The content below was posted as a response to a video on a prominent social media site. We’re posting it here because we believe it’s an excellent summary of the case. For context, the commenter is responding to a 15-minute “analysis” of the case by a self-described psychologist whose channel is devoted to “providing training to other counselors” and has no apparent training in law enforcement or criminal justice. The individual appears not to have attended the trial and to have no access to the police file. His stated goal of the video is to “speculate.”
The response is edited lightly for clarity, and we have added links where content on this website can provide more detail.
For context, the commenter is responding to the psychologist’s claim that a “quasi-confession” 20 years earlier somehow led to an “unsupported” murder charge.
Let me get this straight:
1. The police question Johnson in 1998 and he tells them some pretty unbelievable stuff. He appears to acknowledge that he walked past the closet door at least five times while it was AJAR and Andrea’s body was IN IT and put the laundry basket RIGHT AT THE DOOR, but somehow didn’t notice. He also ends up giving a statement that some interpret as a confession, and lots of it checks out, but not enough of it can be corroborated, so the police (correctly) don’t charge him,. Earlier in his statement, and prior to any police deception, he says Andrea gave him the number of “the computer guy,” asked him to call, and correctly recites the first three digits of (Leonard’s) phone number.
2. The police investigate the computer guy (Leonard), but they don’t have any evidence with which to charge him, because it appears that the condo has been cleaned, and it doesn’t particularly look like the crime scene one might expect with someone like Leonard. Johnson says there was “no signs of struggle” anywhere in the condo, but Johnson’s own attorneys say on national television that the medical examiner said there was struggle. There was no substantive evidence of sexual assault (negative PERK test), but Leonard has an MO of sex offenses.
3. When questioned, the computer guy (Leonard), in 1998, also says he got a call from the “husband/boyfriend.”
4. The family spends years trying to find the computer guy, hiring private investigators, lawyers, etc. but Johnson tells them he has no idea who the guy is, knows virtually nothing about him, etc. This appears not to match what he told the police. It takes the family about two years and $10K of lawyers and PIs before they find him. When they finally find him (around June 2000), and tell Johnson, he STILL doesn’t mention any contact with Leonard (or contact Andrea asked him to have with Leonard) in the days leading up to the murder.
5. 20 years later, Leonard confesses and explains that the phone call(s) were to set up a hit, and that he didn’t sexually assault Andrea because he was there for another purpose–to collect the $ he was promised during those phone call(s) he had previously mentioned. Leonard gets no benefit from confessing and ends up with another life sentence, destroying his chances at the prison transfer he was supposedly angling for. Even after that, and still today, Leonard maintains his statement. Johnson’s defense lawyers argue that Leonard agreed to testify to avoid the death penalty, yet Leonard wasn’t even facing charges when he made his confession, and the death penalty had been abolished in Virginia at the time of Leonard’s testimony.
6. Johnson is indicted by a grand jury of his fellow citizens, indicating probable cause that he is guilty.
7. Johnson is tried and acquitted–the trial jury finds that the prosecution hasn’t proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. At the trial, a central theme of Johnson’s attorneys’ arguments is “there was no phone call,” which seems to contradict their own client’s statement to the now-Chief of Police. When confronted about this, apologists for the attorneys say the attorneys aren’t required to be consistent–only to show reasonable doubt.
And from that, we are to conclude that (a) Not only must Johnson be actually innocent, but (b) law enforcement are the villians in the case; and (c) the whole thing was screwed up because police were deceptive to Johnson in 1998–while discrepancies in Johnson’s statements are ignored?
Maybe I’m missing something, but it looks like Johnson wasn’t charged in 1998 precisely because police didn’t believe him. Rather, it appears that he was charged because Leonard confessed, and the confession (and its implication of Johnson) was deemed credible by police, prosecutors, a grand jury, the victim’s family, and the judge (who, multiple times, denied motions to strike or dismiss the indictment, citing the sufficiency of the evidence against Johnson). This was not a “bizarre quasi-confession” leading to an “unsupported” murder charge.
We’ve documented more on this website, which is ironically referenced in the video to which the commenter reacted.
Justice for Andrea Cincotta 