'Murder 101' Recap: Has “The Redhead Murders” Case Been Solved?

Murder 101 is a 2026 documentary series streaming on Prime Video that deals with both hardboiled true crime and high school drama (to some extent) at the same time. Over a short span of time in 1985-86, at least 5 women were murdered and dumped at spots along the freeway system around Tennessee, with the most distinguishable common factor being that they all had red hair, which led the case to be called the Redhead Murders. While Murder 101 unfolds very differently from a usual true-crime documentary, the series still makes for an interesting watch, as you’ll soon find yourself rooting for the young high-schooler detectives trying to keep the case relevant to the authorities.

What were the Redhead murders?

In September of 1984, the police in Arkansas found the dead body of a woman along the interstate highway, with clear signs of assault and murder evident on the body. It took the authorities 9 months to identify her as Lisa Nichols, a possible resident of West Virginia. It seemed most likely that Nichols had been trying to hitchhike her way from one state to another when she was picked up by the perpetrator, killed, and left by the side of the freeway. Just a few months later, in January of 1985, the body of another young woman was found, this time in Tennessee, once again dumped by the side of the interstate highway. This time, it was impossible to confirm her identity until many years later, in 2018, when fingerprint and DNA evidence were used to identify her as Tina Farmer, a young woman who had last been seen in Indianapolis.

In April of 1985, the skeletal remains of another woman were found very close to the spot of the second body, in Tennessee, by a passerby, and based on the coroner’s report, she seemed to have been killed anytime between one and four years back. While the identity of this victim remained unknown for many years as well, she was identified as Tracy Sue Walker in 2022, and she had last been seen at a shopping mall in Lafayette, Indiana, in 1978. Just a month after this discovery, the skeletonized body of a woman was found in Cheatham County, Tennessee, dumped by the side of the interstate highway. Using advanced forensics, in 2023, she was identified as Michelle Lavone Inman, a resident of Nashville, who had been reported missing but was  never found. In April, another woman, later identified as Espy Pilgrim, was found inside a dumped refrigerator by the side of the interstate highway, this time in Kentucky.

The police realized that they had a serial killer running loose in the area, because of the multiple common details between all the victims. Firstly, all of them were young white women, and most crucially, they all had red hair, which quickly led to the case being termed the ‘Redhead Murders.’ There were signs of physical assault on the bodies, and all of them had been choked to death, clearly by a man much larger and stronger than them. Another commonality among all the victims was how they were estranged from their families and did not have many friends either, which made them easy targets, in the sense that not many people bothered to execute a serious search after their disappearance. 

Many of them were known to have worked as sex workers, working at strip clubs and truck stops, while some, like Tracy Walker, had run away from their homes because of arguments and other reasons. While the advancement in technology enabled the authorities to confirm the identities of the victims, the murder mystery still continued to elude them, at least in the grander scheme.

Who was the prime suspect?

The police got their first major suspect when a woman named Linda Schacke managed to survive a horrific attack and murder attempt. Schacke, who had been working as a performer at a strip club in 1987, was picked up by a man whom she considered to be just another customer willing to pay for her company. But she was left traumatized when the demeanor of the man changed some time later, and he admitted that his only intention was to kill her. Schacke was brutally choked with her own clothes tied into a dangerous knot by the perpetrator, and then dumped by the side of the highway. Although the murderer believed that he had successfully killed the woman, or that she was wounded enough to die within a few minutes, Schacke was still alive and managed to crawl out of the storm drain inside which she had been left to die. 

Linda Schacke was able to describe her perpetrator accurately, which led to the arrest of a trucker named Jerry Leon Johns. The criminal record of Jerry Johns started from when he was merely a 15-year-old boy, when he stole a car and was arrested for it. He then managed to get into the military but was reported AWOL after he abandoned his post and returned to civilian life, where he continued to commit crimes of various kinds. Johns had been arrested for unlawful possession of a weapon and even arson. As an adult, he went on to marry a woman named Phyllis Cogdill, who was reportedly only 12 years old at the time of their wedding. Phyllis was actually a half-sister to Johns, as they shared the same father, but the man was not deterred by any of this, and he clearly groomed the minor girl into loving and marrying him.

With such an unusual romantic history, it was evident that Jerry Johns was not just into young girls and women, but was also rough and aggressive with them. Because of this, he seemed like a very likely suspect for the Redhead murders, and this suspicion was somewhat confirmed in 2019, through DNA evidence. One of the murdered women found in 1985, Tina Farmer, had a blanket wrapped around her body, on which seminal liquid had been found. When the DNA from the blanket was finally tested and matched, it was deemed to have belonged to Jerry Johns. There was no way to interrogate the man about the other possible murders he had committed, or to charge him with the murders, as he had died in prison in 2015, while incarcerated for other crimes that he had committed. But the police were certain that Johns must have been the one to have abducted and killed the other women as well.

Was someone else involved in the murders?

However, new clues found at the spots where some of the other women had been found forced the police to change their theory about Johns certainly being the murderer in all the Redhead murders. After it was confirmed that Johns had been the one to kill Tina Farmer, a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation special agent, Brandon Elkins, managed to find the exact spot where the body of Tracy Walker had been dumped in 1985. The location, which was a forested area in the hills of Elk Valley, in Campbell County, Tennessee, was used by local youngsters as a spot to meet and drink or take drugs, way back in 1985. On 3rd April, a local hunter had found the skeletonized remains of Walker, and informed an off-duty police officer about the same.

As TBI officers revisited the place after 2022, a number of things about the place and the manner in which the crime against Walker had been committed made it seem unlikely that she had been killed by Jerry Leon Johns. Firstly, the spot where her remains had been dumped happened to be far away from the interstate highway in the area, meaning that the perpetrator had driven through the interior off-road patches on his way to get rid of the body. But in the crimes that Johns had committed, he had left the bodies by the side of the highway without venturing onto any inner roads. This rule, with regards to the dumping spot for his victims, was followed so extensively by the murderer that it had become one of the crucial factors in making the detectives originally believe the murders were all committed by the same perpetrator. 

It was clear that the murderer, most possibly Johns, had grown confident about the dumping spot, possibly because nobody spotted him while he got rid of the bodies. Since Johns was a trucker by profession, he appeared like any ordinary trucker driving on the highway, just doing his job. According to TBI detectives, it was then very likely that Johns had grown confident about where to pick up his victims as well, largely at truck stops and, in some cases, strip clubs along the highway. But in the case of Tracy Walker, she had gone missing from a shopping mall in Indiana, which once again made it very unlikely that Johns, who would target women in shady and vulnerable spots, had abducted his target from such a public place. According to some eyewitness reports, Walker had been seen getting into a car with multiple older men, and the fact that she was seemingly murdered quite some time, maybe even a year or so, after being abducted, made it all the more certain that someone else had killed her.

As the TBI conducted an investigation into the matter, they considered it most likely that Tracy Walker had been kidnapped and later killed by dangerous men who were involved in some illicit businesses in Elk Valley. For a long time, prohibition laws were in place in Campbell County, which led to numerous moonshine businesses cropping up in Elk Valley. Alcohol was being illegally brewed by some people who had criminal ties and intent, which was then being sold in establishments all over the county. Therefore, it was extremely likely that Tracy Walker had actually been abducted by someone, or a group, involved in the moonshine business, who made her work for them for quite some time, and then eventually took advantage of her and murdered her. The fact that Walker had been killed by someone else and yet had been considered a victim of the Redhead murders for the longest time also opened up the possibility that multiple men had been killing vulnerable women in the same style at the time, essentially as copycat killers.

Is the serial killing case still unsolved?

The real murderer of Tracy Walker could never be found, despite various efforts by the TBI as well as helpful residents to find more information about the case. While it is possible that Jerry Johns had committed most of the murders, he could not be officially linked to any of the killings except for that of Tina Farmer, as his DNA had been recovered on the dead body. He could have been questioned more about the matter, and confronted over whether he had killed the other women, had the DNA confirmation been made earlier. With Johns already dead in 2015, four years before the confirmation, there was no way to officially hold him responsible for the killings. Although most investigators considered him to have been the killer for the longest time, it is now believed that others could have also been involved. As of 2025, the authorities were examining DNA evidence in two unresolved murders in the case. The TBI continues to investigate the case, especially the murder of Tracy Walker, to find the real killer, but as of now, the case still remains unsolved.

Are Alex Campbell’s actions worth rooting for?

What really sets the case apart from other serial killings, and what is the actual subject in the Prime Video series, Murder 101, is that a group of school children have been actively looking into the case since 2018, and have made the headlines for it. Alex Campbell, a teacher of sociology at the Elizabethton High School, in Elizabethton, Tennessee, decided to break away from the boring and conventional practice of teaching a set syllabus in his class, and instead chose to take a close look into the crimes along with the children. At first glance, it is perhaps logical to question whether high-schoolers should really be exposed to such brutalities of the world at a young age. But Campbell’s lessons, at least according to how they have been presented in the series, made the children approach the criminal case through a different perspective, focusing on the victims and taking efforts to have them presented in a humanized manner in the media. 

It is also to be remembered that many of the students in Campbell’s class have already been exposed to the difficulties of life due to their parents’ drug addictions, or even deaths in some cases. In a world that is already so dangerous and cruel, it is a helpful practice for teenagers to not just know about the evil that exists, but also look at their own lives from a different perspective. In fact, the brave efforts of the Elizabethton high-schoolers have positively impacted the case, leading to various developments, while the TBI have now officially started working with them as well. Despite how things might appear at first, Campbell’s unusual choices have been growing a real sense of community, filled with empathy and kindness, and they are totally worth rooting for.

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