One of the key elements in Chris Johnson’s Vision Statement is that he attempted to perform CPR on Andrea. He states that he knows CPR and that he doesn’t recall performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but he thinks he performed CPR by giving chest compressions. He acknowledges sitting on top of her while he does this:
Johnson later recanted the Vision Statement, and provided an updated account of the evening’s events about one year later, which is known as the Root Beer Statement. Although Johnson has changed his story about some items in that statement (e.g., whether he vacuumed the crime scene), he has largely maintained the latter version of events for the past 25 years. In that version, he comes home, does his laundry, drinks root beer, and performs other tasks, before falling asleep and then noticing Andrea’s body in the bedroom closet–the door of which was slightly ajar for the entire evening–7.5 hours after he came home. In the Root Beer Statement, Johnson is clear that he took off his shoes as soon as he got home:
In any case, Johnson wouldn’t have had his shoes on while he was sleeping in bed, at approximately 1:30am, when he states he found Andrea’s body. Johnson further states that his only interaction with the body was to touch her once, to check for a pulse, and without using his feet:
In other words, if Johnson’s shoeprint is indeed on Andrea’s body, there appears to be no innocent explanation for it, based on Johnson’s statement. Yet that is exactly what the Northern Virginia crime lab appears to have concluded. You can view and download the full Certificate of Analysis here:
The report concludes that the impression likely matches Johnson’s shoe with multiple conforming characteristics, with the likelihood that any other object caused the impression being “remote.”
The shoes in question were a pair of New Balance 502 men’s size 9.5 shoes (for comparison, it’s known that Bobby Leonard wore a size 11 or 11.5 sneaker in 1998, and Leonard recalls that he wore work boots on the day of the murder). As a representation, a pair of similar New Balance 502 sneakers is shown below. Note the design at the shoe’s top left corner: a semi-triangle with a straight broken wide line on one side and a curved line on the other, surrounding it:
Crime scene responders appeared to notice a similar pattern on Andrea’s body almost right away. The below is an excerpt from the supplemental report of crime scene responder Lisa Haring. At the time that Ms. Haring is observing the body, the shoes in question are not present (the crime scene has been sealed and Johnson is wearing the shoes, at the police station, being interviewed). Yet Haring appears to describe the exact pattern on the shoe as she observes Andrea’s body:
There is no doubt that the police recognized the significance of this evidence. Lt. Ray Harp was Commander of the ACPD Homicide/Robbery Unit in 2001. He wrote an internal memorandum regarding the case. In that memorandum, he notes that neither Pat Brown (a private investigator who had been involved in the case) nor anyone else is aware of the shoe impression evidence against Johnson:
To be clear, the police repeatedly refer to this in their internal notes. This means that they regarded the statement as true, not as a lie to Johnson:
The case file also includes a visual comparison of the impression on the body and Johnson’s shoes. The entire set of photos is provided for viewing and download below, so that readers can draw their own conclusions. Many readers are struck by the image on page 5.
The police file also shows the lead detective’s handwritten notes of her conversation with the report’s author/forensic pathologist. The pathologist states that the body was very moist and the “shoe took [the] moisture away.” He references 2-dimer and 3-dimer areas of the impression, and notes that 3-dimer impressions are typically made post-mortem. He cites areas that “correspond exactly” to Johnson’s shoe, including the fact that the leather was worn-through in one particular area. Other areas of correspondence include the toe area being rolled up and a slight tear. He goes so far as to say that “when new, wouldn’t have made,” suggesting that the same model of shoes, when brand new, couldn’t have made the impression.
If the lab report and police conclusions about this physical evidence are correct, it is suggestive that someone wearing the shoes that Johnson wore that day interacted with Andrea’s body in a way that is inconsistent with Johnson’s current account of the evening. In addition, the file indicates that Johnson told police that he wore these shoes all day at work, which includes the timeframe of the murder. This suggests that the shoes were not in the residence during the murder. Since the shoe “took moisture away,” this is highly suggestive that the impression occurred after Andrea swam, showered, and was put into water. The shoes arrived only when Johnson arrived at 6pm, and he wasn’t wearing them when he found Andrea. From this, police likely concluded that the impression was made between 6pm (when Johnson came home) and 1:24am the following morning (when Johnson stated that he found the body). Only Johnson was present during this time period, and the shoes tested positive for his DNA.
However, the impression could be consistent someone sitting on top of Andrea’s body while performing CPR–as Johnson describes in the Vision Statement. In other words, if the lab report and police conclusions about it are accurate, there is physical evidence to corroborate a key element of the Vision Statement.
Of course, nobody (except Leonard) knows exactly how the scene looked when Leonard left the residence. However, if someone interacted with the closet after Leonard left–while Andrea’s body was inside of it–it could have also created an opportunity to interact with the body in a way that leaves a physical impression. After all, there is other evidence that the scene was cleaned up.
For contextual completeness, it should be noted that physical evidence also corroborates another element of Johnson’s Vision Statement. In the statement, Johnson describes an argument about a t-shirt into which he masturbated while watching pornography as being integral to the build-up to the murder. Police found the t-shirt in question; it tested positive for Johnson’s DNA:
Johnson has claimed on national television that, in the Vision Statement, he was merely repeating the lies that police told him. But a careful review of the interview video reveals that it was Johnson, not the police, who introduced now-corroborated details about pornography and the t-shirt.
In 2018, Johnson cited the shoeprint as one of the “lies” that police told him that led him to make the Vision Statement. But the Certificate of Analysis and photographs on this page–as well as the police’s own internal memorandum regarding the shoeprint–suggest otherwise.
Justice for Andrea Cincotta 