Forensic Files

Accident or Murder? (4x9)

Air date: Dec 01, 1999

Clayton Johnson, a Nova Scotia schoolteacher, left for work on the morning of February 20, 1989. At 7.40 AM, the school bus arrived to pick up the Johnson children. At 7.51 Mrs. Molloy arrived to drop off her child at the Johnson home. She found Janice Johnson lying at the bottom of the basement stairs in a pool of blood. Clayton Johnson later married a 22-year-old member of his Pentecostal congregation. When homicide investigator Brian Oldford heard this, he became suspicious and decided to reinvestigate. He learned that Clayton had taken out a $125,000 life insurance policy on his first wife, Janice, shortly before she died. Clayton Johnson was charged with the first-degree murder. By examining the photos and nature of the injuries, they were convinced that she had fallen backwards. The accidental fall scenario would also account for the complete lack of defensive wounds on Mrs. Johnson or Mr. Johnson. Testimony was presented to the Canadian high courts and a decision is pending.