Episode 13: New Lead
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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 of her childhood home in North Carolina, then set it on fire. For 22 years, Johnson's killer has eluded police, living among us undetected. This is CounterClock, the investigation into the unsolved murder of Denise Johnson. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. ♪

There's a saying that we've all heard: "six degrees of separation." It's a term that suggests in any person's life, they're linked to someone else, a stranger, by six or fewer social connections. Throughout this investigation, as I've picked up interviews from different people, learned new information, read public documents, I've realized just how true this term really is.

I see the six degrees of separation between our victim Denise and her potential killer, whoever they are. Months into this work, as I've been poking around and asking questions, I began receiving tips and information from people living on the Outer Banks today. And even right now, messages continue to come in from people who've never spoken to police about what they know.

Through my work and these forthcoming people, I've uncovered facts about Denise's life and the night of her murder that no one I believe really knew about or ever researched thoroughly. Understanding Denise's life as best as I can is always at the forefront of my mind.

But like many of you, the more I found out about other people in this story, the more I wondered why their lives intersected with Denise's in the summer of 1997. The Smithsons, Rob Constantino, Eric, Teresa,

Denise's roommate in 1997, a total stranger to Denise up until spring of that year.

Maybe someone in her life could have committed this horrific slaying. Was there someone with enough rage and determination seeking out Karen at 2014 Norfolk Street, but found Denise instead? Here's Karen and I talking about it in one of our last interviews together.

They never even questioned my ex-husband. And when he saw me, the same day I found out, it's like he was waiting for me. And I'm walking up, I'm going to where the beach party was on Florida 3rd.

And there he was. And he said, that's what you get. That's what you get for hanging out with those types of people. That's what you get. Now, how creepy is that? Okay, so back up a second. Let me just ask this. So the day after the murder, you went to the house and then you went to meet friends and your ex-husband was there. And that's what he said to you. That's the very first thing he said to me. Like all sorts of things.

And he goes, that's what you'll get. And that's what you deserve. Why do you think he said that? And I'm like, what the f- I don't know. I'm like, what the f- does that even mean? Like, did you have something to do with it? When did you guys get married and when did you divorce? F- was 23 and I was like 15. He was very controlling. He was very possessive. He was very jealous.

Right. Right.

I've searched around and think I've located the man I believe is Karen Bittinger's ex-husband. He was living on the Outer Banks in 1997, and to my knowledge, still does. I'm choosing not to name him here, but for several months I've been attempting to contact him, but he's never picked up. I have a lot of questions to ask him, but until I get the chance to, I'll have to remain like you, just curious.

The theory that perhaps Denise's killer is linked to her roommate is something any investigator has to consider.

After all, inside the house on Norfolk Street, Karen's room had fires intentionally set in it too, just like the living room and Denise's room. But it just seems strange to me. If the scenario is Denise's killer only targeted her and not her roommate, why even go into Karen's room? Why not just go straight to Denise's room, if you know that's who you're after?

From Denise's toxicology report, I know the fires were burning before Denise's death. So we have to wonder, did whoever committed this crime set the fires starting with Karen's room because they were after her and wanted to make sure they left a message for her?

Remember, Karen was in Nags Head, 15-20 minutes south of Kill Devil Hills. The exact distance from Denise Johnson's house to where Karen worked is 4.2 miles. It takes exactly eight minutes to drive, maybe less in the middle of the night with no traffic. My question is, did whoever set those fires and murdered Denise know that Karen didn't go home after work that night?

Say they were after Karen to burn her stuff. Had they watched to make sure she didn't return from work? No, she wasn't around to stop them. And did they have any idea they'd find Denise inside the Norfolk Street house instead? Those answers aren't easy to come by. It's something only the killer knows.

A theory that Denise's murderer was someone else's enemy isn't one that Denise's sister Donnie accepts 100%. She's always felt her sister's murderer had a personal issue with Denise. And that's what I've always thought, Amelia, is that Denise had to have been having some kind of relationship where she didn't know he had a girlfriend or something. And the girlfriend caught him and freaked out and, you know, freaked out.

A big part of the Johnson family's frustration is the wide range of theories that are out there and having no real ability after 22 years to disprove many of them. But after two years of investigating, the information presented in this podcast is not being ignored by police. In fact, it's gone much further than I ever thought it would.

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Thank you for calling the office of Andrew Womble, District Attorney for Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Pesquitank, and for Clements Counties. In January of 2019, Dare County District Attorney Andrew Womble agreed to speak with CounterClock about the Denise Johnson case. Womble is the elected District Attorney for North Carolina's 1st Prosecutorial District.

That's a mouthful, but his position and title is coveted in the lawyering community. He's run for office a few times. District Attorney Andrew Womble has a passion for justice and a determination to make sure it happens. You expect the wheels of justice to move forward, and that is what I've done as your district attorney. And in each campaign, he won, holding on to his elected seat for almost seven years now.

DA Womble's office is responsible for prosecuting all criminal cases filed in his district. He's the chief law enforcement officer over seven different counties in eastern North Carolina, including Dare County, where Kill Devil Hills is. In our first conversation, Womble explained what his office does, particularly when it comes to cold cases. We're not an investigative agency. We're only a prosecutorial agency.

We can fill in gaps. We can ask law enforcement to do certain things, but it's basically going to be in the lap of that municipality and or the Derrick County Sheriff and the SBI to run down their leads and what they have. If they send anything to us, if they update us with a package, we're happy to take a look at those kind of things. But without that, it's going to remain a cold case in their office. And I'm sure they've got cold case investigators, detectives that root

routinely look at those files, work their leads, anything pops up, those kind of things. Being in your seat for six years, how often do you see cold cases come back to your desk years down the road and there's something to be seen? Well, I mean, it's not a frequent occurrence. Probably in the six years that I've been in office, maybe once or twice a year we'll get a cold case break. That's still pretty good.

It's not bad. It may say more about the way technology has advanced more than anything else, you know, with DNA. And then also, of course, we haven't had a case to go this route, but your genealogy trees now people are using, you know, even if you've got partial DNAs, you can build a suspect tree, things of that nature. So, yeah, probably speaks more to technology than anything else, the advancements.

Womble is no stranger to cold cases. They're inevitably part of his trade. He's practiced criminal law for two decades, even backing his run for office on his experience as an attorney. I've seen justice from all sides for almost 20 years as a trial attorney, public defender, and now your district attorney. Womble's office doesn't put away cold case suspects every month, but he does know what's required to prosecute them.

What's the challenge with these cases that, you know, sometimes land on your desk years down the road? Well, obviously, people's memories fade. Evidence gets lost. People, you know, can't make the same connections 20 years later that they could make before. You know, you lose the immediacy of the event, spoliation of evidence. The crime scene is upset. Maybe some things that you missed the first time around are not going to be available to you.

And it wouldn't be a cold case if it wasn't, you know, if there wasn't difficulties, be it identifying a suspect or, you know, a weapon or various different things. So, number one, it's a cold case because it's very challenging. So it's got to be something good to push it over the edge. It can't just simply be...

Oh, now I remember seeing a young white male. I mean, that's not going to help us. Just things of that nature. You've got to really be able to, 20 years later, you've got to be able to have something to sink your teeth in.

When I asked Womble if anyone was sinking their teeth into the investigation of the Denise Johnson homicide, his answer wasn't what I expected. Are you familiar at all with the Denise Johnson homicide in Kill Devil Hills in 1997? No, no, not really. I mean, I know of it, but no, I couldn't give you chapter and verse. I sure couldn't.

At the time of our first interview, I didn't fault Womble for not knowing about Denise's case. He wasn't the DA when the murder happened in 1997. He was a budding public defender fresh out of law school. And after I filled him in on the basic information, we really started to get somewhere.

Is it ever possible that the D.A. could come in and say, hey, guys, you know, where's the progress on this case? You know, what authority does the D.A. have to look at a case like that and go, how can we do we need to bring in another agency? Like, would you have to sign off on that?

Yes, I would. I would have to sign off on, or actually what I do is I make a request of the state, the SBI, North Carolina SBI. And now I could be wrong. Once again, I can't quote you chapter and verse, but I would be very surprised if the SBI hasn't looked at this case. I'd be really surprised.

really surprised if they hadn't already. Well, they have. So in 1997, the SBI came in on this case as a secondary agency to help aid in the arson and homicide investigation. But once the case became obviously always in the jurisdiction of Kill Devil Hills, the SBI over time has removed itself and it now just remains in the hands of Kill Devil Hills.

So, is it ever possible that a DA could request a state agency to come back in and look at it again, even as a cold case? Sure. That's within my jurisdiction. Would that be something you would ever be interested in on a case that's over two decades old?

Not without a new lead. I probably would not. A new statement, a new witness, you know, anything that takes us in a different direction. Sure. But as to, you know, just to put another set of eyeballs on it. No, I probably would not request the FBI to do that.

Womble certainly has the authority and can get involved in the murder case, but like he just said, in order for him to intervene, he requires a new lead. He could also intervene if there's been what's called a mishandling of justice— someone doing their job wrong or so ignorantly to the point that justice for the victim can't happen.

Now, I'm not accusing the Kill Devil Hills Police Department of doing that. The department has assured the Johnson family investigators have made repeated efforts to get leads. But the department admits that despite their best efforts, nothing has materialized in over two decades. Maybe they're just not trying hard enough. That's not my place to judge. But I know some of you are thinking that.

That's why I know it's important to keep the district attorney informed about what this show has learned and dug up. By taking information directly to the office of Andrew Womble, he can put pressure on law enforcement to make really investigating this case a priority.

After I caught him up on the case, Womble sympathized with the Johnson family's frustration all these years. Number one, I hope they understand the limitations that we have. But, you know, as the chief law enforcement officer of the Southern County District, I

I completely understand how, you know, they would want all the resources that the state has to come to bear to right a wrong or, you know, help them with some closure in a case that I'm sure has tormented them since its occurrence. Those kinds of tragedies, I just...

I struggle with the words to tell people because there really isn't anything that you can say to comfort someone until you can give them closure. At least maybe put their, allay some of their fears or maybe worries that nobody cares and that it's just going to go unsolved. But there's really nothing that I could say that would convey the level of sympathy that you have for somebody that's put in that situation.

Our first interview ended on that note. Sort of a sad, open-ended discussion of Denise's murder and that Womble felt bad he hadn't been that aware of it and needed police to bring certain things to him to help untie his hands, so to speak.

But over the last few months, I've continued to check in with Womble, dropping in to remind him about the case. In March of 2019, we interviewed over the phone again, but this time his tone had changed. He sounded excited. He was putting things into motion that were going to change the trajectory of this ice-cold case. ♪

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Well, what we've done since the increasing interest in this particular cold case is I've asked one of my senior assistants to put a timeline

or to put this in a callback system where it comes up on our radar on a routine basis so that we're asking the right questions of the investigative agency, in this case, Kill Devil Hills, whether there is any new information or whether they've circled back with some prior witnesses asking different questions or asking new sequences of events to see if there's anything that people are

or hearing or any new information that might be available to us or anything of that nature to push the case forward. And if it becomes, which is basically where we are, it's pretty much at a dead end, asking about putting some new eyeballs on the case or reaching out to other departments to see what they would do or if they've got any ideas or any techniques that they'd be interested in stepping in.

At this point, are we going to get a confession? I would seriously doubt that that would be the first thing that would occur. I would seriously doubt that we're going to find a piece of physical evidence that's going to link. It's going to be something like a statement or a remembrance or a memory or something of that nature that's going to start with an unusual occurrence.

This update came so quickly after we'd first talked that I felt like something had happened, something big. Womble's renewed effort encouraged me, and I knew it would mean a lot to Donnie Johnson. I never dreamed it would. And the hardest part has always been that there was no closure. You know, that's the hardest part of it all.

I continued month after month to call and check in on the case. In early 2020, I received information from a source that a new law enforcement agency was coming on board to help reinvestigate the Denise Johnson murder.

I probed around to locate the person who could confirm that for me, a woman named Jennifer Bland. Hi, Ms. Sammer. This is Jennifer Bland in the district attorney's office here in Deer County. I received your message, and you are welcome to give me a call back at area code 252.

I gave Assistant District Attorney Bland a call back. We played phone tag a few times, but due to chain of command, she had to put me back on the line with Andrew Womble. Womble could not confirm anything on the record to me in a recorded interview.

But, did agree, I would be accurate in reporting that as of January 2020, the Dare County District Attorney's Office no longer considers the Denise Johnson homicide a cold case. Staff is coordinating and utilizing numerous resources from law enforcement agencies and detectives throughout the area and state to reopen an investigation into the events of July 13, 1997.

When I asked Womble to elaborate and if new forensic testing is happening, he simply stated, it's not out of the question. Throughout all of this, I had a suspicion that someone we've heard from before was probably tied up in and associated with this new push from the district attorney's office. A seasoned detective who knows the case better than probably anyone out there, Donnie Varnell. I never forget about the case.

I think anybody that is involved in the investigation feels the same way. They would take any step necessary if they thought it would, you know, if it's relevant to the case and it would help in any way. I asked Varnell directly if he was recently requested to come aboard and work the new investigation, but he couldn't confirm or deny his involvement.

He's currently a major crimes detective for the Dare County Sheriff's Office. I spoke to his boss, Dare County Sheriff Doug Dowdy, on the phone, and Doug told me that, yes, resources in his department are being used for this case currently. Doug Dowdy went as far as to say that Kill Devil Hill's police even sent over items to his staff. But beyond that, said Varnell is the man to really talk to.

In January, Varnell spoke with me on record about what he could. We try to assist other agencies in our jurisdiction when we can. I mean, I don't think we'd ever turn down helping somebody for any investigation, especially, you know, something as serious as a homicide. And if they ask us to help, I couldn't see us not assisting them.

Varnell now has a protege of sorts working alongside him, a female detective formerly with the Virginia Beach Police Department. And she's new to the sheriff's office, but already a valuable asset to their team. She's really good at what she does. We're really fortunate to have her on board.

Farnell says he feels more optimistic about this long, unsolved case he once was the lead SBI agent on 22 years ago. The amount of information circulating will help whoever it is that's currently working the case. I know that your work in this field, your podcast, has generated a lot of interest. I talk to people that talk to me because, you know, they've heard your podcast. I mean, not with, you know, I have new information, but hey, have you heard the podcast?

So, I mean, you generated or your story has generated interest in people that really didn't know anything about the case. I mean, people that were 10 years old. That's generated interest. I think that's good for an investigation. I mean, I think that is a good thing. More people thinking about it, more people asking questions.

Maybe they did know something that was...

seems completely unimportant to them and then they hear the story and they go, "Oh, I have something that's related to that story." And so I think the more people that know about it, and that includes anybody in any agency or organization that know about the case and are interested, that just generates more of a groundswell that can result in relevant information for the investigators.

I had to ask him, after everything, all of these years, all of the interviews we've done, and all of the interviews he's heard from this show, if he still believes something he told me early on. That it's possible he and former Kill Devil Hills police detective Jim Mulford actually spoke face-to-face with Denise's killer. We spoke with so many people.

I will always think of that, too. And so does Donnie Johnson. And number two, not having everybody barrage me about questions, you know.

I received a phone call this morning from a source that is associated with people that were with Eric and Teresa in the hours leading up to, the days and hours leading up to Denise's murder. And something very interesting is some of those people that were associated with Eric and Teresa were

And give it to the police. And give it to the police and do the right thing.

One of my biggest questions for law enforcement and the district attorney is, where is the physical evidence? Who retains the archives of the case file? Is that a question for you that you really want an answer to? Yes, I would like to know where the physical evidence is. I mean, I have trusted they have preserved it and kept it. You know, I've just put my trust in them to do that. And I'm just assuming it's all still wherever they put it and safe.

Despite not having information about where evidence is in her sister's case, and still so many unanswered questions, and people like Teresa and Eric not talking, Donnie has found some peace, knowing we've come this far to seek justice for her younger sister. When I called you the first time two years ago,

I felt like this case was just ice cold and I felt like you hadn't had anybody call you and express interest in many, many years. And so when I go back to that first phone call between us, I think about just where it was. I just felt like you had not actually spoken to someone who was genuinely interested in helping you guys in a long time.

This podcast has really answered a lot of questions that I have had that nobody would ever answer, anybody from police or people or anything. And it's given me a much bigger sense of peace. You know, like I say, whether they never catch this person or people, you know, I think I have come to a peace about it just with

that I know, it really has given me a lot of peace about it because I, as you can see, I've been very upset for 23 years, you know, because I've just always wanted something done or something found out and just the injustice of it all being kept quiet and

There's one feeling that Donnie continues to express to me that as a journalist means so much. Her words remind me that I've done my job, at least the best of my ability, for now. Gratitude. Just gratitude and gratefulness to you. Because I know, like I said at the very beginning of this, none of this would have come to be without you. None of this.

And I'm so grateful to you, Julia. You have no idea. And I will be for the rest of my life, whatever the outcome is. I think it's wonderful. I think all the steps that you've accomplished in a year are amazing. And like I said, I'm almost speechless with the momentum and just the blessings of it all.

So what's the next step? I don't know. This is our last episode of season one. We've done all we can to propel this case forward, and now it's law enforcement's job to see it to the finish line. But I promise you, if, or rather when, something breaks, I'll follow up and keep everyone who has been following us on this journey informed. This case is ever-evolving, always waiting for the right person to come along and provide one more clue to investigators like me and the police.

If you're out there and have information, come forward. If you know some of the people we've talked about in our show, but I haven't been able to locate them, contact me. And if you're out there and don't want the right information to come forward, just know that the clock is ticking. You won't stay a ghost forever. Thank you to everyone who has supported this show and the Johnson family this season.

CounterClock is an AudioChuck original podcast. Our executive producer is Ashley Flowers. And all of this season's reporting was done by me, your host, Delia D'Ambra. If you liked this season, please leave us a five-star review. It really does mean so much to me and the whole team. And make sure to stay subscribed to the podcast because we've come as far as we can on Denise's case.

I'm already hard at work turning back the clock on another case that we will bring you in a future season. Want the same expert advice you get from the pros in the store while shopping online at DiscountTire.com? Meet Treadwell, your personal online tire guide that matches you with the perfect tire for your vehicle. Get your best match in one minute or less with Treadwell by Discount Tire. Let's get you taken care of.

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