By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2024-12-15 14:04:59 | Updated at 2024-12-25 12:53:59
1 week ago
Melonie Eaton was just 14 years old when her pregnant mother was found brutally murdered in July 1988.
Sharon Johnson, 37, had been stabbed 14 times and strangled.
The engineer's body was then dumped in a wooded, rural construction site in Bedford, New Hampshire, 20 minutes from Bedford Mall where she was last seen shopping for baby clothes.
Her unborn baby - another girl to be named Amanda Jean - also perished.
Speaking to DailyMail.com just weeks ahead of what would have been Sharon's 73rd birthday, Melonie, now 50, says: 'My mom was everything to me - my best friend. She was such a kind soul. It doesn’t matter how long it's been, the pain doesn’t go away.’
But Melonie is now facing fresh agony as the case is thrust back into the spotlight in the wake of two popular podcasts and a bombshell legal update.
Today, the only person convicted of Johnson's murder, Jason Carroll, insists he is innocent and has been wrongly imprisoned for decades.
After years of back and forth, the state has now given the go ahead for new DNA testing on boxes of gruesome evidence recovered from the crime scene - which Carroll hopes will finally clear his name.
Melonie Eaton was just 14 when her pregnant mother Sharon Johnson, 37, was found brutally murdered in July 1988
Jason Carroll was convicted of Sharon Johnson's murder. He insists he is innocent and has been wrongly imprisoned for decades
Sharon Johnson had been stabbed 14 times and strangled
The murder has been thoroughly investigated in two gripping true crime podcasts.
The State vs. Jason Carroll by Undisclosed from 2021 and Bear Brook: A True Crime Story by New Hampshire Public Radio turned up staggering amounts of new details that, between them, have turned the case on its head.
Jason Carroll was a skinny 19-year-old high school dropout when he was arrested on November 28, 1989 - 18 months after the killing.
He claimed he could not remember where he was when it happened and didn’t have an alibi. But under intense police interrogation, he later admitted to the murder.
Detectives had subjected Carroll, who never had an attorney present, to a 13-hour barrage of questioning over four days.
Over the course of several interviews led by Sgt. Roland Lamy, Carroll repeatedly changed his story.
At times he said he knew nothing about the attack, then said he had stabbed Johnson - before flip-flopping again to say he had just witnessed the murder.
Yet Carroll's interrogation was different to any other because one of the officers demanding he confess to the brutal slaying was his own mother.
Karen Carroll, a patrol officer with the Bedford Police Department, was invited into the interrogation room by colleagues - and began screaming at her son: ‘If you put a knife in that woman, I wanna know.’
At one point he was on his knees weeping and wailing with his arms wrapped around his mother’s legs.
Under intense pressure he eventually broke.
Karen Carroll: ‘You stabbed her didn’t you! How many times did you stab her?’
Carroll, sobbing and shaking: ‘I stabbed her three times!’
Karen Carroll: ‘Do you think I’m going to love any less?’
Carroll: ‘I don’t know.’
Speaking to DailyMail.com, Melonie, 50, says: 'My mom was everything to me - my best friend. She was such a kind soul. It doesn’t matter how long it's been, the pain doesn’t go away’
Johnson's body was dumped in a wooded, rural construction site in Bedford, New Hampshire
Johnson's remains were found 20 minutes from Bedford Mall where she was last seen shopping for baby clothes
Melonie pictured (bottom right) with her stepfather Ken Johnson, mother Sharon Johnson and half sister Lynn
He later recanted his confession and pled not guilty.
But in 1992 a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to 46 years to life in prison.
Inmate number 66655 at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord, the state capital, he will be eligible for parole in 2029.
Yet, the only evidence of his guilt were his own words and for the decades since he has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
Now 54, Carroll and his attorney insist his confession was given under extreme emotional duress and coercion and should have been thrown out.
Carroll's advocates include his remorseful 72-year-old mother who had - bizarrely - helped to convict him.
She claims lead detective Sgt. Lamy - who likened himself to TV detective Kojak played by Telly Savalas - had promised her immunity for her son if he confessed and pointed the finger at two other suspects, which included Johnson’s husband.
Prime suspect Ken Johnson, Eaton’s then step-father, was suspected of a plot to kill his wife for her life insurance money and her pension fund in order to pay off gambling debts.
Prosecutors said they didn’t have enough evidence to go to trial and charges against him were dropped in 1991.
At one point during Carroll’s interrogation he was told to pick out an image of Ken Johnson from a photo lineup - but he picked the wrong person due to the fact he did not know him.
A third suspect, Tony Pfaff, 19, was also charged with conspiracy to murder.
Police said Johnson had paid Pfaff and Carroll $5,000 each to assist with the murder although there was never any evidence to back this up.
Pfaff similarly confessed after a grueling interrogation and like Carroll, recanted to plead not guilty. But he was acquitted after a 16-day trial.
Carroll and Pfaff, who had dated Ken Johnson’s 17-year-old adopted daughter Lisa from a previous marriage, were co-workers at an industrial kitchen cleaning business.
Pfaff died of an overdose in 2019. Meanwhile, Ken Johnson had died years earlier of a brain aneurysm after falling down stairs, according to a source.
Today, attorney Cynthia Mousseau of the New England Innocence Project is leading the quest to help Carroll, now muscular from daily prison workouts and bald, win his freedom.
She insists her client was coerced into giving a false confession.
Investigators, Mousseau says, used methods now known to increase the likelihood of false confessions, including repeatedly asserting certainty in a suspect’s guilt, and implying leniency in return for a confession - a ploy younger suspects are particularly susceptible to.
Police commonly use an interrogation technique called ‘maximization’ in which ‘the interrogator exaggerates the strength of the evidence and the magnitude of the charges,’ according to the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.
Jason Carroll was a skinny 19-year-old high school dropout when he was arrested on November 28, 1989 - 18 months after the killing
Carroll and his attorney insist his confession was given under extreme emotional duress and coercion and should have been thrown out
Carroll's mother claims lead detective Sgt. Lamy had promised her immunity for her son if he confessed and pointed the finger at two other suspects, which included Johnson’s husband
Attorney Cynthia Mousseau of the New England Innocence Project is leading the quest to help Carroll, now muscular from daily prison workouts and bald, win his freedom
In the last two years, several boxes of evidence from the original murder investigation have since been recovered.
While DNA technology was in its infancy during the original investigation, Carroll and his attorney say samples contained inside will ultimately clear his name.
The evidence includes Johnson’s fingernail clippings that may contain DNA belonging to her attacker, several knives and a stained white long sleeve shirt found near the crime scene.
Assistant Attorney General Charles Bucca had fought for 18 months against allowing DNA testing, saying in a written motion ‘there is no scenario where testing these items will exonerate the defendant.’
But in April this year he reversed his opinion in a new motion.
He wrote that the state arrived at its new position ‘upon a review of the evidentiary items and reports of the expert witnesses.’
‘Since April, the parties have met with experts in the state lab and have developed an agreed-upon testing plan,’ Mousseau wrote in a court motion.
‘Quantification is now underway and parties are awaiting results.’
New Hampshire has a conservative legal system and a post-conviction exoneration in a murder case would be a first for the Granite State.
Across the country, more than 1,000 people found guilty of murder have been exonerated since 1989. More than 250 of those cases involved false confessions.
Approximately 375 exonerations due to DNA evidence since 1989 and in 29 percent of those cases, the exoneree had given a false confession.
Mousseau and other lawyers for the NEIP also argue that Carroll’s good behavior behind bars, strong family ties, plans for post-release employment and the length of time he has already served make him an ‘ideal candidate’ for early parole.
In the last two years, several boxes of evidence from the original murder investigation have since been recovered
While DNA technology was in its infancy during the original investigation, Carroll and his attorney say samples contained inside will ultimately clear his name
Meanwhile, Melonie's grief remains raw and she weeps while sharing her story.
‘He hasn’t even said he’s sorry for what my family has gone through,’ she told DailyMail.com.
‘He could say “I’m really sorry that the family has gone through so much but I didn’t do it. He can’t even do that.’
Today she remains convinced of Carroll’s guilt.
‘Oh, hell, yes I believe he’s guilty. Everybody in my family believes he’s guilty. He’s even admitted to it,' she says.
'He must be guilty because he doesn’t have an ounce of remorse in his body. He can’t show an ounce of remorse or pity…nothing. A normal human being would have empathy. If you can’t show any empathy then you’re guilty.’
In fact, Melonie is convinced Ken Johnson, Pfaff and Carroll were all guilty.
She recalls having an intense dream that began two months after her mother’s murder before any arrests were made.
‘It was a very vivid dream of my mom. She would warn me against Ken, to stay away from him,’ says Melonie.
‘She said he’s a bad, bad buy. I asked why and she said please stay away from him.’
Speaking to DailyMail.com of her anger, Melonie says: ‘My mother’s never had justice. I’ve not had justice.
'My mother always told me that everyone deserves a second chance or third chance.
'But I don’t believe Carroll does, I really don’t. I have not wiped the slate clean for him and I never will. I don’t need to be hurt any more than I already have been.
‘I’m tired of him being what matters most - it’s not right. Somebody needs to be the voice for my mom. Where’s her voice? Where’s how she feels?
‘She wasn’t there for my 16th, 18th, 21st birthday. Carroll took that from me. She never got to meet my four beautiful children.’
Melonie recently celebrated her youngest daughter’s 18th birthday. She has two more daughters aged 21 and 23, as well as a son, 32
Speaking to DailyMail.com of her anger, Melonie says: ‘My mother’s never had justice. I’ve not had justice. I’m tired of him being what matters most - it’s not right. Somebody needs to be the voice for my mom. Where’s her voice? Where’s how she feels?'
Melonie recently celebrated her youngest daughter’s 18th birthday. She has two more daughters aged 21 and 23, as well as a son, 32.
‘I’ve spoken to them about my mom,’ she says. ‘They wish they could have met her. They say she would have spoiled them.'
Carroll has previously asked for an early release under a state law that allows inmates to petition the court after serving two-thirds of their sentence.
According to a report by New England Public Radio in November 2022, Superior Court Judge William Delker denied Carroll’s request, saying: ‘Your failure to accept responsibility and to cooperate when you had the opportunity to do so meant that your co-conspirators have escaped justice for this brutal, brutal murder.’
As she recalls reading her own witness statement in court pleading for Carroll to remain behind bars, Melonie says: 'He never had any expression on his face when I spoke. His face was stone cold.
'That’s not normal. This guy is guilty. He’s right where he needs to be.'
