort Worth, her apartment,
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  Speaker 1: her coworkers from Lake Worth, her church contacts, but there
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  Speaker 1: were no disputes, no jealous boyfriends. She was, in every
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  Speaker 1: sense a young woman with no enemies. It was beginning
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  Speaker 1: to look like the case might stall. But then attention
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  Speaker 1: shifted to someone who fit the description sort of, and
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  Speaker 1: it was someone who had been seen on the campus
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  Speaker 1: that very day, a boy named Michael Allan Johnson. Michael
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  Speaker 1: Allan Johnson was no stranger to Glen Park Elementary. He
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  Speaker 1: had just turned twelve the day after Jana's murder, but
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  Speaker 1: he was small for his age. He stood barely four
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  Speaker 1: foot six and weighed under ninety pounds. Teachers remembered him
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  Speaker 1: vividly from years earlier. In third grade, he was placed
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  Speaker 1: in Brenda Williams's class. She recalled him calling her vile
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: names like whore and bitch. He threw desks. Michael would
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  Speaker 1: sit withdrawn and preoccupied, staring off at nothing. I've never
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  Speaker 1: seen him happy, Williams later said never. Teachers described him
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  Speaker 1: as average academically, but emotionally he was troubled. He was
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  Speaker 1: diagnosed as emotionally disturbed and placed in special education programs
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: for behavioral issues, but Michael was defiant rather than violent.
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  Speaker 1: By fifth grade, he had been moved to Meadowbrook Middle School,
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  Speaker 1: a campus designed for children with serious behavior problems. Later,
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  Speaker 1: he landed at Glencrest, where staff put him on a
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: half day schedule so he would be under parental supervision
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: in the afternoons. Life at home was chaotic. Michael's mother
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: struggled to manage him, and his stepfather's discipline was described
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  Speaker 1: as inconsistent. Teachers suspected neglect, but had little power beyond
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  Speaker 1: referrals to counselors. In a pre Columbine era, there was
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: little infrastructure for behavioral intervention beyond shuffling difficult children into
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  Speaker 1: special classes and hoping they improved. Just weeks before Jana's murder,
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  Speaker 1: Michael had been caught up in a car theft incident.
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  Speaker 1: He his brother and some friends hot wired a vehicle
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  Speaker 1: from their stepfather's yard. They went on a joy ride
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  Speaker 1: that ended in a crash. When questioned, the boys lied
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: repeatedly before finally admitting the truth. His father paid restitution
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to the car owner and the charges were dropped, but
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the event reinforced his reputation as a troublemaker. On August
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: twenty eighth, nineteen eighty nine, the day Jana was stabbed
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to death, Michael was seen at Glen Park Elementary that morning.
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  Speaker 1: He rode up on his bicycle and told the vice
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  Speaker 1: principal he was a fifth grader. Later, staff caught him
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  Speaker 1: fiddling with a laminade machine in the library and sent
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: him away, And just minutes before Jana's body was discovered,
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  Speaker 1: a teacher saw him riding away from the area of
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: the portables. Detectives brought him in for questioning. At first,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: they said he was considered a witness. Detective J. D.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Roberts later testified that Michael seemed evasive. They pressed him harder. Finally,
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  Speaker 1: after about two hours, the boy broke down. He sobbed
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  Speaker 1: and blurted out, I killed the teacher. I killed the teacher.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: That spontaneous statement became the centerpiece of the case. Detectives
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  Speaker 1: claimed Michael didn't stop there because they neglected to record
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the interview. It's impossible to know for sure how it
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: went down, They said, he described the crime in detail.
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  Speaker 1: He told them that a man on the street had
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  Speaker 1: frightened him, so he went home and grabbed a steak
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  Speaker 1: knife from the kitchen. He returned to Glen Park, wandered
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  Speaker 1: behind the school and checked doors on the portables. At
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  Speaker 1: one classroom, he said a teacher caught him. She grabbed
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  Speaker 1: his arm and scalded him. According to police, Michael claimed
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  Speaker 1: he didn't like being grabbed, so he pulled out the knife.
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  Speaker 1: He slashed at her face and then stabbed her repeatedly
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  Speaker 1: until she collapsed. He said he threw the knife in
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: the bushes across the street and went home to wash
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: his clothes. On the surface, it was damning, but there
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: were problems. No knife was recovered, no blood was found
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  Speaker 1: on Michael's clothes, his fingerprints weren't on the doorknobs of
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  Speaker 1: the portables, there was no evidence on his bicycle. Nothing
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  Speaker 1: physical linked him to the crime, and almost immediately Michael
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Alan Johnson recanted in the chain chambers of Judge Lewis Stearns,
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  Speaker 1: where he was to sign a written statement. He said,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't say all those things, and I didn't do it.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: They kept on at me until I said I did it.
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  Speaker 1: Juvenile justice advocates at the time pointed out that police
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: interrogations of children often relied on intimidation. A twelve year
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  Speaker 1: old small for his age, alone with detectives for hours,
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  Speaker 1: could easily be pressured into saying what he thought adults
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  Speaker 1: wanted to hear. Nationally, cases of false confessions from juveniles
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: were mounting, raising questions about how reliable such admissions could
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: ever be. The case highlighted the difficulty of child interrogations.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Texas law required kids to be taken immediately to a
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: juvenile detention center before questioning. Interviews had to follow strict procedures,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: and most importantly, any confession had to be corroborated by
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: physical evidence. Detectives had done none of that. They had
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: no physical evidence. Still, prosecutors pressed charges. Michael was indicted
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: for delinquent conduct murder, the most severe charge possible for
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: his age under Texas's new determinate sentencing law. He faced
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: up to thirty years incarceration. The trial against Michael Allen
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Johnson opened November seventh, nineteen eighty nine. Courtrooms are rarely
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: built for children, but that's what this one was, an
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: adult sized space holding a boy small enough to barely
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: see over the defense table. Assistant District Attorney Bob Gill
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: led the prosecution his case was circumstantial. Judge Scott Moore
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: had delivered a blow to the prosecution before testingemony even began.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: He ruled that Michael's detailed oral confession was inadmissible. Police
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: had violated juvenile law, and without corroborating evidence, the confession
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: couldn't stand. That left the prosecution with only the boy's
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: outburst I killed the teacher. I killed the teacher. Still
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: in the courtroom were teachers who saw Michael on campus
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that day, a vice principal who remembered the false claim
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: about being a student, a teacher who saw him riding
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: away near the portables. The defense, led by Earl Ernie Bates,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: countered aggressively. Bates hammered on the lack of evidence, no knife,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: no blood, no fingerprints. He highlighted police errors. The interrogation
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: wasn't recorded procedures for juveniles wasn't followed. Michael was twelve
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: years years old, small. Could he really have stabbed a tall,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: athletic adult more than seventeen times, severed her spinal cord
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: using what was described as a steak knife, and walked
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: away without a scratch. A shadow of a doubt loomed
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: heavily over that allegation. On one side of the courtroom
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: sat Jana's family, eyes fixed on the boy they believed
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: had taken her life. On the other, Michael's parents, insisting
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: their child had been railroaded. Court reporters described the atmosphere
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: as tense. Detectives admitted under cross examination that they had
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: no physical evidence. The jury watched stone faced as each
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: side painted a very different picture, a violent child who
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: snapped or a confused boy bullied into a confession. The
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: trial lasted just over a week. Jurors listened to testimony
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: from teachers and police. They saw Michael, a small boy,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: sitting stiffly at the defense table. They weighed the statements
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: against the void where evidence should have been. Deliberations took
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: less than an hour. Seven women and five men emerged
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: with a unanimous verdict not guilty. Juror Geraldine mckel explained
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: there was no evidence. Foreman Jack Longeer said the jury
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: spent most of their forty minutes praying, then spoke. One
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: by one. They all agreed the state hadn't proven its case.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Michael was released after ten weeks in detention. He leaped
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: into his stepfather's arms. His parents cried with relief, but
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Janna's family was left in despair. The acquittal of Michael
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: Allan Johnson didn't solve anything. It only deepened the wounds
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: for the Simpson family. It was unbearable. They had sat
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: through every day of the trial hoping for justice. Instead,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: they left empty handed. They remained convinced Michael was responsible,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: but the law had spoken For police, the case was
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: effectively closed. Chief Thomas Wyndham said, to the best of
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: our abilities, this case has been solved and cleared. Prosecutors
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: admitted defeat. Assistant DA Bob Gill confessed that the case
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: was weak. We did the best with what we had,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: he said. He hoped the boy truly hadn't done it,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: he added, but he wasn't certain. A year later, in
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, children discovered a rusty knife in bushes across
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: from Glen Park. It matched the place Michael had claimed
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: to toss. One Sergeant all Krats believed it was likely
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: the murder weapon. Oddly, it had been steadily described as
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: a stake knife originally, but was now being called a
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: butcher knife. Likely if the knife had been found before
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: the trial, the defense would have easily argued this inconsistency
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: only strengthened his case, and anyway, the case had already
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: been tried. At Fie Morris Elementary, Jana's former school, the
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety year book was dedicated to her memory. Students
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: wrote tributes and drew pictures. One child scrawled simply she
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: was real nice. Faculty and family wept as they turned
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: the pages. As for Michael Allan Johnson, his life unraveled.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: He was branded teacher killer by classmates, taunted, ostracized, Haunted
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: by the case, he drifted away from school. He found
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: work in odd jobs, but never stability. On December twenty ninth,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, Michael was shot and killed on a
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: fort Worth street. He was seventeen. Witnesses said he refused
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: to hand over his jacket to a group of teenagers.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: His attorney from his trial, Ernie Bates mourned him as
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: another casualty. My client didn't do it, Baits insisted, but
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: he could never put it behind him. Today, the case
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: of Janet Carrol Simpson is technically still open, but practically
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: it is cold and even considered cleared by the detectives
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: who worked the case initially. Unless new evidence emerges, her
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: killer may never be identified. The story of Jana Simpson
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: is one of promise cut short. She was twenty four
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: years old, a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: teacher who poured herself into her work. She had plans
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: for the future. Instead, she died on her first day
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: at a new school, and more than three decades later,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: her family still waits for answers. As her father said,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: this is the final chapter of my daughter's life. All
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: I know for sure is that my daughter was murdered.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: If you have any information about the murder of Jana
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Carol Simpson, please contact the Fort Worth Police Cold Case
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Unit at eight one seven three nine two four three
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: zero seven. We'd like to offer a huge thanks to
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: our newest Patreon members Amen at the Clutch City level
• 33:51
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• 33:55
  Speaker 1: We appreciate y'all. If you'd like to join con Coold's
• 34:00
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• 34:04
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• 34:14
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  Speaker 1: we appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all,