[tense music]
♪ ♪
- She loved a party, and she would dance.
- When she went to the bar that night,
That was the last time we seen her.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- She's riding into the night
With a mystery man on a motorcycle.
- We knew we needed a break.
Who is this individual?
- I know my daughter.
She would contact me.
- Is she alive somewhere needing to be rescued?
We started to find more
What we believed were human remains.
- Somebody knows something, and you're not telling.
And we need to know.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- October 12, 2012.
Jacksonville, florida.
For sherry prather,
Life can be summed up with three words--
Family, fun, and harleys.
- My mom, she was definitely a free spirit.
She wasn't one for rules.
She did a lot of friends from,
Like, a lot of different backgrounds.
Mom was very attracted to harleys.
She loved motorcycles.
So any time she seen one, she wanted to go for a ride.
- She loved a party, and she would dance.
She loved to sing karaoke.
She could sing really good.
She had a beautiful voice, sound just like stevie nicks.
She was not just my daughter, she was my best friend.
- Norma ellis is a young single mom
When her daughter sherry is born.
- They laid her on my chest.
It was just a shock, like, our heart became one.
And, like, they just beat in rhythm together.
That just stays with me all the time because it was just,
Like, you know, a jolt.
It was like we just become one.
- Norma strives to give sherry everything
She missed in her own upbringing.
- I didn't have a real good childhood.
We didn't have a loving family.
And I wanted her to be raised to know
What it felt like to be wanted.
Big christmas and stuff.
I tried to cram all that in for her.
Anything she said she wanted it,
If I had to work two shifts, I was going to get up for work.
- Sherry's childhood is filled with love,
But she also has to grow up fast.
- She was very caring.
If I was in bed sick, she'd come in there
Every 15 or 20 minutes and put a cold rag on my head.
And she always took care of me.
I didn't have any help but her, and she was young.
We had the tightest relationship.
And it was my birthday.
She brought me roses.
Yeah, she brought me roses.
- Like her mother, sherry falls in love at a young age.
And by her early 20s,
She's married, with two baby girls.
- That's her holding one of the kids.
Young mother. That's her husband.
That was her husband.
That didn't last too long.
[laughs]
- I think at the time, like, when she had us,
She was so young.
She wasn't ready to be a mom, so she kind of grew up with us.
- After five years of marriage,
The relationship falls apart,
And sherry finds herself a single mom.
She moves in with norma for support.
- It was just the four of us.
All women. We were one.
She was close to her girls.
She liked the freedom to come and go.
And she knew that I was going to be there
To take care of the girls.
- But after her divorce,
Despite her mother's support and unwavering love,
Sherry hits one rough patch after another.
- I've watched my mom go through, like,
A lot of bad relationships, where they felt like
They could put their hands on her and stuff like that.
They tried to control her,
Which only made her pretty much rebel even more.
- Through years of abuse and struggle,
Sherry turns to alcohol and drugs to numb the pain.
- Her addiction was probably her biggest, biggest battle.
She battled with that for a very long time.
- By the time sherry is 30 years old,
She manages to fight off her demons.
- She was clean and sober.
She didn't even drink or anything anymore,
But she was still a free spirit.
- In 2012, after years of sobriety,
Sherry is now a 43-year-old mother of two adult daughters.
Her youngest, mandy, is 22,
And still lives with sherry and norma.
By now, sherry has been clean long enough
To feel comfortable hanging out with friends
At a local bar without drinking.
And on October 12th, she makes plans
To meet up with some friends at a place
Called boots n bottles.
- It's a little hole in the wall.
More like bikers and like the older type of crowd.
- She said, I am going to walk.
I said, get in the car, I will take you,
Rather than you walk because it's a real bad road.
And it was dark. It was 10:00 or 11:00 o'clock.
- So me and grandma actually took mom up there.
When she went to the bar that night,
She was supposed to just hang out.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
And that was the last time we seen her.
♪ ♪
- By the following morning, when sherry hasn't
Returned home, her mother grows concerned.
- I knew that she was missing
Because she did not call me.
I knew something was wrong the minute she didn't come home.
- When a day passes with still no word from sherry,
Norma and mandy decide to act.
- So Monday, I told grandma, like, I just have a feeling.
Like, we need to go to the police station.
But because, like, her background
And how old she was, they really didn't want
To file a missing persons report.
So, of course, you know, my grandma being who she is,
It was an uproar in there.
- And they kept trying to tell me,
She's a grown woman and we're not filing--
I said, oh, yeah, oh, yes, you are.
- Missing person cases,
You know, sometimes you hear,
Oh, you have 24 hours to be reported missing.
And that's not really the case.
Oftentimes, it's the circumstances
Surrounding the individual.
You know, is this uncommon for them?
Or, are there foul play, signs of a struggle?
Something like that.
- With norma's insistence,
The police take the missing person's report.
But they are not overly concerned yet
And don't immediately begin an investigation.
- We don't quite have enough to where you feel confident
That something did occur that would cause
The missing persons team to react
Immediately as opposed to not.
- But three days after norma last saw sherry
Walking into the boots n bottles bar,
She's convinced otherwise.
- You try to go to sleep and wake up in the morning
And put your feet on the floor and you think, oh, gosh,
That was a horrible dream.
And you start to walk down the hall and you say,
Oh, no, she's not in there.
♪ ♪
I know my daughter.
And I need some help.
Somebody is holding her captive
Or she's laying hurt somewhere.
Something is wrong.
- A relentless mother drives the investigation forward.
- I take all the tips, pleaded on the internet--
Please come forward, please come forward.
- It was really incredible to see the mother's strength
And will to just keep going.
- But it's a long wait before investigators
Can confront their prime suspect.
- We were fairly confident that a confession,
It was not going to occur with this individual
Because he has told so many lies.
- He stands up the minute they walk out of the room.
And he bangs his head on the interview table.
- [grunts]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Three days after sherry prather was last seen,
Her mother, norma, is still struggling
To have jacksonville police take her daughter's
Missing persons case seriously.
- They kept saying, she's an adult, we can't--
I said, I want it filed.
I will go downtown to whoever I have to.
I know my daughter.
She would contact me.
- And eventually, norma's entreaties pay off.
On October 15th, detectives start their investigation
At the bar where sherry was last seen.
- Boots n bottles is a small establishment.
It's just an old-fashioned place
To grab a beer in the neighborhood of oceanway.
But it was popular at the time.
- It's a small little dive bar is how I would describe it.
Particularly, people that ride motorcycles
Would kind of hang out there.
- Sherry prather was a regular there,
That's what we had heard from people.
It was kind of the gathering spot for her and her friends.
- Investigators first talked to the bar's owner
To see if he noticed anything unusual
On the night that sherry vanished.
- We're looking what first-hand knowledge does he have,
What second-hand information does
He have from his employees or people that were there.
So he did tell our detectives that
He knew sherry prather was there.
She was there with a group of friends.
And that's all that he could really provide.
He was able to say, hey, these were
Some other people that may have been here at this time.
That gave us a direction to go in.
- Investigators also searched the bar itself for any clues.
- Detectives searched boots n bottles
For any type of physical evidence,
Including video footage.
Anything that could show sherry.
- But unfortunately, the bar has no surveillance cameras,
And detectives can find no other evidence of any value.
They know they need to find potential witnesses,
So they begin reaching out to the bar patrons mentioned
By the owner, and any other regulars
They can find who might have been there
The night sherry disappeared.
- They said she was there with her friends.
And that's when she decides to leave.
Little did they know that was going to be
The last time that they saw her.
- Sherry left in the wee hours of the morning
Toward closing time.
[indistinct chatter]
[tense music]
And we did find there were some
Local gentlemen that openly articulated
As a motorcycle club.
- Or they were motorcycle gang members.
The outlaws.
- And we knew the members of that club didn't even
Want to speak to the police.
- The detectives learned that the biker gang is listed
By the fbi as an organized crime ring
Linked to illegal activities, including drug trafficking,
Prostitution, extortion, and money laundering.
- So we made contact with those members.
Eventually, we knew much of that would be a dead end.
We weren't going to get much information from those folks.
- Their presence at the location from which
Sherry disappeared is worrying.
But police find no evidence connecting
Her and the biker gang.
Days pass with no new leads,
And the case seems to be hitting a wall.
At the same time, word of sherry's disappearance
Catches the attention of local news reporters.
- At the time, I was a field reporter.
And police did not have a lot of information to go on.
So certainly, it was a mysterious case.
I wanted to talk to norma.
I went to her house and knocked and knocked and knocked.
And eventually, she came to the door,
And you could tell she was disheveled.
She doesn't know where her daughter is.
Is she alive somewhere needing to be rescued?
Obviously, she's going through all of these emotions.
And there's a lot of family members that would say,
No, we're not able to talk right now.
We're too distraught.
There's people that would slam the door in my face.
Norma came out
And did an interview with me.
- That was my only child.
She was my whole life.
- So now she's pleading that someone knows something.
- Every night, I hear her calling me
To unlock the door to let her in.
And I can't take it anymore.
- I remember she showed a picture of sherry.
And that was the first time we really got to see a picture
Of this woman who was missing besides what
Had been released by police.
She had a flyer, and she did everything she could.
- If you don't get up and help,
Your case is not going to get solved.
It's just going to be shoved to the bottom.
I went out.
Everybody at the bar gave me information.
I checked all the tips.
We pleaded on the internet-- please come forward,
Please come forward.
We did a lot of posting on facebook,
Just about every day, pleading, any tip.
I just want some information.
- If there was a 1% chance that sherry was alive,
Norma was going to use that 1% chance
As motivation to keep going.
And it was really incredible to see the mother's strength
And will to just keep going.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- It's been three weeks since sherry prather
Vanished from a jacksonville bar called boots n bottles.
Missing persons detectives are failing to gain
Traction in the investigation.
- Obviously, detectives are going to have to keep
Some things close to the vest.
They were struggling, and they were
Frustrated too at the time.
They were having trouble finding leads.
So it did become a whodunit.
- But sherry's mother, norma,
And her daughter mandy
Refused to let the investigation wither.
- Me and grandma actually drove around and went into
A lot of bad, bad houses and bad areas
Trying to find her just to see if they've seen her,
If they've talked to her.
- And told people at gas stations
That looked like dopers,
You know, like, you seen my daughter?
I never was afraid.
♪ ♪
- She's in high crime areas.
She's talking to people that could
Be perceived as dangerous.
She's doing everything to find her daughter.
And she wasn't going to stop.
- We put up posters every morning--
Please help.
There was a lot of witness.
Somebody knows something and you're not telling.
And we need to know.
♪ ♪
- I vividly remember begging with her to please stand down
And not place herself in a situation
To where harm could come to her.
I spoke to miss ellis, reassuring her that
We were doing everything we can and that
We weren't forgetting her case.
- We did advise her numerous times to let
The officers and the detectives in our office
Conduct the investigation, all the while knowing that
I would probably be doing the same thing she was doing
If I was in her shoes.
- 30 days into the investigation,
Police finally get their first solid lead.
On November 12, 2012, theresa lenox,
A childhood friend of sherry's daughter mandy,
Contacts detectives claiming to have information.
- Can you state your name?
- My name is theresa lenox.
- Investigators bring her in for an interview.
- Theresa explains that she has been staying
With her uncle for a few weeks
While she looks for an apartment.
He is a regular at boots n bottles.
- Detectives pressed theresa for the name of the biker.
She insists she knows nothing.
She says she hasn't seen her uncle jack
For several days, and investigators
Are unable to locate him.
Meanwhile, another team from the missing persons unit
Is deployed to braddock road, the place theresa claims
Sherry's body was dumped.
- It is in a very rural part of the city of jacksonville.
It's a heavily-wooded area.
It's not a well-lit area. It's a local road.
- The investigative team searches through
Rough terrain, pulling back branches
And combing through tall grass.
They find bone fragments.
But at first glance, they appear to be from an animal.
- There were animal carcasses.
And that particular location of the woods is known
To be a dump site for hunters.
They dump deer, hog, wild hog carcasses.
And there's quite a few scavengers out there.
It was at that time that we made the decision
To contact one of our dog handlers,
Who has a dog that specializes
In locating human remains.
- The highly-trained dog gets to work,
Scouring the discarded bones spread across the field.
Then he signals his handler that he's found something.
- The dog located what they believed were human remains.
Immediately contacted the on-call homicide team,
Which was my team, and we responded to the scene.
We started to find more what we believed
Were human remains scattered throughout the woods.
There was a potential body that could be sherry.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- 30 days after sherry prather was last seen,
A tip leads detectives investigating
Her disappearance to a rugged piece of land
In jacksonville, florida,
Where they have found human remains.
- We blocked off a large section,
Shut that area down,
And then brought in teams of evidence technicians,
Our crime scene unit detectives,
To assist us in literally combing the entire woods
From the roadway all the way into the woods,
Which took several days.
We located some clothing, some shoes,
Small pieces of jewelry.
With great assistance from the canine,
We were able to recover all human remains.
- The office of the medical examiner here in jacksonville
Were able to locate some living x-rays
Of sherry prather and compare them
To the deceased remains of sherry prather.
And those bones did confirm it was, in fact, her.
- We were all actually at my grandma's, and they called.
And they told us over the phone that they had found remains.
- I felt...
Relieved that they had found her.
But the thought of animals
Eating her and taking her
Was the hardest part for me to take.
I thought I was going to die.
I thought, this can't be real. This can't be real.
[somber music]
- Once they confirmed that it was her,
Just the thought of, it was just pieces.
Was it even, like, all of her,
Is I think what truly broke our family.
- Homicide detectives take over the case,
But they know they face a tough task.
Given the condition of sherry's remains,
Determining how she died will be difficult.
- We decided early on to reach out to an expert,
A forensic anthropologist.
We knew she was an expert at analyzing bones
And determining how they were broken, if they're broken,
Whether they were shot with a firearm,
Whether they were stabbed.
- The forensic anthropologist gets to work,
Decoding the secrets sherry's remains hold.
- While that is going on,
We're sending detectives to start backtracking.
We already know she went missing at boots n bottles.
- Investigators know boots n bottles
Has no surveillance cameras,
But they hope a nearby business might.
They go back and canvass the strip mall.
They discover that a nearby cell phone store
Does have a camera,
And it points in the direction
Of the bar's parking lot.
- When we watched the video to see if there was anything,
It clearly showed sherry prather
Walking out to an individual
Who was standing by a motorcycle.
She gets on that motorcycle,
And then they leave the establishment
With sherry on the back as a passenger.
- Detectives know they are witnessing sherry prather's
Final moments.
- It was mysterious. It's not great video.
It's not high quality. It's dark.
It would be difficult to identify anyone's
Facial features from it, but it shows she's riding
Into the night with a mystery man
On a motorcycle leaving a bar.
- It's their first look at the person who may be responsible
For sherry's death.
- Is this some sort of a motorcycle gang?
Is there some bigger criminal activity here?
Are we dealing with a serial killer?
There's definitely an uneasiness
In the neighborhood.
And this is not a neighborhood that's immune from crime.
- As detectives try to identify the man in the video,
They get word from the forensic anthropologist
That she reached a conclusion on sherry's cause of death.
- When she found a semicircle beveling in a vertebrae,
That absolutely confirmed to us that sherry prather was,
In fact, shot.
- But detectives have nothing pointing
To the identity of her killer.
- We knew we needed a break.
Who is this individual?
- Detectives turn to the public for help,
Releasing the video of sherry prather's
Final moments to the media.
As the video hits the airwaves,
Tips start pouring in.
And one call in particular stands out.
It's from a woman named samantha johnson,
Who claims to know the identity of the man
Seen with sherry on the video.
- We had her come down to homicide.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Surveillance video has revealed
Sherry's prather's final moments--
Riding on the back of an unidentified man's motorcycle.
Now a witness has come forward claiming to know the identity
Of the biker in the video.
- Samantha johnson is johnny wayne's wife.
They're still currently married,
But not living together.
They're separated.
- In addition to identifying her estranged husband,
Samantha tells investigators that she also has information
About what happened to sherry that night.
- Johnny had a conversation with her
As to what occurred that evening,
Proved that he, in fact, killed sherry.
And more importantly, before her body was ever located,
He gave very specific information
To where he placed the body.
And she was able to provide that information.
- Detectives begin a deep dive into their new prime suspect.
And it's eye-opening.
- He had built a character of himself
With the local community.
And they were truly scared of the guy.
But we worked with our intelligence unit,
Which is the unit that oversees and monitors
All the various motorcycle gangs in around the region.
And we had no indication
That he was a gang member.
The guy had told quite a few stories
To build up his presence.
- Detectives find johnny johnson's address
And rushed to the location ready for anything.
To their surprise, he calmly welcomes them.
- He simply admitted, yeah, he picked her up at the bar.
And he took her and dropped her off at a house.
We actually got him to show us the house
That she was dropped off at.
- But detectives are suspicious
Of johnny's version of events.
And when they interview the owners of the house,
They hear a different story.
- We actually were able to determine that
Nobody ever came by their house.
They don't know sherry prather.
They don't know johnny wayne johnson.
That simply didn't occur.
- Detectives suspect that johnny johnson
Killed sherry prather.
But his estranged wife's statement
Isn't enough to arrest him.
They need solid proof.
- In a case where you have very little physical evidence--
There's no dna, there's no murder weapon,
There's not an intact body,
There's no eyewitnesses-- we needed more evidence.
We asked sergeant farhat, his team,
To continue to pursue evidence.
- That is difficult.
Letting them walk out that door,
It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
And you're like, my god, this is--we know this guy did it.
Let's be patient.
Time is on our side.
We're going to continue and work this case
To the very end.
- But weeks, then months go by without the homicide team
Able to find the proof it needs.
- Successfully convicting him requires us to prove our case
Beyond to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt.
So we continue the investigation
To the frustration of us all.
- Then, samantha johnson, also frustrated that
Her estranged husband is still a free man,
Agrees to wear a wire to help with the investigation.
- Samantha is unable to provoke a confession,
But she does have another lead to offer the investigators.
She tells them she's learned that johnny had a girlfriend
Named jordan paris.
And she's heard through the grapevine
That she may have helped him dispose of sherry's body.
- We actually brought her downtown
To the homicide office and conducted an interview.
- She was not completely forthcoming.
She did admit pieces that johnny went out that night.
She knew something happened,
But was terrified to tell us.
- But investigators continue pressing jordan
For information, confronting her about claims
That she helped move sherry's body.
- We took possession of her car, got a warrant,
And we went through every square inch
Of that car forensically.
There was no physical evidence in that car
That indicated that sherry was ever in that vehicle.
- Jordan paris is cleared of any involvement with
The disposal of the body and detectives
Are no closer to finding the physical evidence they need.
Now, they're forced to wonder if their main witness
Against johnny, his estranged wife samantha,
Is telling them the truth
Or if she has ulterior motives
For implicating him in a murder.
- They were in the process of separating.
Was she fabricating these types of statements
By him if she's jealous of the new girlfriend?
We knew we needed a break.
We needed a witness or witnesses that,
Sure, may have been close to the defendant,
But had no motive to lie.
- The detective said we've got one shot,
Is all we have because they could not find the gun.
To put this murder charge on him,
We have to have more evidence.
And I said, I cannot take this anymore.
- The break they need eludes the detectives.
And for four years, there are no new leads.
Then, in 2016, a man named mike carroll calls police,
Saying he's been too frightened of johnny johnson
To say anything but has finally found the courage
To speak up.
He tells investigators that on the night of the murder,
He received a phone call from johnny.
- It was the wee hours, 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning
And johnny wayne johnson told him he messed up
And he needed some help cleaning something up.
He told him he had dumped sherry in the woods,
That he wanted help finding ways to hide the remains.
Of course, michael carroll refused.
- So that was the critical piece, the final piece.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- After four years investigating the murder
Of sherry prather, authorities have finally
Found the witness they need.
On November 18, 2016,
Armed with the account of a man who says he was asked
To help dispose of sherry's body,
Investigators bring johnny johnson in
For a critical round of questioning.
- Our goal is simple, and that's to get a confession.
So we brought him in to homicide.
- Now, we were fairly confident that a confession probably was
Not going to occur with this individual
Because he has told so many lies,
But we still tried.
- As detectives started presenting him with the case
And questioned him on what occurred,
They said, look, we know you're lying.
- His denials-- I didn't tell him that,
I didn't tell my girlfriend that,
I didn't tell my wife that version,
I didn't tell her anything.
It was a multitude of denials throughout his interview.
- He stands up the minute they walk out of the room,
And he bangs his head on the interview table.
- [grunting]
- Hello, bud.
- Detectives call emts to check johnson out.
Once he's given the all clear--
- You are good to go.
- They charge him with murder.
As prosecutors prepare to bring johnny johnson
To trial, his lawyers approached them
With a plea offer.
- We reached that plea agreement of 20.4 years
In prison to second-degree murder,
Which is what he was charged with.
We took that offer to the victim's family.
And as you can imagine, the family was very happy
To get him to finally acknowledge
Legally in a courtroom that he was, in fact, guilty.
[melancholic music]
♪ ♪
- I looked at mandy and she said...
Grandma, as old as he is,
He got 20.5 years--
And he was supposed to have already been sick--
She said, he'll never live to come out of there.
- The only thing that I felt was I did feel a little relief
Knowing that he wasn't out there and that
He couldn't do it to anybody else
And ruin anybody else's family.
But at the same time, it's like,
You put my family through a lot.
And in our minds, like,
The sentence that he got wasn't enough.
♪ ♪
I do remember her ambition and her fight.
Like, she never gave up.
It didn't matter. And she's very headstrong.
So when she has, like, something in her head, like,
She's going to get to that point
No matter what it takes her.
- This one was just a few days
Before she disappeared,
Because she had just gotten her glasses.
We're in the backyard.
She never wore glasses before.
And she said, oh, I'm not going to wear these.
I said, well, if you want to see.
I didn't know this would be the very last picture.
She was just sweet.
And that's why I miss her because
We did so much together.
I didn't want anything to happen to her.
And I would give anything
If it had happened to me instead of her.
I wished that a thousand times.
♪ ♪