[ominous music playing]
LISA THOMPSON: It was really, really foggy out.
Jackie was at work.
It was about 5:00 or 6 o'clock, and she wasn't getting
off till like 9:00 or 10:00.
And she called the house and asked if she could pick me up
when she got off work.
And when I went and asked my mother,
she said, it's foggy enough, there's
liable to be a murder tonight and you're not going anywhere.
[ominous music playing]
Jackie was my very best friend.
To this day, I'll be honest with you,
I feel like maybe it wouldn't have happened if my mom
had let me go that night.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: In June of 1985, Jackie Johns
has just turned 20 years old and lives in the tiny town
of Nixa, a rural cattle ranching community
nestled in the Ozarks.
[music playing]
She was just a typical 20-year-old
with a bevy of friends.
Everyone in the area knew her.
And she was a friendly, charming, outgoing young girl.
[music playing]
JEANNE JOHNS: Jackie worked as a waitress
in the Nixa Sale Barn Café.
It used to be attached to what we
called the "Sale Barn," where they had
cattle auctions and so forth.
DWIGHT MCNIEL: It was a very casual restaurant.
That's where I met Jackie years before.
She'd been a waitress there for some time.
SONYA BODENHAMER: A bunch of cowboys,
they'd come in with dirt and probably cow
or horse manure or whatever from their boots
and we would serve them.
Jackie always served them with a smile.
All of us girls probably flirted at one
point, Jackie and me both.
I mean, probably more so her.
JEANNE JOHNS: Jackie would work at the cafe
and her boyfriend, Cody, actually
worked at the Sale Barn.
He was a very quiet type guy, a few years older.
In the process of getting a divorce,
but it wasn't final yet.
And she just fell head over heels for him.
[music playing]
[ominous music playing]
I'll never forget that day.
My dad called and he says, oh, they found
Jackie's car along the highway.
And I thought, oh, gosh, that silly girl has run out of gas.
LISA THOMPSON: I thought she probably
had spent the night with someone and just
left her car over there, because that
was something she would do.
She was really spontaneous about just,
oh, I'm going to have fun.
I'll just go do this.
SONYA BODENHAMER: I get a phone call from my friend, Dana.
She was at the cafe.
And she said, is Jackie with you?
And I said, no.
But I could hear something in her voice.
And I'm like, why?
What's up?
And then she's like, they found her car on 160
and she's not in it.
And I lost it.
I was just numb.
NARRATOR: The call goes out to Christian County
Sheriff Dwight McNiel, who is just 33 years
old and new to the job.
DWIGHT MCNIEL: There was blood that
had spattered about the inside of the vehicle.
There were a pair of jeans located that had
one leg turned inside out.
There were some women's undergarments.
It was clear from the volume of blood
that someone had been seriously injured
and/or died as a result of the activity in that car.
[ominous music playing]
NARRATOR: As the search for Jackie continues,
Sheriff McNiel questions her boyfriend, Cody.
Cody is one of the last people to see her before she arrived
at the convenience store, so that was extremely
important to get him eliminated as a suspect as
quickly as possible.
NARRATOR: Cody tells police that he was home
alone when Jackie went missing but has
few other details to offer.
[music playing]
DWIGHT MCNIEL: He's a tough guy.
He's a cowboy and a ranch hand and not
the kind of guy that wears his emotions on his sleeve.
There was no one to corroborate his alibi,
but no one had anything to say about Cody.
He wasn't a violent type of person,
a jealous type of person.
NARRATOR: Four days after Jackie disappeared,
her parents get a phone call that
confirms their worst fears.
I was actually at my mom and dad's house
and the phone rang and it was one of my dad's friends.
They were camping down at the Lake Springfield,
and he called to say they found a body.
Two fishermen had located a body floating
in the Springfield Lake, which was approximately
four and a half miles, five miles north of where
her car was discovered.
The body was still floating.
It was a nude female, but there was no question of who it was.
The autopsy on Jackie's body revealed
that she died as a result of blunt force trauma
and that she had been apparently raped.
There were puncture wounds that were
consistent with the lugs that were
on the face of the bumper jack.
We were also able to recover a semen sample, which
was fortunate considering the length of time
that she'd been in the lake.
[ominous music playing]
NARRATOR: Four days after Jackie's body is found,
the family lays her to rest.
Desperate for any kind of lead, Sheriff McNiel
sets up a hotline for tips on the case,
hoping that someone in the small town
saw something suspicious that night.
It doesn't take long.
Two men who were purchasing fuel
on that night at the convenience store
had seen a very distinctive pickup truck backed into a bank
parking lot directly across the street
from the convenience store.
It was white over powder blue.
It was the '60s model Chevrolet Cheyenne,
and this particular truck had custom
aftermarket wheels on it.
The odds of there being two trucks that
looked like that in southwest Missouri at that time
were very, very remote.
NARRATOR: McNiel believes the truck
belongs to Gerald Carnahan, the son of a prominent Nixa
businessman.
Everyone in Nixa's pretty familiar with the Carnahan
family.
Gerald's father had been involved in a number
of successful ventures, including a foundry
that was located just about a mile
south of the Sale Barn Café.
Gerald Carnahan was a very clean-cut, professional-looking
fellow and came into the office for his interview
as cool as he could be but professing
that he would do anything he could
to help the investigation.
[music playing]
He knew Jackie, he admitted that in the interview,
from the Sale Barn Café.
And we said we have witnesses who
placed Gerald's truck at the scene
where Jackie was last seen.
He denied that and stated that he was at home.
NARRATOR: Carnahan's alibi is his 19-year-old stepdaughter.
We made contact with his stepdaughter
who told us that she and Gerald had been out to dinner
on that evening.
It was her story that they arrived back home
and Gerald never left the house again,
which was absolutely inconsistent
with the eyewitnesses who had seen his truck
at the convenience store.
NARRATOR: Carnahan also tells investigators
that Jackie had briefly worked for his family's business.
AMOS BRIDGES: She quit.
There were allegations that Gerald had hit on her
while she worked there and then continued
pursuing her after she left.
NARRATOR: Then another witness calls in about
that one-of-a-kind truck.
And that witness turned out to be Gerald Carnahan's brother.
If you drive straight across Highway 160
from the convenience store, the road makes a sweeping curve.
At that time, there was a large hay field
on the right just west of Gerald's parents'
home and Jackie John's home.
And he saw Gerald's truck parked in that field
at that intersection.
NARRATOR: The brother says that Gerald asked him not to give
this information to police.
We asked Gerald to take a polygraph examination,
which he agreed to do.
But the following day, at the appointed time,
he failed to show up.
NARRATOR: Dwight McNiel now has deep suspicions
about Carnahan's alibi, with no fewer than three witnesses
saying his truck was near the crime scene that night.
But the Sheriff still has no solid proof linking
Carnahan to the murder itself.
McNiel asks prosecutors to charge Carnahan with tampering
with evidence by pressuring his stepdaughter
to give him an alibi.
The grand jury sends Carnahan to trial
on the tampering charge based on the highly-questionable alibi
he gave to police.
The judge throws out the charges for lack of physical evidence.
[music playing]
DARRELL MOORE: A young woman, I think she was around 18,
was walking down the street when Gerald
Carnahan pulls up next to her and attempts to kidnap her.
And she managed to get away, but he is apprehended.
AMOS BRIDGES: It was really bizarre.
Because if you're Gerald Carnahan, everyone in town
knows who you are.
And he attempts to kidnap an 18-year-old in a part of town
that was not at all secluded.
And he wasn't even alone.
A friend of his was driving the car,
so it was really a strange situation.
I think there was a sense that he
considered himself untouchable.
DARRELL MOORE: He was convicted of the attempted kidnapping
but did not receive a lengthy sentence, just a few years.
[ominous music playing]
DAN NASH: DNA is becoming more mainstream now,
and we can do a lot more than we could.
But because the swab had been in the water for multiple days,
it was a big concern that that may be for naught.
But we decided to do it anyway.
So at this point, we start trying
to get a search warrant to get a DNA sample
from Mr. Carnahan himself.
And we told him that we had a search warrant for his DNA,
and we said this is about the Jackie
John's death investigation.
And I saw a small little tear right coming
down the corner of his eye.
NARRATOR: Sergeant Dan Nash collects the DNA swab
and rushes it by plane to the state's main crime
lab in Jefferson City.
DARRELL MOORE: There was an urgency, because Gerald
made frequent trips to China.
He still had his passport.
He had married a woman from China.
So we had this great sense of, we
need to get it done quickly before he has
a chance to leave the country.
DAN NASH: I think like at 5:30 in the morning, my phone rings
and I remember Jason saying, we got a match it's him.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: Prosecutor Darrell Moore
charges Carnahan with the rape and murder of Jackie Johns.
The family agrees to waive the death penalty
to shorten the trial in the hope that Jackie's ailing
83-year-old father will live long
enough to see justice served.
DARRELL MOORE: And then the judge read the verdict.
He's guilty of first degree murder.
He's guilty of rape.
DWIGHT MCNIEL: The jury sentenced him
to two consecutive life sentences
without the possibility of parole.
[music playing]
JEANNE JOHNS: It's not really closure,
but I feel like there was justice finally.