Les Jones

Johnia Berry > Delay in Johnia Berry Murder Trial

Knoxville News Sentinel - Judge grants trial delay in slaying of Johnia Berry:

The March 3 trial has been pushed back to July 28 at the request of the attorney for the defendant, Taylor Lee Olson.

Blood found at the crime scene was matched to Olson's DNA. The article quotes statements of Olson and his former friend, Augustine Joseph Leon, who turned him in, concerning how Olson was wounded that night:

Olson was arrested last September in connection with a sealed presentment filed against him in the Berry slaying after authorities matched his DNA to a trail of blood from a bedroom in the woman's apartment to the living room to the back door.

An Olson friend-turned-informant, Augustine Joseph Leon, contends Olson was cut after Berry confronted him with a knife in an effort to defend herself from a burglar.

Olson denies killing Berry and, instead, insists pal and fellow thief Noah Thomas Cox came to his aid and killed Berry after Olson ran from the apartment. Leon, also a pal of Cox, alleges Cox confessed to him. Cox, jailed on unrelated charges, has not been charged in the Berry slaying.

Authorities are keeping mum about whether Cox is being investigated as a suspect.

It's hard to conclude anything very definite from those statements. Leon wasn't in the apartment, so his statement is hearsay. Olson is an accused murderer with an incentive to lie. We may never know exactly what happened that night.