They then went to Ramey’s Supermarket and got some groceries there. After that, at around 7:35pm, they left and mailed two letters. After he left, Johnny and Susan put up nine posters in his bedroom. As soon as they got home, Johnny’s friend came back over again to tape, and he stayed until 7pm (the friend later said that he left at 6:15pm).

According to Nellie, they did not get home until around 5pm. She and Nellie claim he could not possibly have been at Pauline’s house when the fire was set. When he was finished, Susan drove him home. Later, he mowed a neighbor’s lawn (which is how he usually earned money). On the day of the fire, Johnny spent the early afternoon at home taping records with a friend, who was also their neighbor’s son. The recreations of court proceedings and Johnny’s interrogation and confession were filmed word-for-word from official transcripts. When the show requested interviews with the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Department and the District Attorney’s office, they insisted they had put the right man behind bars and declined to participate in the broadcast. He does not know why he said he did it.įor years, Johnny’s case has divided the small town of Aurora. Johnny admits to making the initial confession, but says that he made a mistake because he did not do it. The police picked up Johnny for questioning, interrogated him for nearly four hours, and finally arrested him after he had confessed to the crime multiple times – confessions he would later recant. Pauline had been one of Aurora’s most beloved citizens. Investigators concluded the fire was deliberately set with gasoline. She had also been struck in the chest and forehead with a blunt instrument. She had been bound and gagged with rope and duct tape.

The official cause of death was smoke inhalation, but the fire was not an accident. When firemen were finally able to search the wreckage, they found her charred body. By the time they arrived, the home was engulfed in flames. At 8pm on the evening of April 13, 1986, fire and rescue squads rushed to her home at 601 W. She was known for driving around town in a powder blue 1963 Corvette. At seventy-nine, Pauline was the last surviving member of the wealthiest family in Aurora, and owned the town’s largest business. She was a close friend of Nellie the two had known each other for decades and played cards weekly. Pauline Martz because his classmates would often vandalize it. On school days, Johnny left his bicycle with Mrs. He also worked part-time as a janitor, cleaning up after games. In high school, he was a manager of the football team. Despite this, he was always happy and in a good mood. Growing up, classmates, coworkers, townspeople, and even strangers would make fun of him. Unfortunately, a lot of the kids in school did not treat him well. According to his teachers, he tried hard in school and rarely caused problems. He was then placed in special education classes. When he was six, a clinic determined that he was mentally retarded. Johnny was in kindergarten for two years because he was not thought to be mature enough for first grade. Nellie recalled that he was a quiet boy who never caused them any trouble. He was raised in Aurora by his mother, Susan, and maternal grandmother, Nellie Maples. According to psychologists, he had the emotional development of a fourth grader. And everyone in Aurora knew Johnny he was a mildly retarded twenty-year-old with an IQ of seventy-one.

What makes the case so intriguing is that Johnny had confessed to the crime, a confession his proponents say was coerced.Īurora, Missouri, population 7,000, is a typical middle American small town, where everyone knows everyone else. His call led the show into the disquieting case of Johnny Lee Wilson, a mildly retarded young man serving a life sentence for the murder of an elderly woman.

From his cell, he said that before his imprisonment, he had been involved in a murder for which another man had been convicted. In 1990, one of the show’s producers received a startling telephone call from a man in prison. Details: Every week, hundreds of calls are received by the “Unsolved Mysteries” telecenter, many with suggestions for stories.

Unsolved wiki johnny lee wilson