Episode 11: Vandal
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Today marks 20 years since emergency responders found a murdered woman inside of a burning home in Kill Devil Hills. The victim was 33-year-old Denise Johnson. You wouldn't know it looking at this home that something terrible happened here 20 years ago, a horrible crime that is yet to be solved. I remember seeing heavy black smoke up in the air. I just remember a pool of blood and her laying in it. We knew obviously something was way wrong. This wasn't just a routine call.

On July 13th, 1997, someone brutally murdered 33-year-old Denise Johnson inside her childhood home in North Carolina, then set it on fire. For 22 years, Johnson's killer has eluded police, leaving among us undetected. This is CounterClock, the investigation into the unsolved murder of Denise Johnson. I'm your host, Delia Diemra.

At 4 o'clock in the afternoon on July 15, 1997, hundreds of people gathered at Denise Johnson's memorial service. As the service concluded inside Kitty Hawk United Methodist Church, friends and family said their final goodbyes to the 33-year-old.

Those who attended the service at the church eventually make their way to Austin Cemetery, two miles down the road. Denise's casket is lowered into the ground and her burial plot is marked off with a temporary metal plaque. And a few weeks after that, a granite tombstone that is tinted pink is permanently installed on top of her grave. Weatherproof plastic seals in a glossy photograph of Denise in the upper right-hand corner.

The image shows her when she was full of life, sporting her thousand-watt smile and blonde hair. And there her memorial remained, undisturbed for more than two decades.

In 2018, that all changed. She said, I want to tell you about this. I wasn't going to tell you, but I said, you need to tell me anything you know. And then she said, no, I want to show you this. And she showed me and she said, that is not sun damage. Somebody burnt that off of there.

In August 2018, Donnie Johnson, Denise Johnson's older sister, received a phone call.

On the other end was a woman from the business that designed and installed Denise's tombstone. The manager, Brenda Copley, had bad news. Denise's gravestone had been damaged so severely that the company's crew had to remove parts of it. Donnie was incredibly disturbed and hurt by this. You know, there are really no words why somebody would even do that. I can't even figure that in my brain.

It's just so, like, disrespectful of their kid and just disrespectful to his family, disrespectful to anybody who cared about things. It really hurts my feelings. Like, they haven't hurt us enough. You know, you've got to go do something like that.

The company Davis Monuments sent Donnie photos of the headstones damaged. The plastic panel encasing Denise's photograph was destroyed. The photo had disintegrated and the plastic cover was melted. You can see that image for yourself on our website, counterclockpodcast.com. Donnie says the company's manager was adamant. Weather did not cause this damage. What was her reasoning for saying it was clearly not just weathering?

Donnie Johnson says the damage had to have happened within the past three years because she visits Denise's plot often. Yeah.

Someone vandalizing Denise's grave is terrible enough, but the timing of learning about this was odd. The Monument Company says it discovered the damage after I began reinvestigating this cold case and drumming up attention for it. To me, it doesn't feel like a coincidence. I called Davis Monument Company to get more information. Monument...

Hi there, I was looking for Brenda Copley if she's available. This is Brenda. Brenda Copley had to break the bad news to Donnie. As it turns out, Copley, like many other people in this podcast, knew the Johnson family. I know Denise and her family, not extremely close, but my sister's more to Denise's age and they actually hung out with her. You know, they went to school together, so there is a connection there.

Copley says a few years ago, one of the Johnson family members contacted her to report Denise's photo was looking a bit faded. It took a crew from Copley's office another year or so to make the trip to the Outer Banks to check on it. And that's when they realized the headstone was damaged. I was contacted to say there was a problem with the photo. And first I thought maybe the sun had done it since it's located down in Outer Banks. But then when I looked at the photograph, it had...

How often do you see something like that on a gravestone? Yeah.

Was there any markings on the actual stone that also was evident that burning had occurred?

Brenda feels strongly that the damage to Denise's tombstone was purposeful. Her main reason for feeling that way is the location of the stone. Only someone with knowledge of the area would know it was there. It has to be somebody local because you're not going to come out

and know where the cemetery is and know where she's buried at. Community Cemetery, all around the cemetery, I mean, it's a two-lane road, but it's in a neighborhood. So there are people, you know, constantly going in and out of that neighborhood. And there's not any vandalism in the cemetery that goes on. Her monument was definitely signaled out.

Donnie Johnson agrees. I could see it maybe three years ago because she was like out there by herself in the front. But now there's two stones in front of her.

Do you believe this is somebody that knows about Denise's case? Yeah, I believe it's probably the person who did it. You gotta look into it, I agree. It's just not a coincidence. It is not a coincidence.

Brenda Copley says because there was a lapse in time between discovering the damage and reporting it to the family, it's hard to really know exactly when the memorial was damaged. I wanted to know if she had had such strong suspicions that intentional vandalism had occurred, why she'd waited so many months after discovering the damage to call the family.

I haven't been in contact with them a lot over the past couple years, and I really didn't know how to contact her and tell her that I thought it had been burnt, but I knew in the back of my mind that when we replaced the photograph, I was going to take it upon myself to go down to the police department and give them the one that had been damaged and let them know that they needed to keep an eye out in that cemetery for somebody damaging the new one.

Right after Brenda finally did tell Donnie Johnson about the vandalism in October of 2018, she got an interesting visit at her office. The police contacted me not too long ago. I emailed them a photograph of the marker. They were like, well, the son did it. But then when the officer came to the office and looked at it, I gave him the actual photograph.

So you guys are located where in relation to the Outer Banks? Wow. So he took the photograph with him, the actual burnt piece of evidence. Brenda Copley says John Taller, the Kill Devil Hills police captain in charge of the Denise Johnson homicide, drove over an hour to meet her at her office.

He seemed interested and concerned. He even touched base with me wanting to know who's supposed to photograph my supplier and that he wanted to get in touch with them and get some blank photographs so they could try to see if a torch would do the damage that was done to Denise's picture. Whether he's followed up and got those photographs, no idea.

I don't know the answer to that either. And at this point in my investigation, Kill Devil Hill's police department has decided that it's in the best interest for their case to not have any more in-depth discussions with this series.

Captain John Taller wrote me an email expressing that he felt the podcast had released case-specific details that are detrimental to their case. The department will likely not be aiding anymore in CounterClock's investigation. But as it turns out, I don't need their help with this new development. I'll be dealing with an entirely different law enforcement agency to follow this lead.

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We're back to that old word jurisdiction again. Austin Cemetery, where Denise is buried, isn't in the town limits of Kill Devil Hills. It's in the jurisdiction of the Kitty Hawk Police Department. So a crime at the cemetery is a crime in Kitty Hawk, not in Kill Devil Hills. And Donnie Johnson knows that too. Well, as soon as I found out and got home, I called Kitty Hawk Police and made a police report about it.

While we waited for the Kitty Hawk detective to call, I requested my own copy of the vandalism report. The document was pretty short and to the point.

It listed the location of the offense and estimated the damage was $2,000 worth. There isn't an officer's narrative in the report, which means at the time it was taken and filed in October 2018, an officer hadn't been out to the cemetery to assess the actual damage.

I gave Kitty Hawk Police a call to speak with the sergeant who took the report. They had to know I'd be calling. I mean, someone potentially desecrating the grave of a neighboring town's cold case victim is big news around there. And I was the first and only reporter to know about it. Sergeant Strickland.

Hi, Sergeant Strickland. This is Delia D'Ambra. I am a reporter that's been working on a podcast series with the Johnson family. And I was given a police report from the department a few weeks ago when it came in the mail of the...

I think, gravestone vandalism that Donnie Johnson filed with Kitty Hawk Police Department. I was looking to speak with the detective or whoever is working that case because at last check it was that it was open and I was just trying to get a sense of what's been going on with it. He's not in today. He'll be in tomorrow. But that's something that you would probably need to go through the chief's insurer with the media. And so since he's not, he isn't.

so the chief can confer with him. I would say give a call back tomorrow and speak with the chief since this is a media situation. You need to talk to Chief Joel Johnson. Talk to him tomorrow because it's during a thank you. Of course, we can only release what's on the public record that you've been provided. We're not able to release by law anything else. But I will speak to the chief about it. He can confer with the detective guard tomorrow, and you're welcome to give him a call. Yeah, that would be great. So you said it's Chief Joel Johnson? Mm-hmm. All right, perfect. Thank you so much.

The next day, I got a call from Kitty Hawk Police Chief Joel Johnson. Because it's an open investigation, the only thing I can tell you right now is just some basics, basically about when the report was filed and what's wrong and then where we're at. I do want you to know that this was actually first reported.

in that condition five years ago, in 2013. - Okay. - And now it's being reported to us. Are you with me? - Yeah. - So, you know, it's kind of hard, it's kind of difficult, as it being five years ago. You know, we have sent items off, you know, to be tested.

And so I think Kettle Hills may have, you know, they're also involved in it too. So, you know, it's just difficult to determine at this point of if it was something that was intentional or if it was something that has just happened, you know, because that's where we are with it.

The case is in Kitty Hawk's hands because the gravestone is in Kitty Hawk's jurisdiction. Correct. However, Davis Monument Company told me that John Taller went there and requested the actual photograph. So I was just a little confused by that. Did he then give that to Kitty Hawk or did you guys go to the monument company? Well, we've done all we can do.

Here's where we are. They don't have it. Kittle Hill said, we have it. The picture was burned completely. There is no picture. You know, they don't have the picture. We have the plastic. We've contacted the lab. The FBI lab doesn't have the capability for fume testing it. So we've reached out to a fire investigator with the FBI, and he is waiting. We've been waiting for him.

So that's where we are. All right. So, but you've gotten a bug in my ear, which is probably what you needed to do, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Because I have a lot of things going on anyway, but now this will be something of my priority too. So I'll, I've got it on my radar and I've got your number here. So, and I'm going to keep the report on my desk. I'm going to put a little pressure and kind of go ahead and get this wrapped up so we can move on from it.

Are you with me? Absolutely. So technically, what would this investigation be called? Well, injury to property. Injury to personal property is all it is. I wouldn't think it would be considered a hate crime. We have no reason to believe that that would be anything other than that. But what's weird about it, if you look at the photograph, I don't know if you don't have it in front of you, but take a look at it. There's a spot in the top right, and there's another spot.

It looks like it's something that doesn't look like it was burned because of the way the pattern. It's just me. It looks like it's just, there's like in the top right above the picture, it's like there was a piece of tape or something and it got hot and melted.

or a picture, and then if the picture looks exactly the same, it doesn't look, from my appearances, that it's something that was on fire, but I'm not a fire arson expert. Right, which is why, you know, we seek that help, because it helps you guys, especially five years later. Yeah, hang on one second. Jeff just came in. What's that? For what? What's the charge? It is a class I felony, because if it's $1,000 or more damage...

to replace the stone. So that's something that would need to be determined. Gotcha. Could be a felony for defacing it. Have you guys gone back out to the site and continue to look in that area or monitor it? I mean, I know it's been five years, but what's your kind of follow-up on that? No, I know that what the follow-up was is we did, you know, we did walk the premises. I know they did that because I told them to check other stones. And they could not find anything similar to what this one received, the damage that this one received.

About a week after our first conversation, Chief Johnson called me back with an update.

We spoke to the FBI and asked them for their assistance, and he's calling around trying to figure out if it's something that they can help us with to do a vapor test, you know, vapor for accelerants. And we have not heard back from them. And we've also, we've talked to the State Bureau of Investigation, and they said that, yes, they can test it for accelerants through a vapor test, but due to the age of it,

Because now that we found out that it's been like this since 2013, it's probably going to be slim to none of whether we can determine if there was an accelerant used. But we're still going to send it to the lab. If it would have been contained in a home, it may be a little bit easier. But I'm not sure how many snowstorms and weather storms we've been through to whether it's going to determine if there's an accelerant or not.

The plexiglass plastic piece that was put over and sealed over the picture is the one that we're sending in. But due to the age of it, you know, we're going on five years now, it may be kind of difficult. We can't mail it. We have to take it in physically. So it's a four-hour trek. It's a full day just to go there. You have to set an appointment up with the analyst. You have to take everything. And this includes when we take our narcotics, bring in all the evidence that we might need.

Was there any evidence on the stone part of it that we would think could potentially be tested at all? Here came the part I, and likely you the listener, are dying to know.

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That's T-R-Y-F-I-R-S-T-L-E-A-F dot com slash counterclock. Tryfirstleaf.com slash counterclock. Kitty Hawk Police Chief Joel Johnson says his department is keeping Kill Devil Hills Police in the loop in its investigation into Denise's gravestone vandalism.

Any information they get from forensic testing will eventually find its way to detectives over there, but for now, his investigators have to focus on their own work.

That's our jurisdiction, primary jurisdiction, just for this. I mean, not for the other case. I mean, obviously the murder case is in their jurisdiction, but the headstone incident is definitely in our jurisdiction. So we're just going to know whether they relate or not, related or not, or whether it was an accelerant used. We have no idea. So that's all still speculation. As soon as we hear something, I'm going to let you know.

Chief Johnson's updates are encouraging. A police chief talking details of an investigation with me is very helpful and sort of unheard of. While waiting on the Kitty Hawk lead, I flew back to the Outer Banks again. I wanted to see Austin Cemetery for myself, and it's only a half hour from my parents' house. This cemetery is so far back from the main road. You would have to know that this cemetery is even here to get back here.

I mean, it was a good two or three miles off the main road. Let's get out and walk. The graveyard is maybe two acres from end to end. Headstones date as far back as the 1800s, and they're scattered throughout it. Finding Denise's took about 10 minutes of me and my family wandering. Yeah. Hey, you found it? Okay. Okay.

Looking at the tombstone straight on, I immediately noticed that the entire top right section had been removed. A simple epitaph was engraved next to it. Beloved Sister Denise Floyd Lynn Johnson, your smile lives on in our hearts. Seeing these mangled remnants of Denise's headstone made me more determined than ever to figure out what was going on. A few weeks after visiting Kitty Hawk, Chief Joel Johnson called me with another update.

Forensic test results were in. We received the North Carolina State Crime Laboratory report in reference to testing ceramic photo insert that was in the tombstone of Ms. Denise Johnson's. Examination of item one, which is the ceramic photo insert from the tombstone, failed to reveal the presence of ignitable liquids.

Did it have any reflection of it sustaining burns without an accelerant? Was there able to be a test for that? Like if it was just a flame that did the damage? Due to the condition of it and the age of since it had been there for several years, we were unable to determine if any type of instrument such as a torch was used to burn or deface the ceramic photo.

Was it a conclusion at all in that report that the FBI lab just thinks it was weathering? There was no other conclusion other than that is, you know, something that we cannot determine. As far as that goes, then the lab cannot determine if it's weathering. They only tested it for ignitable liquids to see if it was arson or any possible flammable was used.

And that is negative. Now, as far as a torch or any type of something that would not use ignitables is unknown. We'll probably never determine that.

The North Carolina SBI lab only tested to see if someone used an ignitable liquid to burn Denise's headstone. They hadn't ran any tests to see if just an open flame did the damage. The results of the examination are the following: Methodologies were used in the examination of this case: visual examination, odor assessment,

GCFID and GCMS, which is for accelerants. And then the examination of item one failed to reveal the presence of ignitable liquids. So therefore, there was nothing conclusive that any visual examination and chemical testing revealed any ignitable liquids were used to deface the photo. What date was that test completed? February 25th of 2019.

Testing for if something was burned with open fire is possible. But according to the state crime lab, it wasn't done on this item because there's been so much time between when the damage occurred and when it was submitted.

Remember, the Monument Company tasked with checking on the headstone found the vandalism a few years ago. Staff didn't report it until fall 2018. Chief Johnson was disappointed the crime lab results weren't more conclusive, but understood why. It's just been sitting there and no one has noticed it or reported it. If it would have been reported in a more timely manner, possibly it might have been

At this point, is this a closed case for you and Detective Gard? Or where's you guys' stance on this? I was explaining to the sister this morning. I was explaining to her, I called her, gave her the results, that it is still an open investigation because we can't determine

Is this information you will share with Kill Devil Hills Police Department? Yes, we'll be sharing this with the Kill Devil Hills Police Department for their investigation to place in their file.

Chief Johnson contacted Kill Devil Hills Police the same day he spoke with me. But before calling me or Kill Devil Hills, he spoke with Donnie Johnson, which, by the way, if you may be asking, they're of no relation. I told him I was going to get a new picture put on, and he said he would keep an eye out, you know, go by there every week and make sure it's good. Personally wish that I can't be put out there, you know?

And that way it would be monitored all the time. And then if somebody bothers it, you'll have it. It's a hard fact to face, but we may never know what or who damaged Denise's tombstone. Chief Johnson says Kitty Hawk Police Department has a plan in place moving forward and is paying closer attention to Austin Cemetery.

We're going to monitor the headstone over a period, if not forever, we'll make a monthly visit. And just to keep an eye on it and see if it can kind of give us some closure on what may have occurred.

It is something that we would like to close out for the family. And once the photo is going to be placed back in there, a new photo has been ordered by the family, we will keep an extra watch on it over a period of time through the years and see what happens. And maybe this will occur again. And then that'll kind of help us determine that weather caused it. Or if it didn't, we just won't

Before we ended our call, Chief Johnson made a comment that got my attention. He said something, something very important, that I knew from experience meant this case is headed higher up the chain of command. A copy was sent to the office of the district attorney for the case file there.

Next week was supposed to be the season finale of CounterClock, but something major has happened. Hello, this is Delia D'Amber on a recorded line for CounterClock Podcast. Can I help you? Is this Teresa? You can't miss this episode and the one-on-one with the woman I've searched for four months.

Make sure you're subscribed to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your five-star ratings and reviews help draw more listeners to the show and get Denise's story out for more people to hear. Follow CounterClock on social media. We're on Twitter at at CounterClockPod. And on Instagram, look for the handle CounterClockPodcast. CounterClock is an AudioChuck original podcast.

Ashley Flowers is the executive producer, and all reporting and hosting is done by me, Delia D'Ambra.

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Toyota, let's go places. Hey, look at you. Florist by day, student by night, student by day, nurse by night. Since 1998, Penn State World Campus has led the charge in online education, offering access to more than 200 degree and certificate programs taught by our expert faculty. We offer flexible schedules, scholarships, and tuition plans to help you reach your educational goals online.

Online, Penn State World Campus delivers on your time. Click the ad or visit worldcampus.psu.edu to learn more.