In the days leading up to Jackie Johns' murder, she was working as a waitress at a local cafe populated by a host of regulars — including her killer, Gerald Carnahan. Carnahan had asked Johns for a date many times before he finally murdered her, and in the days leading up to her death, her friends said Johns felt she was being watched.
Following her last shift on June 17, the young woman vanished. Close to the time of the murder, Johns was spotted for the last time at a nearby 7-11, and her receipt gave officers an approximate time for the murder — sometime after 11 p.m. Carnaham's car was also spotted near the 7-11, and its presence was confirmed by several witnesses. That night Carnahan beat the young woman to death with a carjack after sexually assaulting her, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Her body was found badly bruised when it was pulled from the lake, indicating she had tried to fight off the attack.
Johns' distinctive Camaro was found the next day, June 18, complete with the car jack that had been used to kill her. Her clothes had been left on the back seat, saturated in blood. The actual body would not be recovered until June 22, when it was found by two local fishermen.
[Featured image by ThinkHat via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY 4.0]
