In a groundbreaking revelation, the only known survivor of the infamous "Bible Belt Strangler" has broken her silence after nearly four decades.
The survivor, known only as "L," was assaulted by Jerry Johns, a now-deceased trucker, in the early 1980s. Johns is believed to be the perpetrator behind a series of unresolved murders in the same decade, infamously known as the Redhead Murders.
The survivor's account was shared with Alex Campbell, a sociology teacher at Elizabethton High School in Tennessee, on the Murder 101 podcast. Campbell's students played a significant role in unearthing the 40-year-old murder mystery.
"There's no reason for me to be alive except the good Lord let me live," L confessed to Campbell on the iHeartRadio podcast, in an exclusive clip obtained by The Post. She further stated that her decision to come forward was driven by the hope of saving other women's lives.
L was unaware of Johns' connection to another murder until an FBI agent informed her a few years ago. "I didn't even know Jerry Johns had died, but he called me and told me that they used DNA and proved that he killed this other girl," she revealed.
The victim in question was Tina McKenney-Farmer, a 20-year-old whose connection to Johns was established through DNA evidence in 2018. Farmer's body was discovered in December 1984 near Interstate 75 in Jellico, Tennessee. Johns, on the other hand, passed away in prison in 2015 after being convicted of strangling a prostitute in Knox County, Kentucky, in 1985.
L also disclosed that she was questioned about her encounter with Johns, the suspected serial killer, when the incident occurred. She noticed a striking resemblance between herself and one of the subsequent victims. Farmer was among the six victims that Campbell's 2018 class identified as potential victims of the same murderer, with Johns as the prime suspect.
"We sat at this big, huge, long table and there were photographs of all these women and some of them looked like photographs of me," L recounted. "There were dozens of girls that looked a lot like me, and they called them the Redhead Murders," she added.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) later named the late trucker as a suspect, but failed to acknowledge the students' contribution, a slight that Campbell admitted to taking harder than his students. The TBI is currently investigating potential links between Johns and other Redhead Murders.
Campbell, who has dedicated six years to proving Johns' connection to the case, hailed L as a "hero." He emotionally stated, "This is a terrible, tragic story for a lot of people and a lot of families, but if there's a hero, it's you. Your will to live is what got him arrested and kept him off the streets."
Since the incident, L has maintained a low profile. Gabriel Castillo of KT Studios described the retired nurse as a "loving mother and grandmother" who devotes her time to volunteering for various Christian charities.
Campbell's former students are now sharing their evidence-gathering process in the 10-episode Murder 101 podcast. They reveal how they linked the six women, whom they affectionately refer to as their "sisters," to Johns.
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