Les Jones

Arrest in Johnia Berry Case - News Conference Shortly

Monday, September 24th, 2007 | Johnia Berry |

Rich Hailey just called from downtown. Word is the sheriff has made an arrest in the Johnia Berry murder. There will be a press conference any minute.

UPDATE: The News-Sentinel reports the arrest of 22-year-old Taylor Lee Lee Olson. His DNA matched blood from the crime scene. He also seems to have confessed, saying Johnia’s death was an accident.

Obviously this opens up the question of how or if Olson knew Berry, how he entered her West Knoxville apartment, and what events led to her murder. Maybe now we can get some answers.

More at WBIR.

It will be interesting to see how closely Olson matches the composite sketch. I don’t expect an exact match, of course. LATER: Olson’s mugshot here, with a Van Dyke moustache. Pretty close likeness. Lots of people wanted to pin the murder on Jason A., Johnia’s roommate. They claimed he gave police a phony description for the composite sketch. DNA evidence showed the killer to be a white male, just as Jason said. Now the killer matches Jason’s description.

More details late Monday. “[Sheriff] Jones said there was no indication that Olson knew either Berry or Aymami.”

4 Comments to Arrest in Johnia Berry Case - News Conference Shortly

Steve K.
September 24, 2007

Hopefully, people will finally stop heaping shit on Jason.

Les Jones
September 24, 2007

Let’s hope. Some of the Jason bashing was completely irrational and like dude said, it’s hard to reason people out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.

countertop
September 24, 2007

Wow,

cut out the mustache and the match with the composite looks pretty much right on to me.

Glad to hear this is over, but it still doesn’t return to the Berry’s all they lost. I only hope the press goes easy on this, for their sake, and doesn’t harrass and hound them while this beast is tried.

It was an accident?? I could sort of understand that if it was a gun (tensed up and pulled the trigger not meaning to) but with a knife?? How do you accidentally stab a person to death??? Someone willing to commit a crime with a knife is the worst kind of criminal. Totally dispassionate and void of human and civil senses.

triticale
September 25, 2007

It was an accident?? I could sort of understand that if it was a gun (tensed up and pulled the trigger not meaning to) but with a knife??

That’s the reason for Rule 3. If you keep your boogerhook off the boomswitch until you decide to shoot, such accidents don’t happen.

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