Erica Michelle Marie Green
Posted on 06/04/2005 11:55:10 AM PDT by Former Military Chick
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Precious Doe murder case consumed Sgt. Dave Bernard for four years.
Erica Michelle Marie Green
Sgt. Dave Bernard
Thursday, Bernard talked about the case for the first time. He told KMBC's Jim Flink that the beheading of Erica Green -- known for four years only as Precious Doe -- was the most disturbing case he has ever worked on.
"All of us are still stunned that the investigation ended the way it did," Bernard said.
Bernard's team of investigators followed up more than 1,000 leads in the four years since the child's headless body was found near a Kansas City park in April 2001. Most of the leads were dead ends.
The lead investigator said he was shocked that for four years, no one came forward to claim the child.
"Surely someone is going to miss a child -- a few hours, a few days -- we're going to find out who this little girl is," Bernard said.
Instead, Bernard said the duration of the case changed the Kansas City police force. From the beginning, investigators held basic assumptions about the murder.
"You're looking at a close family member because with young children like this, family members tend to protect them from strangers. So, often times, you're looking inside the family, but not necessarily a blood relative -- someone like mama's boyfriend," Bernard said.
Without knowing the girl's identity, it was impossible to track her killer.
The break for which Bernard had been searching finally came last month when Thurmon McIntosh called in a tip. McIntosh, from Muskogee, Okla., said he suspected his grandson, Harrell Johnson, was involved in the girl's death.
Bernard said McIntosh had called about the case before, but this call was different.
"This time he said, 'I confronted my grandson, Harrell, and he confessed,'" Bernard said.
McIntosh also mailed DNA samples to police.
Detectives swarmed to Muskogee and arrested Harrell and Michelle Johnson, who confessed to the murder.
Police said that Harrell Johnson admitted that one night late in April 2001, under the influence of alcohol and the hallucinogenic drug PCP, he became angry with Erica when she refused to go to bed. He allegedly said he grabbed her, kicked her, and threw her to the ground, causing her to hit her head and fall unconscious. She was left on the floor for two days.
According to a probable cause statement, the Johnsons did not seek medical treatment for the girl because both had outstanding warrants for their arrests. The child died, police said, and the couple carried the body to a church parking lot, then through the woods, where the stepfather allegedly cut the girl's head off with hedge clippers.
Both Harrell and Michelle have been charged with second-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child.
"That's the thing you want to do as a homicide investigator -- get the criminal to admit what they did," Bernard said. "I couldn't have envisioned a better way for it to end."
However, he said he regrets criticism that the case should have been solved earlier.
"You could take any one of the investigations I've ever handled -- and find things I didn't do," Bernard said.
But what he regrets most is that the parents of Erica Green never called and asked for help.
"If they had made an anonymous phone call, there's a good chance that little girl would be alive today -- maybe," Bernard said.
I had posted an article the day the story broke. When I came across this article I decided to pull the names from the original thread Police: 'Precious Doe' Identified -- Erica Green (Kansas City MO) and PING you to the update.
Very sad case indeed.
Erica Michelle Marie Green
How did Harrell and Michelle Johnson explain the sudden disappearance of their daughter to family and friends?
Wouldn't the police have tried to match up missing persons with unidentified Does?
What I don't understand is, aren't children finger printed (actually palm and foot printed) when they are born?
Was this child not born in a hospital?
PS, it sounds like the step-great-grandfather was suspicious from the start.
But that picture of her in that beautiful dress, at some point in her life people cared about her. It would be interesting to know what story they made up.
All that was left of that precious baby was her skull as I recall.
I did see on TV that LEO's took her skull to a forensic artist and her face was recreated, but still no one came forward to identify her when the face was printed in the papers and on bulletins.
Didn't the mother say the child was "now living with her grandparents (out of state)"?
When someone's into drugs as much as these two were, they don't have real friends like you or I would. They only have people who they run around with in the search of more drugs, and any one of those people would probably do the same to the parents as the parents did to this little girl, if given the chance. They notice only the drugs, and ways to get them.
This is one good reason why drugs are such a blight on our society.
I've had two children (born 2000 and 2001), and they were not fingerprinted; only footprints.
I still don't get the "hedge clippers" part. I wouldn't have the stomach to do that.
If you have the ability to first kill a child I suppose the method really does not matter.
They deserve a swift trial, upon their conviction they should be sentenced to death and then have their execution swift I would add painful but that is just not how the lethal injection works.
As a Kansas transplant I wonder about the death penalty in this case though.
The hell with that! Capital punishment is far too easy for human garbage like this. Put them in the prison's general poplulation and let the inmates deal with them like was done with Jeffrey Dahmer.
Well I was working with in the law, but, frankly I like your idea much better.
They do have their own justice system inside a prison.
It's not often talked about, it's certainly not "humane," but it is very effective.
Those folks are regular Einsteins.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Harrell Johnson, the stepfather of a girl whose decapitated body was know only as "Precious Doe" for more than four years, has been indicted by a grand jury for first-degree murder, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The new charge opens the door for the death penalty after a second-degree murder count was originally filed against Johnson, 25, and his wife Michelle M. Johnson, 30, both of Muskogee, Okla. They were arrested on May 5 when Kansas City police followed up on a tip from a family member linking them to the death of their daughter, Erica Michelle Green 2005
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/state/12285155.htm
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